Just now, i have found a review in the Game chat section that was completely ripped off a small, but active game site. To some people, spotting something that's been copied can be easy, to others, it can more difficult. Personally, I don't think Freeola will object to me trying to stop people who are being unoriginal and just copying someone elses thoughts, so hopefully in this short thread, you'll have a better chance of spotting something that has been copied. So here are some of the things to look for that give a copied review away.

1.Gaps are important!
In the review that i found that was copied, the first thing i noticed was that the gaps between paragraphs were odd. Some had a normal 1 line space, others, 2 or 3. The reason for these lines are usually because pictures used to be there. Of course, these lines can be removed by the plagiariser, but sometimes they will be left in.

2.Spelling
This point doesn't work all of the time. Unless you work for a game company who go through reviews with a fine tooth comb, you will probably find at least 1 spelling mistake. I myself find spelling mistakes in past reviews i've done, and adjust them accordingly, but there are always more to find. This doesn't mean every review that has no spelling mistakes is plagiarised, it's just it's more common to find spelling mistakes with reviews written by 'the common man' as it were.

3.You know it makes sense
If a review seems to jump from point to point, talking about one thing in a paragraph, and the next paragraph talking about something completely down the other end of the spectrum, there is a chance that somebody has either mixed up the paragraphs to make it seem less professional, or mixed up 2 reviews, to make it harder to find on the internet.

4.Google can help
If you have suspicions about an article, trying copying and pasting a line from the review into google, along with the title of the game, or film or whatever it may be. Usually, it will come up in the results, but try a couple of lines if it doesn't. This stops plagiarisers thinking that copying of lesser known sites will make the review harder to find.

5.If it seems too good to be true...
It probably is. One of the biggest give aways is an extremely in-depth review that uses long words and is generally long. Again, this isn't to say that people can't write intelligent reviews, it's just you'll find that professionals have the edge on again, 'the common man'.

6.Extreme Rating
Not all reviews will have this, but if the ratings seems very specific, then they're probably from a game community site. Professionals ratings actually are important, it's not just their opinion, their ratings could be used for publicity purposes. For a standard reviewer, there's no need to be extreme with ratings.

7.Past Writings
On a site like Freeola, it's easy to compare things people have written. If you don't like the look of a review and think it's been copied, try clicking on the user, and look at their past posts. If they spelt 'you' like 'u' previously, and if their previous posts haven't been held in high regard, or they've just been rubbish, i doubt they'd suddenly spring up a golden review that is perfect.

8.Most important of all
Do not accuse anyone of plagiarism unless you have significant evidence (ie. a website link) that the review does not belong to the person.

I hope some of you find these point helpful, and hopefully we can completely stamp out plagiarism. Reviews are about your own opinions, thoughts, flare, humour and preferences, and i'm sure Freeola would like to encourage people to write great reviews that will help the other users in the community.

Thanks for reading.