First of all, I want to define plagiarism. Plagiarism is the act of copying the work of another person, in which full rights of that material belong to them. It is the same as walking into someone's home, and stealing something that they own. To what extent is something considered plagiarism, and how do I avoid that, you ask? Well, that is exactly what this thread is here to explain.

Obviously, the best way to avoid plagiarism, is to write reviews that are all-original. I understand that sometimes users may want to add in info from another person's review, or take info relative to their review from another website. This is acceptable, but there are certain guidelines that you must follow if you find it necessary to do so.

First of all, reviews must be mostly original content. I can't stress that enough. One of the largest issues with reviews, is that users tend to find information on a game that isn't theirs, and copy it word for word, as if it is their own work. I also see people change a few words around here or there, and try to claim that it makes the review original. Both of these instances are considered plagiarism, because the amount of original content in the review is very little to none. The most common reason for this type of behavior, is to try and gain rewards for high word count, which is also against policy. Be warned, that if you do any of the above, your rewards will be revoked, and in most cases you will receive a ban based on the severity of the violation.

Secondly, if you need to use content that isn't yours, make sure to cite your references. All in all, your review should contain very little content that isn't yours, if any. If you do use an outside source, make sure that you cite your references during or at the end of your review, by providing a link to the source from which the information was taken. Doing so shows that you acknowledge the material belongs to someone else, and that you gave them credit for the information. Most of the time, you can provide users with links to more information relative to your review without including said information directly. But if there is a specific piece of information that you need on a page with lots of other stuff that is irrelevant, use it, but remember to do so within reason. Citing your sources will prevent you from plagiarizing content, but too much usage of outside references also makes the review unoriginal, and then it is considered spam; which leads me to the last thing that you should remember before posting.

Including too much unoriginal content in a review, or providing too much/too little information pertaining to the topic is considered spam. In order for a review to be considered just that, make sure that it is at least 100 words minimum. If it does not meet that requirement, then it is likely to be deleted or moved to the Game Discussion forum. Always consider if what you have to say could be summed up in a few short sentences, because if it can, your best bet would be to just leave it as a comment in that particular game's comment section. This can be a great way to spark up a conversation, plus it will keep you from creating possible spam. If you have to question yourself on whether or not what you have to say would be considered a review, then it's always best to play it safe.

On a final and more pleasant note, well written reviews that are lengthy enough and appropriately categorized may land them in the featured section. If you happen to write a nice review for a game which has no qualifying reviews (or any at all, for that matter), then it may very well get featured. The best tips that I can give anyone when writing a review, is to check for spelling and grammatical issues, and to break it down into sections, explaining each section according to how you rated it. If you feel that you have some decent reviews that could be featured, feel free to private message a Review Reviewer and let them know about it- they may just very well be! Thanks for taking the time to read this, and I hope it proves helpful. Happy gaming, everyone!

Thank you Zack for explaining how to make a proper game review. Every month we see like 2 reviews saying, "I LIEKZ DIS GAEEM! BUY IT!" I am hoping this get's stickied.

GuardianZack : hopefully this should Help out with the  many threads and  the user's thinking about Steailng  some others persons work .  Hope this will help out . and give more users an idea of how a review should be.

well done!

At the very least this clearly sets forth the rules for creating reviews and gives us a basis for our reasons for punishing those that steal the work of others.

GuardianZack : So what about the spam via
"SAY THE EXACT SAME THING FOR EVERY REVIEW REPLYING" people?

Thank you for making this. This should clear up the rules for many users!

I feel that you could have sent me PM to add this to the rules that are stickied...because this is in the game reviews forum it will drop to the next page unless you stickied it, let me check.

Yep, you did make a new thread, bro just add to the original thread.

tRIUNE : I thoroughly considered adding to the previous rules thread before I wrote this as a new one. The main reason being, it focuses on a specific issue that seems to widely be the most common. I felt that a thread specific to this topic would be more likely to catch the attention of users before they decided to post, than if I just tacked it on to the old rules thread.

Bro I don't care the reason, my point is you have access t edit Davideo7's stickied thread and you should ask him and then alter his thread. I could have made numerous stickied threads in this forum during the past 2 years, but I only made one edit to his stickied thread that reviews should be at least 100 words in length.

tRIUNE : I'm sorry : / I thought I was being helpful. I could just delete this one and edit the info into the original sticky? Shouldn't be too hard to fix.