[MR] Success in publication - personalizing articles

[Becky McEllistrem]

A lot of people have written me wondering how they are
going to get past this plagiarism worry as they feel
that there are very few new and unique subjects for
articles available.  You can personalize your articles
and get past the entire plagiarism concern pretty
easily.

A common misconception is that articles must be
written in a formal, third person approach.  This is
not correct for the Oak.  Your articles may be written
in the first person and it may actually help to make
the article more interesting.

If you can add your personal experiences to your
attempts at making X widget or translating Y page, not
only does your credibility as a researcher increase
but you’ve now given the benefit of your experience so
that others don’t waste time on an idea that might not
work very well.

As an example but not a requirement:

Here is the recipe from X book:

Translation of recipe:

Notes:
Here is what happened when I tried this recipe.  I
adjusted this way because, etc etc.

===============

Another example but still not a requirement:

These are the instructions to build X object from my
first book:

These are instructions to build X object from my
second book:

This is why I changed the instructions from both books
and got what I think is a better result



This approach can be used for any type of subject. 
You want the documentation and the translation of
course but personalizing the article makes them much
more interesting to read.  The failures tell us just
as much info as the successes so don't be afraid to
share them.  

It’s very unlikely that your own experiences will
match someone else’s experiences, thereby creating
something interesting to read and less likely to be
“out there” already.

As always I don't require a specific article format. 
But I'm always hoping to find suggestions to help more
people get published.


Lady Rebecca the Contrary
Oak Editor