Copy Content

e0354621 · ‎04-06-2018

Recently I received a content from a freelancer. By checking with Copyscape, it was showing free from copycontent. Incedentally, I found the same article in one site. I found the article in : **Edited for Community Guidelines**

How to check copy content perfectly? How will we believe the writers?

petra_r · ‎04-06-2018

@Abdul Saleem P wrote:
Recently I received a content from a freelancer. By checking with Copyscape, it was showing free from copycontent. Incedentally, I found the same article in one site. I found the article in : http://www.readersdigest.ca/travel/world/top-10-hikes-world/view-all/
How to check copy content perfectly? How will we believe the writers?

Choose high quality, highly rated professionals.
Choose native English speakers from countries where English is spoken as the first and native language
Pay their rates.

luce-neidert · ‎04-07-2018

I'm tired of seeing people offer $5, $10 for writing jobs. Why on earth would anyone spend hours doing research and writing for some client that wants some empty, nonsensical text as a pretext to stick SEO in it?

prestonhunter · ‎04-07-2018

re: "I'm tired of seeing people offer $5, $10 for writing jobs."

Upwork's job search tools have filters that allow you to specify specific pay ranges.

luce-neidert · ‎04-07-2018

@Preston H wrote:
re: "I'm tired of seeing people offer $5, $10 for writing jobs."

Upwork's job search tools have filters that allow you to specify specific pay ranges.

Thanks for the suggestion Preston. How stupid of me, I hadn't even thought of using that option. However, I only write when I'm offered to, and when for some reason the topic appeals to me. Not to make money - because I can't see how honest writers can make money on Upwork.

tlsanders · ‎04-07-2018

@Luce N wrote:
Not to make money - because I can't see how honest writers can make money on Upwork.

By providing high enough quality content that clients are willing to pay good rates for it.

magiatik13 · ‎04-08-2018

So Petra you suppose that it is impossible to speak a second language as perfectly as native speakers. I strongly disagree with you.

As far as "highly rated" professionals are concerned, you should know that it doesn't necessary mean that all high rated freelancers have better skills.

versailles · ‎04-08-2018

@Stavros A wrote:
So Petra you suppose that it is impossible to speak a second language as perfectly as native speakers. I strongly disagree with you.

If one has been raised in a bilingual family and have lived in a country where both languages are spoken, it is totally possible. I would say that it's a rare occurrence, but it happens.

What happens more often it’s people who totally overestimate their foreign language skills, sometimes without malice.

For instance, your profile's languages section reads: English: Native or Bilingual, but your overview section shows that this is not the case. Your English is fluent, but definitely not native.

Not all clients need native level of English and some of them can't even really tell for they are not native speakers of English themselves. This is why non-native writers in English can still get business.

-----------
"Where darkness shines like dazzling light" —William Ashbless

magiatik13 · ‎04-08-2018

First of all I am half-American born in the US and yes it is my mother tongue.

luce-neidert · ‎04-09-2018

@Stavros A wrote:
First of all I am half-American born in the US and yes it is my mother tongue.

Here we go again, another "holier than thou" conversation about who is and isn't allowed to claim he/she speaks English.... Stavros, it's a habit with some people here, don't pay attention, they can't control it.

magiatik13 · ‎04-09-2018

Certainly! 🙂
That's a completely different story. I've seen complex personalities here in Upwork Community, but it is not the right place to talk about discriminations. People with names that sound Greek, Latino etc are often the objects of discrimination, especially here.

g_vasilevski · ‎04-09-2018

Hi Stavros,

Just to confirm that we do not support or tolerate discrimination in our Community, this type of posts are a violation on our Community Guidelines. Thank you!

~ Goran

magiatik13 · ‎04-09-2018

Thank you Goran. I just referred to this topic because René raised the issue.

firescue17 · ‎04-12-2018

@Stavros A wrote:
First of all I am half-American born in the US and yes it is my mother tongue.

I wouldn't claim to be a writer. But I personally know a lot of native English speakers. I have never, ever, in my entire life, heard a single one of them refer to their language proficiency as being that of a "mother tongue." Sorry, bro.

EDIT: lmao .. I misspelled English. That's awesomeness.

petra_r · ‎04-12-2018

@Steven E. L wrote:
@Stavros A wrote:
First of all I am half-American born in the US and yes it is my mother tongue.
I have never, ever, in my entire life, heard a single one of them refer to their language proficiency as being that of a "mother tongue." Sorry, bro.

The Brits use it, and they invented English 😛

luce-neidert · ‎04-12-2018

@Petra R wrote:
@Steven E. L wrote:
@Stavros A wrote:
First of all I am half-American born in the US and yes it is my mother tongue.
I have never, ever, in my entire life, heard a single one of them refer to their language proficiency as being that of a "mother tongue." Sorry, bro.
The Brits use it, and they invented English 😛

The French version is very close: "langue maternelle". It must be a European concept...

colettelewis · ‎04-13-2018

@Steven E. L wrote:
@Stavros A wrote:
First of all I am half-American born in the US and yes it is my mother tongue.
I wouldn't claim to be a writer. But I personally know a lot of native English speakers. I have never, ever, in my entire life, heard a single one of them refer to their language proficiency as being that of a "mother tongue." Sorry, bro.

EDIT: lmao .. I misspelled English. That's awesomeness.

___________________________

I am a UK native English speaker and I often say that English is my mother tongue. "Sorry bro'"! Stavros is absolutely correct.

ETA: It is also known in America https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mother%20tongue

melaniekhenson · ‎04-13-2018

@Nichola L wrote:
@Steven E. L wrote:
@Stavros A wrote:
First of all I am half-American born in the US and yes it is my mother tongue.

EDIT: lmao .. I misspelled English. That's awesomeness.
___________________________

That really IS awesomeness. It reminds me of a resume I typed in 1987. I had "excellent spelling" under Skills except I typed three letter Ls.

jr-translation · ‎04-16-2018

@Melanie H wrote:
@Nichola L wrote:
@Steven E. L wrote:
@Stavros A wrote:
First of all I am half-American born in the US and yes it is my mother tongue.

EDIT: lmao .. I misspelled English. That's awesomeness.
___________________________
That really IS awesomeness. It reminds me of a resume I typed in 1987. I had "excellent spelling" under Skills except I typed three letter Ls.

Which L did you miss?

VladimirG · ‎04-07-2018

Hi Abdul,

I'm sorry to hear you're having problems with the freelancer you hired. If the work you received isn't in line with the requirements and terms you agreed upon with the freelancer, please communicate with them directly in order to resolve the issue amicably.

If you can't come to an agreement and find a way to resolve the issue with the quality of the work they delivered, you can release a partial amount from Escrow or close the contract and request a full refund of Escrow funds.

~ Vladimir

e0354621 · ‎04-07-2018

Hi Vladimir,

Thanks for your valuable advice.

It is not the matter of settling with the freelancer, I am not getting why a platform like Upwork is loaded with fraud freelancers? I believe this platform for hiring freelancers. So many times, I had wasted my time for similar incidents.

This time, I received the article, I checked with Copyscape, the result was ok. Incidentally, after publishing the content on my site, I came across the same article on another site. I repeatedly asked the freelancer for any copy-content, she is firm that there is no copy content.

I filed a complaint with Copyscape also. Waiting for their reply. In this case, already, I paid to the freelancer.

There is another case dispute #10045780, the freelancer is demanding for copycontent article. If this continues, may have to leave Upwork.

With thanks and regards

VladimirG · ‎04-07-2018

Hi Abdul,

I'm not familiar with the details of the work you received and can't discuss your dispute publicly, but would like to reiterate that you as a client can leave feedback for your freelancers and rate them accordingly. Please note that you should review the work your freelancers provide before releasing the funds. We apologize for the inconvenience and in case you'd like to receive assistance from our team who is helping clients invite freelancers who match their job requirements, let us know.

~ Vladimir

tlsanders · ‎04-07-2018

@Abdul Saleem P wrote:

This time, I received the article, I checked with Copyscape, the result was ok. Incidentally, after publishing the content on my site, I came across the same article on another site. I repeatedly asked the freelancer for any copy-content, she is firm that there is no copy content.

Have you considered the possibility that the other site stole the content from your site? I don't know that that's what happened, but that is something that happens many thousands of times every day, so if the other version was published after yours, it is certainly a possibility.

resultsassoc · ‎04-13-2018

I don't use copyscape, and don't know how. I do know that when I hire a writer (rare) I am familiar with the individual's writing style and ability. If I get something that doesn't match what I know, I copy a part of the text into Bing (my preferred search engine) and in seconds I've got my answer.

This happened to me once. A freelancer whom I was mentoring said she and her family were destitute, she needed payment up front. I paid her $1,500 for 34 one-page articles summarizing specific U.S. laws (she claimed to be a graduate of a US law school). After assuring me repeatedly that she was working on it, she sent me the plagiarized article. I fired her and her husband, who was my go-to tech guy. I couldn't risk her getting access to my websites. A real writer-lawyer did a bangup job at $50/page.

e0354621 · ‎04-16-2018

Hi Vladimir,

Thanks for your expert advice and guidelines. For your information, after accepting the job and posting the article I could find the article on another reputed site. Actually, I checked the article with "Copyscape", it returned with zero copy content. Then honestly, I asked the freelancer for any violation, she told the article is absolutely free from plagiarism.

I am not worried about the amount I paid, I wasted a lot of time behind this. I came to the upwork platform to get genuine writers, otherwise there are lot of ways to get freelancers.

Being an exclusive platform for providing freelancers, are you ensuring quality of the freelancers on your platform? It is easy to tell you pay high and get good content, everyone know this truth.

thanks and regards

AveryO · ‎04-16-2018

I'm sorry to know about this experience, Abdul Saleem.

I would like to copy an excerpt from Section 10. Relationships with Upwork of the Upwork User Agreement - "Upwork does not, in any way, supervise, direct, or control Freelancer or Freelancer’s work... Upwork makes no representations about, and does not guarantee the quality, safety, or legality of, the Freelancer Services; the truth or accuracy of Freelancer’s listings on the Site; the qualifications, background, or identities of Users; the ability of Freelancers to deliver the Freelancer Services; the ability of Clients to pay for the Freelancer Services; or that a Client or Freelancer can or will actually complete a transaction."

Upwork merely makes the Site Services available to enable Freelancers to identify and determine the suitability of Clients for themselves and to enable Clients to identify and determine the suitability of Freelancers for themselves.

You may read more about it here.

~ Avery

magiatik13 · ‎04-08-2018

It goes without saying that plagiarism is a really bad thing. There are several websites on the net where you can check the content.

luce-neidert · ‎04-08-2018

@Stavros A wrote:
It goes without saying that plagiarism is a really bad thing. There are several websites on the net where you can check the content.

Abdul may not have paid much for his freelancer, but he's paying to use Copyscape. Here's the info I've found on their site:

How much does Copysentry cost?

The Copysentry Standard service checks for copies of your pages every week. It costs $4.95 per month for up to 10 pages on your site, and $0.25/month for each additional page up to 500 pages. The Copysentry Professional service checks for copies of your pages every day. It costs $19.95 per month for up to 10 pages on your site, and $1.00/month for each additional page up to 500 pages. More information is available here. To protect sites with more than 500 pages, please contact us .

tlsanders · ‎04-08-2018

@luce-neidertwrote:
@Stavros A wrote:
It goes without saying that plagiarism is a really bad thing. There are several websites on the net where you can check the content.

Abdul may not have paid much for his freelancer, but he's paying to use Copyscape. Here's the info I've found on their site:

How much does Copysentry cost?
The Copysentry Standard service checks for copies of your pages every week. It costs $4.95 per month for up to 10 pages on your site, and $0.25/month for each additional page up to 500 pages. The Copysentry Professional service checks for copies of your pages every day. It costs $19.95 per month for up to 10 pages on your site, and $1.00/month for each additional page up to 500 pages. More information is available here. To protect sites with more than 500 pages, please contact us .

I guess you focused in on the most expensive option Copyscape offers to make a point, but it sort of fell flat, anyway, since that's not much money. However, OP could be (and more likely is, given the language he used) using Copyscape Premium, in which case he would have paid a nickel to check a 500-word article.

magiatik13 · ‎04-08-2018

Professional writers use Copyscape, but there is a free option on the net (smallseotools)

luce-neidert · ‎04-09-2018

@Stavros A wrote:
Professional writers use Copyscape, but there is a free option on the net (smallseotools)

Why would professional writers use Copyscape? I thought their job was to write, not to copy from someone else!

magiatik13 · ‎04-09-2018

Plagiarism is hard to prevent, especially if you have written thousands of articles. A plagiarism checker just looks for patterns and long strings of info that are similar

luce-neidert · ‎04-12-2018

@Stavros A wrote:
Plagiarism is hard to prevent, especially if you have written thousands of articles. A plagiarism checker just looks for patterns and long strings of info that are similar

I had never thought that you could be accused of plagiarism when you were the writer of the original article and wrote something close to it, without even being aware of it. That's sound so strange...

prestonhunter · ‎04-16-2018

re: "I had never thought that you could be accused of plagiarism when you were the writer of the original article and wrote something close to it, without even being aware of it. That's sound so strange..."

Keep in mind that Copyscape and similar programs are not people. They aren't editors. They aren't writers.

They're simply computer programs. They don't know what "plagiarism" is. They don't know what anything is, really. They are comprised of a series of commands that attempt to count words and look for patterns of words and repeated phrases, etc. All in an attempt to identify "plagiarism."

They can be useful tools for certain purposes, but one needs to understand their limitations.

Can a computer program identify "plagiarism"? Yes, sort of.

Just like a computer program can "rate the quality of a poem" or "tell you if a song is good."

melaniekhenson · ‎04-16-2018

@Preston H wrote:
re: "I had never thought that you could be accused of plagiarism when you were the writer of the original article and wrote something close to it, without even being aware of it. That's sound so strange..."

Keep in mind that Copyscape and similar programs are not people. They aren't editors. They aren't writers.

They're simply computer programs. They don't know what "plagiarism" is. They don't know what anything is, really. They are comprised of a series of commands that attempt to count words and look for patterns of words and repeated phrases, etc. All in an attempt to identify "plagiarism."

They can be useful tools for certain purposes, but one needs to understand their limitations.

Can a computer program identify "plagiarism"? Yes, sort of.

Just like a computer program can "rate the quality of a poem" or "tell you if a song is good."

This. An article might not "pass" based on an extremely common phrase. Copyscape is a great tool but it's just that, a tool. It still requires a human to interpret what it has found.

reinierb · ‎04-16-2018

@Melanie H wrote:
@Preston H wrote:
re: "I had never thought that you could be accused of plagiarism when you were the writer of the original article and wrote something close to it, without even being aware of it. That's sound so strange..."

Keep in mind that Copyscape and similar programs are not people. They aren't editors. They aren't writers.

They're simply computer programs. They don't know what "plagiarism" is. They don't know what anything is, really. They are comprised of a series of commands that attempt to count words and look for patterns of words and repeated phrases, etc. All in an attempt to identify "plagiarism."

They can be useful tools for certain purposes, but one needs to understand their limitations.

Can a computer program identify "plagiarism"? Yes, sort of.

Just like a computer program can "rate the quality of a poem" or "tell you if a song is good."

This. An article might not "pass" based on an extremely common phrase. Copyscape is a great tool but it's just that, a tool. It still requires a human to interpret what it has found.

Problem is that many clients cannot interpret what such a tool has found. In my experience, this is especially true of agencies that use these tools as an absolute measure of a text's originality because some, if not most agencies know nothing about the subject matter.

I once had an entire series of 2000-word articles rejected by an agency because their "plagiarism checker" had found "evidence of extensive plagiarism" in all the articles.

The plagiarized content? The diameters, rotational periods, luminosity variations, and other stats on a class of stars known as Cepheid variables. Despite my contention that these values will not change merely to satisfy a "plagiarism checker", the agency rejected the entire batch of articles, which I later sold to another client.

So, lesson learnt- never work for agencies that use "plagiarism" checking tools. Better still, never work for agencies, period.