Is Your Writing Like Powdered Milk?

There’s a fine line between research and plagiarism. How often have you researched a topic only to find that someone else has already said it in the best possible way?

When that happens, the temptation is to rewrite and disguise it, but use it anyway. The trouble is, that’s not creative. It’s like adding water to powdered milk — reconstituting something that already exists.

The temptation can be overwhelming, particularly when deadlines loom. But powdered milk writing does a disservice to both you and your client. As a writer, you want to showcase the qualities that your client is paying for:

• Originality

• Facility with language

• Good research skills

In order to do that properly, you need to do more than regurgitate what someone else has said. Note that I said regurgitate. I have no problem with writers getting information from several sources, synthesizing and adding their own creative flair to make it original. That’s called research.

If you have ever done a rewrite you will know what I mean. I haven’t done them for a while, but I did a few when I started out in freelancing, because that’s what some of my clients asked for. I always found it easy to research and write an article, but more challenging to spin it twice or three times more. That’s because there was no originality and no creativity. It may have been what the client wanted, but it tasted like powdered milk to me.

What’s your take on this?

(Photo by Roebot)