Freelancer clearly plagerized two blogs, word for word. Didn't even try to hide it. How do I report

[5ce95ec7]

My freelancer submitted 2 blogs and both had just been copy and paste jobs from LivingStrong.com and one from Parenting Science.com.  When I pointed it out to her she canceled the job and refunded me my money, immediatly.  However, I would like to report her to Upwork as it doesn't look good for the community to have people charging for new blog articles and just plagerizing off of other sites.  She even has a 94% Score and is claims to be from Texas.     Attached is one of the articles that she turned in and below is the link to the Living Strong article she plagerized from. 

https://www.livestrong.com/article/216213-brain-plasticity-exercises/

[bobafett999]

Well in a way you are also deceiving your readers, by having the blogs written by someone for few bucks and publishing them as your own.

Working on Upwork has made me aware of things that make really interesting dinner conversation!  Internet has become the world of fakeness. Fake News, Fake Blogs, Fake Reviews, Fake links, Fake websites, Fake posts...

[ecb331ce]

I am less critical. There are ethical ways to have things ghostwritten.

[5ce95ec7]

The difference is that I'm paying for original work.  Her Proposal didn't say, I'm just going to cut and past from another site. It said, "I will provide original SEO enriched articles".  If Coke pays an advertising agency to create and ad, they don't include the name of the ad agency in the ad, the message just comes from Coke.  They paid for a service, just like everyone that wants to utilize this service.   Also, plagerism is a problem for SEO.  Google tracks that stuff and and the entire point of having a blog is then negated by having plagerizm.  Additionaly,  if the other websites were to have found their plagerized articles they could have our company take them down.   If I wanted plagerized work I could have just cut and pasted myself and saved my time.   Having people that are not professional on here detracts from hard working writers who really are trying to put together good products. 

[imakeinternet]

He hired somebody to write ORIGINAL articles for a website.  How is this deceiving? This is how things work.  Ghostwriter or not, it shouldn't matter.

[bobafett999]

Fake Blog.

I don't believe this is 'Ghostwriting'....Ghostwriters usually sit with people and wordsmith the thoughts and ideas of the people they are writing for.  

From wikipedia:

A ghostwriter is a writer who is hired to author literary or journalistic works, speeches or other texts that are officially credited to another person. Celebrities, executives, participants in timely news stories, and political leaders often hire ghostwriters to draft or edit autobiographies, memoirs, magazine articles, or other written material. In music, ghostwriters are often used to write songs, lyrics and instrumental pieces. Screenplay authors can also use ghostwriters to either edit or rewrite their scripts to improve them,

.... A controversial and scientifically unethical practice is medical ghostwriting, where biotech or pharmaceutical companies pay professional writers to produce papers and then recruit (via a payment or as a perk) other scientists or physicians to attach their names to these articles before they are published in medical or scientific journals. Some university and college students hire ghostwriters from essay mills to write entrance essays, term papers, theses, and dissertations. This is largely considered unethical unless the actual ghostwriting work is just light editing.

[petra_r]

Prashant, none of this applies here. Hiring writers for blog posts or website copy or newsletter or eBooks or print etc is entirely normal.

[bobafett999]

No Petra: 

This is same as,"Some university and college students hire ghostwriters from essay mills to write entrance essays, term papers, theses, and dissertations. This is largely considered unethical unless the actual ghostwriting work is just light editing."

If you are a blogger and if you buy ready made posts (term papers, essays...) and present it as a post by you, you are deceiving the readers in believing that you are the subject matter expert.

Well anyway those things will die down pretty soon.  I was discussing something similar to a group of young people and what I gathered is that few years back facebook likes, blog comments, on-line reviews were important.  Now they have learned that most of them are fake.  They have learned that you can buy those for few bucks.

[5ce95ec7]

The point is that a freelancer advertised that they would be writing original work for our company and did not provide it.  I'm not a personal blogger, pretending to be writing for myself.  This is for a company that runs a daily blog and trusts that Upwork freelancers are professional.  Our company creates the subject matter and then hires writers who have the expertise in a certain area to write about the subject matter.  We guide them in style and topics.  Article writing is a legitimate service that is provided by Upwork.com and many freelance writers all over the internet.  When people advertise that they can write original work and do not, they are making the Upwork Communty look unprofessional and untrustworthy.   I'm hoping by your responses that you are not implying that the Upwork community is not to be trusted and that this type of behavior is acceptable.

[petra_r]

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@Elena H wrote:

When people advertise that they can write original work and do not, they are making the Upwork Communty look unprofessional and untrustworthy.   I'm hoping by your responses that you are not implying that the Upwork community is not to be trusted and that this type of behavior is acceptable.

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 Elena, nobody would ever suggest that, and No, it clearly is not acceptable. Upwork takes plagiarism seriously.

Good writers earn good money (I assume you were paying adequate rates) and value their profiles and feedback. Was this a freelancer with good history on Upwork?

[5ce95ec7]

Thanks for your response. Yes, this person has a 94% rating. I don’t hire any less than 90% ratings and therefore also pay rates that are inline with that high level. She claims to have been on this service for many years. Upwork has opened a case and is taking care of it. I enjoy hiring freelancers from Upwork and have found them to be mostly all reliable and trustworthy. I’d like to make sure it stays that way

[petra_r]

What did the freelancer have to say for herself?

[5ce95ec7]

As soon as I confronted her about it, she refunded and canceled the job.  She didn't actually address what she did verbally. 

[colettelewis]

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@Prashant P wrote:

No Petra: 

This is same as,"Some university and college students hire ghostwriters from essay mills to write entrance essays, term papers, theses, and dissertations. This is largely considered unethical unless the actual ghostwriting work is just light editing."

If you are a blogger and if you buy ready made posts (term papers, essays...) and present it as a post by you, you are deceiving the readers in believing that you are the subject matter expert.

Well anyway those things will die down pretty soon.  I was discussing something similar to a group of young people and what I gathered is that few years back facebook likes, blog comments, on-line reviews were important.  Now they have learned that most of them are fake.  They have learned that you can buy those for few bucks.

---

 __________________

Prashant, ghostwriting is not light editing.  Writing is writing and editing is editing. I do wish people would learn the difference. Writers whatever kind, no matter how high their degrees, or experience,do not necessarily make great editors (or writers for that matter - that is why editors exist), and great editors do not necessarily make great proofreaders.

[bobafett999]

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@Nichola L wrote:

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@Prashant P wrote:

No Petra: 

This is same as,"Some university and college students hire ghostwriters from essay mills to write entrance essays, term papers, theses, and dissertations. This is largely considered unethical unless the actual ghostwriting work is just light editing."

If you are a blogger and if you buy ready made posts (term papers, essays...) and present it as a post by you, you are deceiving the readers in believing that you are the subject matter expert.

Well anyway those things will die down pretty soon.  I was discussing something similar to a group of young people and what I gathered is that few years back facebook likes, blog comments, on-line reviews were important.  Now they have learned that most of them are fake.  They have learned that you can buy those for few bucks.

---

 __________________

Prashant, ghostwriting is not light editing.  Writing is writing and editing is editing. I do wish people would learn the difference. Writers whatever kind, no matter how high their degrees, or experience,do not necessarily make great editors (or writers for that matter - that is why editors exist), and great editors do not necessarily make great proofreaders.

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 Hey fight with Wikipedia....that's how they present the term....and you are also taking that para out of context.  That para implies that if you hire people to write your essays, term papers.... present it as your own you can not claim that you hired a ghostwrite and get credit.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

[colettelewis]

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@Prashant P wrote:

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@Nichola L wrote:

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@Prashant P wrote:

No Petra: 

This is same as,"Some university and college students hire ghostwriters from essay mills to write entrance essays, term papers, theses, and dissertations. This is largely considered unethical unless the actual ghostwriting work is just light editing."

If you are a blogger and if you buy ready made posts (term papers, essays...) and present it as a post by you, you are deceiving the readers in believing that you are the subject matter expert.

Well anyway those things will die down pretty soon.  I was discussing something similar to a group of young people and what I gathered is that few years back facebook likes, blog comments, on-line reviews were important.  Now they have learned that most of them are fake.  They have learned that you can buy those for few bucks.

---

 __________________

Prashant, ghostwriting is not light editing.  Writing is writing and editing is editing. I do wish people would learn the difference. Writers whatever kind, no matter how high their degrees, or experience,do not necessarily make great editors (or writers for that matter - that is why editors exist), and great editors do not necessarily make great proofreaders.

---

 Hey fight with Wikipedia....that's how they present the term....and you are also taking that para out of context.  That para implies that if you hire people to write your essays, term papers.... present it as your own you can not claim that you hired a ghostwrite and get credit.

**Edited for Community Guidelines**

---

 ______________________

Wikipedia is a source not the word of God.

You are not a ghostwriter if you connive with a student to cheat.

If you pay someone to write content or a blog for a site you have created, a travel site for example, you are not deceiving any reader if the work is not yours. In fact, it could have an adverse impact on the value of a site if someone who owns a site, but can't write, tried to create their own content.

[cupidmedia]

Prashant, there is a HUGE difference between passing off someone else's writing as your own for academic purposes, which are supposed to represent your own personal skills and which you are GRADED on, and running a blog with articles/posts written by other people who you have paid to represent your brand. There is no equivalency at ALL between academic fraud and professional writing.

[AveryO · Accepted solution]

I'm sorry you had an unfortunate experience with a freelancer, Elena. I checked your account and it looks like you have an open ticket with our team. Once you have all the information, please update your ticket and the team will go ahead and review the files you've sent. 

[5ce95ec7]

Thank you for your help. Yes, a ticket was opened last night.

[5ce95ec7]

Hi Avery,

Thank you for your help.

Elena

[wendy_writes]

Merci and thank you, Nichola, for clarifying for differences between writers, editors, proofreaders, etc.  This really is something Upwork needs to add into their descriptions of the various roles if not already there.

I can understand why buyers might be confused ... but no provider in W&T should ever be confused.

Upwork, it might make sense to ask Nichola if you can use her explanations ...