You hear all kinds of crazy advice about how to research a topic in order to write about it. I’m not going to try to get into a lecture on plagiarism or anything like that here. Even the courts don’t always agree on the subject as just as many lawsuits have been thrown out of court as have been won. If it was a clear cut matter, there would be strict guidelines that would be simple to follow. However, the laws are so complicated that many people simply don’t know what to do. So rather than just to define what proper research is, I’m going to tell you what it isn’t. You can then decide if you feel you’ve done your research properly.

What way too many article writers do, when researching a topic, is go to an article directory, like this one, read one or two articles, and them simply rewrite them. Let me tell you something. You may somehow find a way to rewrite the articles so that nobody could tell that this is what you did, but this is still wrong. Your chances in court are not going to be good. This, in my opinion, is plagiarism. You can justify it any old way you like.

Let me give you an idea of what I feel is proper research. Recently, I decided to do some research on Hemorrhoids. It’s not the most glamorous subject in the world, but it’s something that affects many people. Anyway, I looked the word up at Google and essentially looked for authority sites like Web MD. Don’t go to Wikipedia. This site is put together by people who are NOT experts and you have no idea if what you’re getting is real or fabricated.

Anyway, I must have gone to at least 20 or 30 different sites to learn as much as I could on this subject. I began to see a pattern as far as the info I was reading. A lot of it was the same. This told me that there were certain things about hemorrhoids that were constant and generally accepted. I could feel confident about writing on this topic if I decided that I wanted to. But more importantly, what I had read had become a part of my knowledge. I wasn’t just rewriting articles. I truly understood this subject and could talk about it intelligently with anyone. THAT’S when you know you’ve done proper research.

Like I said, you can take your chances in court, but isn’t it smarter to just do what you know is the right thing to do?

To YOUR Success,

Steven Wagenheim

Want to write articles that get people’s attention and can earn you up to $200 per article written? Then check out my Complete Article Writing And Marketing Guide that you can find at

http://www.honestincomeprogram.com/tcawamg.html

This is my own book that I wrote from over 30 years of writing experience.