Being original seems to be the hardest thing when it comes to writing. You see the same messages being doled out to you day after day in so many ways. After a point you get tired of reading the same things packaged differently.
Originality is being true to self. That is where copied, rehashed material differs from the original. I could deliver the same message but when I add my experiences, my understanding, my expectations and disappointments to the basic idea and tell you something from my point of view it becomes a original story. Let me pull out an experience from my kitchen to make this clear to you.
It's like what I do with left overs at home. If I reheat and serve leftovers I don't find many takers for it. What if a take some roast chicken shred it up chop some onions, garlic and fry them lightly with some ground black pepper and some spices and serve the same thing, it is a new dish. Even though the basic ingredient was the roast chicken no one thinks of it as such. They are happy and consumed it without a murmur. This is creativity. I take what I have, add new ingredients to it with imagination, style and understanding, gave it a new name here it is my called Chicken pepper, garlic fry and serve in style. What do you think restaurants do?
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When it comes to food I never follow recipes. I do my own thing. I have years of experience cooking, sometimes I have been forced to cook with what I have in the pantry (as I have to take a 15 minute walk in the sun to get what I need before I cooked in the heat of my kitchen). So what do I do? I just come up new dishes by throwing in ingredients which I think work well together and cook up a meal. This means that I use my experience to come up with new, different and palatable dishes.
Why not use the same kind of technique in writing? I don't mean write about the same things over and over again. what I mean is when you have to write about a much written topic use this technique. Besides, no topic is truly original, I would like to think everything on Earth has been written about in one way or the other.
You may have a problem getting started with something. However, as you go about adding your experiences, your opinions, what you loved, enjoyed, hated or maybe just put up with, you give your subject a unique voice. It is not so hard believe me. You are being you, real and true to yourself.
There are lessons to be learned everywhere, be open see beyond what is the obvious. you'll will have so much to say about everything. You will have no dearth of subjects to talk about.
Personally speaking I have a problem with researching. My memory retains a lot of what I read word for word especially if I read something just before writing. To avoid sounding like a plagiarist, I avoid read just before I write. I just write down words/ points I want to focus on and give my own examples. Sometimes I avoid research completely especially while writing in social media sites. Anyways, I read a quite a bit and I have the information I need before I start writing anything.
Another point to note is, if people wanted accurate information with statistics, figures, pie charts and data they should not be looking at social media sites in the first place. They should probably depend on news media (which is supposed to do a good job of verification of details before they throw it out there like they do today) and other scholarly research papers.
When they are here in a social media sites they are looking for stories, informed opinion, rather than facts and figures. They are looking for local information (which may never reach the news media), experiences and infotainment.
You could make what you write sound absolutely original by asking yourself what you would I like to read as a consumer of content. Would I like a bit of humor, serious stories or something just light playful while being informative and go by it.
Develop your own style; copying someone never turns out well. Unconsciously you tend to act like someone who you are not and you could sound rather fake and unconvincing. Most importantly you are not being true to yourself.
Being true to yourself has its advantages, you learn to acquire your own writing voice. You have discover own style and you are your own persona online, distinct and unique from the million others who write there.
When you are original you don't have to bother checking your writing with plagiarism detection tools. You don't have to put a banner saying this content has been checked for plagiarism and found to be original. You know in your heart that you have been true to yourself and your content would stand the test of time.
Just a small reminder I thought would be in place here, you need to understand that your content in the blockchain is 'forever'. So if you plagiarize or borrow stuff from others without rightly acknowledging you are a plagiarist forever.
Not just that, when you are true to yourself and the times you live in you become the researcher's nuggets of knowledge for posterity. Let's say someone comes looking for information about life on Earth during the pandemic 200 years later, your information even if it isn't about the pandemic will give them a glimpse of how life is right now.
Have fun right, be the unique you, original and absolutely stylish as only you can be.
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Thanks for reading and responding.
are I was inspired by the word you have discussed but the ideas about the ruching before writing are appropriate. When we come to know about the viewpoints of others our mind is unintentionally telling us the same story we have read before. For example, I love to talk about current affairs and sometimes I feel I am not taking assistance from my mind, it's just paraphrasing of the report.
Suppose when I write it down and others share different viewpoints then my mind starts working oh this was the original thing I wanted. Hehe.
This is the best thing, observe everything around you and speak about different things
This writing is my masterpiece for sure, thanks to @dreemport starts for bringing me there.
Just like a saying, There's nothing Worth more than being original.
Applying the different techniques we used in making our meal while writing will make an outstanding article.
If at all we make research, we should use our own words and ideas, it can be from our personal experience Left aside from the research work we do.
Better still for me, just like yours , I don't like reading before writting because my write up might end up being similar to what I read.
When writting, putting our reader in mind is Mandatory, make them enjoy your reading, because at times people get tired of reading similar things everyday, we should at least add some spicy to our article to differentiate from other, you explained this using your food techniques.
When we think and use our ideas in writing, it will make our writting to be real, nothing like plagiarism will be found in our writting. We will even be confident within ourselves , saying in mind "Yes I wrote this myself" Im sure you know that kind of feeling.
Via @dreemport
Glad you found these points useful @maryjacy
I tried to use a simple example just to show how easy it is to avoid plagiarism and sound more like an original.
An original is of more value than a fake.
Thanks for stopping by.
Well writing and you example in n the kitchen is a perfect way to explain it
Now you have been thinking about my posts ok the pictures are new each day but am I being original with my thoughts that go eith them
This inspires me to be more creative with my writing so thank you
Thank you so much @tattoodjay
I guess there is always scope for improvement. I love all your images and I am carried away by them.
Glad that my posts inspires you to be more creative.
I appreciate your visit and comments.
A pleasure to visit your post 👍🙂👍
I agree with everything you said. Your originality is your experience and the lessons you add to a post, like you said most topics have been talked about in what way or another, so there's no original topic, the only thing original is your experience that's what makes it unique.
I like every word to come from my head, so I know I am the one writing it. I find that if I do research it seems like I'm taking a piece of other people's work.
Being true to oneself is key!
Absolutely. Be yourself, no one can ever be you.
Get your own style and get the world to notice you
Most importantly get your own voice you have thing to say from your perspective that no one else has.
Thanks for stopping by @blezyn
-Hi Ma'am @sofs You are right..being true and original save us from thinking about plagiarism. And it's always a good feel to write what is originally coming from us..our level of confidence is different!..Have a blessed evening!❤💕💚🌷
#dreemer
You mean we wont have to worry about plagiarism? We don't have to as long as we are creative and use our own mind.
-Aha! Because if we know that everything we write come from our own, then it's all original! I come to revisit this awesome post again via @dreemport..❤
Thank you @aimharryianne for revisiting my post.
From my perspective i encourage everyone to always be their self and never copy anyone because original is the key.
Absolutely, be yourself, Unique and special in your own way.
also, never learn anything.
I have to disagree with that - in one story which was from my own head, enough of the phrases which I thought were original were already online that I had to rewrite it several times!
Maybe you've read it somewhere in the past and remembered it like me?
What I am saying is 99.9% of the time you won't have to. Weird things happen.
I have never ever had that happen to me.
It was just sayings, it triggered the seotools one, but I finally got it written, lol!
Hmm Ok I get it now. I bet you are very careful now. Hehe
lol yeah, I was really lucky that this one had a short quote in it. That's why I ran it through the plagiarism checker before posting!
Actually we are allowed 20% quotes, provided it is attributed rightly. I am sure you know that. So was just an oversight on your part.
Yes but with my common phrases it went over,I was shocked, lol
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This reminds me of the good lessons from Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist. Being original is not always about pioneering a new technique or discovering something new.
Nope. You still need to check. I routinely do it on my write up despite a write up is too personal.
Yes, we don't need to label our work none plagiarize and original. We let the audience judge if it is.
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@juecoree I need to read this book Austin Kleon's Steal Like an Artist I have already put that on my to be read list. Thank you. Sounds very interesting.
In academic research we used to say rob from a hundreds and it is research rob from one and it is plagiarism.
I did this for the last 12 years of my life , this year I just let go. Hmm maybe I will do it randomly to see if I catch anything.
Thanks for reading and the feedback. Much appreciated.
You're perfectly right!
I get frustrated when I scroll through the POB feed and all I'm seeing time after time is the same content in a different skin. Sometimes just reading through two or three lines you already know where the author is going because you've read it somewhere else.
Haha, I thought I was the only one!. My brain is very magnetic, it easily retains things I read and duplicates it almost exactly. That's why most times I tend to write based on what I know or if I'm doing any research I do it way ahead before the time I want to write.
I think other authors need to read this post because it is really eye opening!
@chincoculbert I know a couple of others who have this problem on another site we used to write.
Yup the best thing to do is do your research much ahead to avoid this problem.
Thank you for the reblog and your kind words.
Have you cross checked your posts for plagiarism? I am curious because of your memory.
Thank you @pixresteemer for the rehive and the support.
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Thank you so much @hivebuzz. Hmm 2000 upvotes aren't too far. I will give them away as soon as my voting power is up LOL
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"originality" is not even slightly difficult.
there are countless vlogs and countless blogs that disregard convention.
it's the "interesting" part that's tricky.
This is so informative. Originality is everything. No need trying so hard to copy others' style. By just being us we bring a new thing to the table. Even if we are discussing similar out ideas, our styles, experience, and touch will always make different from the rest.
As always, your depth is admirable. I'm glad I came across this.
Thanks to @dreemport who directed me here.