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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33383
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/33383
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Finding something truly unique on the Web is pretty rare. What you find far more often are a hundred different ways of saying the same thing. Even on Stack Exchange, which goes to considerable pains to detect and eliminate duplicate questions, multiple instances of essentially the same question abound. In fact, if I bothered to look I am sure I could find multiple versions of this very question right on this site.

Does this matter? Actually, I think it is a good thing. A lot of the time questions get marked as duplicates on Stack Exchange because someone finds another question with the same **answer**. But having the same answer is not the same as being the same question. A question is made of words and even if the words amount to the same thing, what a person recognizes, what they can search for, is the particular words that occur to them when they ask the question. Having twenty different versions of a question, all with the same answer, means that there are twenty ways to find that answer. And that is a good thing. It makes it more likely that each searcher will find what they are looking for.

The Web acts like a filter. It really does not matter that there is a huge amount of duplication on the Web because search engines find the best versions of every question and every answer and bring the to the forefront. It is the ultimate social proof, separating the wheat from the chaff. (Is it a perfect filter? Obviously not. Have we a better one? No.)

The Web is so huge that you cannot ever guarantee that what you are writing occurs nowhere else on the Web. But that does not matter. Your job is not to ensure that you are absolutely original all the time. Your job is to produce the best version of your argument on your subject matter available. If yours is the best version, the Web will filter it forward. If it is not a good version, the Web will filter it back into the vast collection of content that nobody sees.

Given that the Web works this way, spending your time trying to make sure no one has ever said what you want to say is not a productive use of your time. Instead, focus on saying it as well as it can possibly be said for whatever particular audience you have in mind. If what you write is the best available to meet the needs of that particular audience, the Web will bring it to the fore.

Original score: 6