Plagiarism Has No Place in Your Work… or Your Profile on Freelance Sites

I use Elance to find projects when I am between private clients. On Elance, I maintain a complete profile. It includes my experience, my standards, and more. The one thing it does NOT include is a portfolio of my work. Plagiarism runs rampant in the freelance community. This is a sad, but true, fact. I […]

I use Elance to find projects when I am between private clients. On Elance, I maintain a complete profile. It includes my experience, my standards, and more. The one thing it does NOT include is a portfolio of my work.

Plagiarism runs rampant in the freelance community. This is a sad, but true, fact. I have seen complete profiles copied. On a related note, I have also seen jobs listed on oDesk for contractors to take the Elance entrance exam for someone. I don’t know how to solve the problem, but that is just plain wrong.

What do I do to attract clients without a portfolio attached to my profile? I have one item in my portfolio. It explains the plagiarism issue and states that I will gladly provide samples of my writing with any proposal. Sure, there is still risk involved, but it is minimized exponentially.

If you can’t do something without copying someone else’s hard work, find something else to do.

2 thoughts on “Plagiarism Has No Place in Your Work… or Your Profile on Freelance Sites

  1. What you are saying is so true. I have also seen one of those “jobs” posted in Freelancer.com asking for someone who could pass the Odesk Spanish Exam for someone.

    I already have a portfolio in my Elance and Odesk profiles but after the things I have seen I’m considering doing the same you did.

  2. Thank you for posting.

    I have just signed-up with Elance and have submitted three proposals. I see the same problem here as I did as a technical writer years ago when I did provide a portfolio at the time of interview.

    Even then, one company asked to make a copy of a User Guide I had just completed. This is proprietary work. However, I agreed to let her make a copy of the introductory pages; which I regret. No one had ever asked to make copies before.

    I didn’t get the job, but checked back in person, months later and, as I suspected, they hired an inexperienced person, gave them the copy of my manual and the company used my format, outline, etc.

    What the “word processor” couldn’t do was copy my research, writing style, or prevent typos and misspellings. I was appalled. The person they used was paid half of what I make. Hence, I suppose the reason they “transferred her.”

    The bigger problem was that the user guide/operations manual was written for the FIRST company who produced data on CD-ROMS. This new company was now trying to put different data on CD-ROMS. Despite their efforts, at half the cost, their manual was junk. It was, however, enough to get them out the door with their product.

    Companies are still asking for sample work of proprietary work. Now, I do have a website with sample work or articles, academic papers and published work — I still do not provide samples of corporate work, however, instead of hiring me or paying me for work I have already written — they just want me to send more samples — now, based on their topic of choice. All for free “evaluation.”

    Merlene

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