There is a clear difference between integrating new learning + plaigarism.

It is impossible to separate what we teach and our intellectual property from what we’ve learned from others.

authored by Brooke Monaghan with Tristan Katz

Doing good work and operating with integrity requires that we integrate learning from others—it’s how we become skilled in what we do and develop a solid body of work.

Further, there are very few truly original ideas in the coaching, consulting, and wellness industries!

So where do we draw the line between integrating someone’s work and plagiarism?

Integrating learning & making our own contributions involves:

+ Reworking our own frameworks and processes as a result of a new learning.

+ Learning a new skill from a training and using that skill to serve our clients.

+ Developing our own methodology based on what we have learned from several sources.

+ Pulling in a small piece of what we learned from someone else to complement our own point or teaching.

When teaching something we have learned from other people, it is important to credit our teachers. i.e.: This is something I learned from, or This piece of my work was heavily informed by a training I did with—Here is where you can find it if you want to learn it yourself!

Note: crediting alone doesn’t mean we have not also possibly plagiarized.

Examples of plagiarism:

Using someone else’s words, copy, or training materials without permission.

• Quoting someone and not attributing the quote OR only slightly rewording the quote so we don’t have to quote them.

• Recreating materials with our own branding or recreating a training or piece of content we saw from someone else and passing it off as our own idea.

• Taking something that we learned and teaching the entire concept ourselves instead of recommending the educator or resource we learned it from.
  

Unsure? Ask yourself:

Would fair attribution require me to attribute the same source for several slides, points, or pages in a row?

• Would I have been able to offer this training without learning from a single other source?

• Did the idea come from me, or did it come from someone else’s materials or content?

• Is it clear to people what is mine and what is a contribution from someone else?

• Did my work eliminate the need for people to learn it from the person who taught me?

So what do I do if I learn something new and I’m so excited to share it with others because it was that impactful!?

Supportive, ethical ways to share:

• Quote the person, with actual quotation marks, and attribute it to who and where you heard it.

• Ask the person how you can integrate/share what you learned. Invite them to guest teach in your program.

• Interview them on your podcast. Tell folks you just learned this mind blowing thing and highly recommend they work with that person.

• Sit with the impact of the learning, how it affects your own methodology, and tweak your methodology accordingly.

• Support their work, develop a relationship, and explore future collaborations!