Here's a piece by Tamara Wihite entitled How to Prevent Plagiarism of Your Work. You can see more of Tamara's offerings at her profile at DREAMWalker Group.

Tamara Wihite is a professional technical author with over 1000 articles published. She has also written several science fiction, horror, and frugal living books. She has published articles in print magazines and websites, print books and eBooks. The lessons she has learned in these forays can benefit many writers crossing the digital publishing divide or reaching into multiple publication avenues.

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How to Prevent Plagiarism of Your Work

In an age of digital correspondence, it is easy to email off a story or article in hopes of it being published. Unfortunately, the ease of soliciting new material for unsuspecting writers has made it a simple matter for scammers to solicit work and then plagiarize it as their own. How can you minimize the odds of this happening to you?

  1. Check the credentials of those seeking submissions? Do they have an online magazine or website? Is it more than a blog or a promise of publication
  2. Look for places to submit your content through legitimate clearinghouses. Writer’s Market and Duotrope's Digest are two excellent resources in this regard.
  3. Track your submissions by title, date, and to whom it has been sent. Record the email address or website by which it was sent, not just the name of the contact. If your work is later plagiarized, this log can be legal evidence that you submitted it to them and that you did so before they published it.
  4. Mark all content with your name or pseudonym and a copyright mark. While this does not prevent scammers from copying and pasting, it creates a clear legal intent to retain the rights to your work, instead of others who could claim you were ghost-writing or editing their work.
  5. Review writer’s resources for plagiarism accusations. For example, consider “Writer Beware”.
  6. When plagiarism is found, inform the web-hosting site and ask as the author to have the page removed. If the work is being published through self-publishing sites like Lulu.com or Amazon’s print services, inform them of the plagiarism and ask them to stop the printing and distribution.

© 2011 Tamara Wilhite (http://wilhite.homeip.net/tamarawilhite)