Armchair BEA: Ethics and Nonfiction

Design Credit: Emily of Emily's Reading Room

I am, to a fault, and honest person.  It has gotten me in trouble before, but that's ok.  I'd rather be honest than not.  But, I'm also a cautious person and don't like to cause waves, so while I will tell you what I think, I'll do it in a nice way. 

And so, I've always tried to be honest with my blogging.  If I don't like a book, or parts of a book, I'll tell you.  I don't care if you are my BFF, if I don't like it, I don't like it.  I'm not going to write that it was the best book ever.  I'll also tell you if I like it and everything I think that is awesome about it. 

There always seems to be some sort of drama in the blogging world.  Somebody is plagiarizing.  Somebody is firing back at authors who leave mean comments.  My advice to you, stay out of it.  Don't get caught up in it.  It will just lead to headaches and hurt feelings.  And remember, everything you post online stays online.   

And in the spirit of honesty, I'll say, being accused of plagiarism is my biggest fear.  Not because I do it.  But because I'll unknowingly write something that sounds like something someone else wrote or do a google image search for a picture, find one I like, use it and then be accused of stealing it.  There's nothing I can do about the first, really, besides saying, I don't and never will copy something someone else wrote (with the exception of a summary, but I always credit Amazon or Goodreads for those).  As for the google image thing, I always note that I got it from a google image search.  I give credit when I know what it is.  I won't hide anything. 

So, good luck.  Be honest.  Stay out of drama.  You'll thank me later.