"Probably just a coincidence", I thought to myself, and kept reading. But first paragraph stopped me in my tracks. It was quite clearly plagiarized from my article. As I kept reading I recognized sentence after sentence that had been lifted from my article and then modified slightly.

The whole article was plagiarized. I could hardly believe it. As English say, I was 'gob-smacked'.

------------------------------ What Is Plagiarism? ------------------------------

'Plagiarism' comes from Latin word 'plagiarius', a kidnapper. Here are two dictionary definitions of plagiarism:

'[to] take (the work or idea of someone else) and pass it off as one's own' (Concise Oxford Dictionary, Third Edition, 1999).

'to appropriate ideas, passages etc. from another work or author' (Collins Dictionary of English Language, ed. P. Hanks 1979).

Plagiarism can be done in many ways, but most common technique is to paraphrase someone else's words.

Here's an example:

Original:

"And if you've matched ezine to product you're selling, you've reached your target audience."

Plagiarized version:

"If you have correctly matched ezine or newsletter to product you're selling, then you will have reached your target audience."

As you can see, plagiarist has simply taken original and then replaced phrase 'you've matched' with phrase 'you have correctly matched', inserted words 'or newsletter', and replaced word 'you've' with words 'then you will have'.

Part of reason that plagiarism is so rampant on Internet is that many people genuinely believe that it's okay to take someone else's writing, make a few changes, and then present it as their own.

---------------------------------- Is Plagiarism a Crime? ----------------------------------

As far as I know plagiarism is not a crime in most countries, and this is probably because plagiarism is so difficult to define. How many words does a plagiarist have to substitute and rearrange before copied version ceases to be a copy of original?

This is why plagiarism is much more difficult to deal with than copyright theft. A copyright thief simply steals your work, lock-stock-and-barrel. A plagiarist steals your work and disguises it as their own.

Listen. People don’t stop by your site to be wowed by your stunning prose. They want to be sold. And fact is your sales letter needs to be compelling, but you also need to write clearly and use words that won’t trip up a sixth grader.

Bottom line, your goal is to communicate. To do so properly, reader needs to fully understand what you’re telling them. You can achieve this by going through your copy and replacing words like facilitate with help. Do you see what I mean?

NO TECHNICAL TERMS

Your sales materials should never contain technical terms. Always write your sales letter from angle that someone reading it has no experience or clue about your product. The end result will be better clarity, and more profits.

GET TO THE POINT

Right after you design your headline, jump right into heart of your offer.

Don’t waste any time or words explaining things that don’t hit at bottom line. Your goal is to provide a no fluff explanation of how reader will benefit with your product. If your paragraphs or sentences don’t drive at this, then you need to change them or remove them completely.