Anti-Plagiarism Day, Friday July 17: join in!

I've spent the last few weeks watching in horror as a writing acquaintance of mine was revealed as a repeat-plagiariser. He's won fat cash prizes with work that he's copied, one way or another, from the work of his friends, who trusted him to beta-read their work. In one case, a writer collaborated with him on a whole novel which now can't be published--despite some good interest--because it's likely that not all of his contributions were his own. It has been truly awful.

In an attempt to salvage something good from this horrible situation, I've announced that Friday July 17 is going to be Anti-Plagiarism Day. The more people who join in the better: if you want to know how you can take part, read my blog post about it. As I wrote there, "...if in the future our work stops just one writer from making the same mistake my former friend has made, then we’ll have done a little bit of good."

You're right: it has been. Let's hope plenty of people respond and write something about plagiarism on their own blogs.

Thank you all for your positive comments so far: it's really appreciated. At least one of the writers who was plagiarised has now read this and is grateful.

If anyone would like to add a link to their signature, that might help: either to this post, or to my blog post. The more we can recruit or alert to the day, the better.