Reader Vincent Meyer recently contacted me to say we’d copied an Aviation Mentor web article published by John Ewing, titled “Flying in the Raw.”
Small World
Aviation is a small world; there are a limited number of topics on which one can write. Additionally, journalism is a specific enough trade that when you combine it with aviation, you have a very small world indeed. Thus, its inevitable that there occur certain overlaps and (gasp!) even certain duplications. Granted, this one innocently went too far, but just how many unique articles can be written about a single, odd approach without covering the same ground?
Key Takeaways:
- The publication investigated a reader's accusation of plagiarism concerning an article by Jeff Van West that closely mirrored John Ewing's, sharing a unique aviation topic and an identical title.
- It was determined not to be deliberate plagiarism but a case of unconscious influence; the publication apologized to Ewing, who accepted and will now occasionally contribute to them.
- The article argues that in niche fields like aviation journalism, topical overlap and even duplication are inevitable due to a limited number of unique subjects and ideas, suggesting such replication can signify important content.
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