Rejection of "Dr. Zabdiel Boylston Defender Of The Smal

[sherri lynn]

I recently submitted three professionally written, and professionally researched articles. My research was not done online. All were from my own files, my own writing. Two were accepted:

"No Ordinary Genius:
Elisha Graves Otis, Inventor of the Elevator " (I received two emails accepting this one.)

"The Real Untouchable
of Prohibition"

The third: "Dr. Zabdiel Boylston Defender Of The Smallpox Inoculation" was rejected saying it was not original material.

This is very surprising to me since I have never ever published this article anywhere else -- online or off line. And also since it is a pretty rare subject.

Can you please explain this decision.

Thank you.
Sincerely,
Sherri Lynn

[Ed]

Unfortunately, I can't respond to rejections with specifics when more than 24-48 hours have passed. My memory is good, but not that good.

The only thing I can tell you at this point is that if portions of the article showed up when we run the check, you would have received the response that we accept only original content. If it had shown that it was published elsewhere, you would have been requested to ask usage rights only for the article.

Ed

[Cyndy Hardy]

I'm too tired to wrap my mind around this but it seems like you might have accidentally uploaded one file twice under two different titles. I don't know if CC kicks back articles for having similar titles, but the body of an original article that had been approved once might trigger a "plagiarism" flag if it was inadvertently submitted again.

Maybe that's why you got two approvals for one article. Like I said, I'm too tired.

Back to my corner

[sherri lynn]

Thank you for your reply, but now I'm more confused than ever.

The reason it took a few days for me to respond is because I saw three emails in my box and all said accepted. Since I had just submitted three articles, I assumed they had all been accepted. I moved them to my CC folder and never even noticed there was a rejection a few spaces down until yesterday.

So now what do you suggest I do? I'm still new with you site and I seem to be having a bit of a struggle here.

Thank you for any help you can give. I know there are other article sites out there, but I would like to have all my work in one place.

Sherri Lynn

[Celeste Stewart]

Sometimes "not original material" could mean a small excerpt could've appeared elsewhere. For example, if a writer is getting facts from another website and copies them into the article without citing the source or copying more than what's considered fair use, then it'll get flagged in CopyScape and rejected.

Try googling portions of the rejected article to see if they come up or put it through CopyScape on your own to see where the duplicate info is. Then revise and resubmit.

Good luck! I see you're already listed on premium content so that's an excellent start.

[NicWrites]

Another site I use to check for this kind of thing that is completely free to use is www (dot) articlechecker (dot) com.

[sherri lynn]

Thank you Celeste, but did you read my former entry? This article was from my own files that I wrote quite some time ago. None of the research was done online.

That's why I'm so puzzled. Have you ever heard of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston? Most people have not. It's an interesting anecdote in our nation's history and one worth reading -- especially for children since it's a story of great courage and bravery.

Again, I don't know where to go from here. It all seems so petty. As though I'm guilty till proven innocent.

It makes me a little gun-shy of moving forward with other writings.

I'd not heard of CopyScape. But I will find it and try it.

Thanks again,
Sherri Lynn

[Ed]

If you resubmit, I can run it again and give you the specifics.

Ed

[Celeste Stewart]

Sometimes we even plagiarize ourselves - using the same familiar phrases and expressions.

For example, I saw that you have two articles that are different posted, yet the introductions to the articles are nearly identical... Something like that could theoretically bring up a flag.

I'm writing a bunch of product descriptions on the same topic and it's really hard not to repeat myself. How many ways can I say "mirror-like chrome finish?"

Hopefully Ed can show you the troublesome lines and you'll get it up and posted soon.

[Cyndy Hardy]

Please don't get discouraged, Sherri.

Reading through your work, you are probably one of the best writers on CC. My humble opinion. And we have several great writers who I learn a little from each day.

I selfishly admit that I hope CC stands out as a place where we educate each other and our buyers about the value of what we do. People who write like you can keep CC from becoming a sweat shop where we compete for low-paying assignments.

CC's staff is responsive and supportive. They'll help figure out what went wrong with your submission.

[Celeste Stewart]

Sherri,

Cyndy's right, don't get discouraged. I know it sounds petty - that "original material" thing - especially since it's all your own research and writing. Plus, it's a little unnerving. I know the feeling.

Not knowing what showed up in the CopyScape results, we can only toss out some of our experiences or what we've seen others go through with the same problem and hope that these experiences shed some light until Ed can run it again and give you specifics.

Try to realize that it's not so much pettiness on CC's part but policy. CC promises their customers original material - so if anything shows in CopyScape, it's automatically rejected (not forever, we can always revise). I believe this also protects us writers as seen in cases where someone has lifted our own works but that's a different story.

It could even be so simple as a blog entry on the writer's behalf - imagine if you had a blog and were writing about your latest exciting writing project. What if you posted the first paragraph or some bullet points on your blog to give your readers a flavor of what you're working on? That's all fine and dandy but from the search engine's POV, it's duplicate content. From CopyScape's POV, it's plagiarizm. From CC's POV, it's not acceptable in its current form - even if you were the original blog writer. That's kind of the kicker - we can plagiarize ourselves! The search engines don't care - if it's duplicate, it's duplicate. They penalize websites for duplicate content which makes it critical to pass CopyScape.

Or what if you posted a few sentences on a forum in an attempt to get more information. Suppose you wrote, "I discovered blah, blah,blah,blah, blah about Mr. Blah, has anyone ever heard of him?" And then wrote an article stating that: Mr. Blah did blah, blah, blah, blah, blah before blah.

Could show up in CopyScape depending on the phrasing etc... Since your topic is so rare, it may be more prominent. Writing something like "Microsoft Windows Vista is the latest offering from Microsoft" will probably pass CopyScape even though hundreds, if not thousands or millions, of articles may say something extremely similar. But something more specific like: "Dr. Zabdiel Boylston defended smallpox" might only have three or four appearances on the net. The algorithms may unfairly flag something like that -- I don't really know, just thinking out loud here.

Not saying any of these scenarios are yours, just trying to offer an objective observation. I'm sure it will all make sense soon.

[Ed]

Thanks Celeste and Cyndy, for making these points.

Our checks protect writers, customers, and Constant Content. Everyone gets their articles checked. It's a part of our process for many reasons. Personally, I find it to be one of the most important features of our service - one that sets us apart from other content sites - and not petty at all.

Ed