ARTICLE: The Cut-and-Paste Personality Jennifer Saranow. Wall Street Journal. (Eastern Edition). New York, N.Y.:Feb 15, 2008. p. W.1 (Abstract-(Summary) Among the 125 million people in the U.S. who visit online dating and social-networking sites are a growing number of dullards who steal personal profiles, life philosophies, even signature poems. Nearly half of high-school students and nearly 40% of college undergrads confess they copy online sources, according to surveys conducted by Donald McCabe, a founder of the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University in South Carolina. [Lacking inspiration and a moral compass, some online daters are borrowing other people''s witty Web profiles.] These identity thieves don''t want your money. They want your quirky sense of humor and your cool taste in music. Among the 125 million people in the U.S. who visit online dating and social-networking sites are a growing number of dullards who steal personal profiles, life philosophies, even signature poems. & amp;quot;Dude u like copied my whole myspace, & ;posts one aggrieved victim. Copycats use the real-life wit of others to create cut-and-paste personas, hoping to land dates or just look clever. Match.com has more than 50 profiles with parts of Mr. Gallagher''s college entrance essay, which he penned nearly two decades ago and later appeared in Harper''s Magazine. & amp;quot;I translate ethnic slurs for Cuban refugees & ; and & I write award-winning operas & are among Mr. Gallagher''s most popular lines. Original souls who discover they have been replicated say it''s unethical and creepy. & I came across a guy who completely STOLE my profile message, & amp;quot; posts one woman in Michigan. & amp;quot;I mean he had to have copied and pasted the whole thing and then just changed gender specific things to fit his own!! Online daters feel pressure to stand out and believe they must sell themselves like a product, say researchers at Georgetown, Rutgers and Michigan State universities who are conducting a joint study of them. & ;You are not making money off of somebody else''s work; you''re just trying to market yourself, says self-confessed copier. In a recent survey of more than 400 online daters commissioned by Engage.com, 9% of respondents said they copied from another person''s profile;15% suspect their own words were stolen.A Match.com profile of a man in Redmond, Wash., includes this postscript: Shame on the woman who plagiarized my narrative and stole it for her profile! And a 34-year-old woman in Basking Ridge, N.J., tacked this P.S. to her Plentyoffish.com profile: To the girl who copied my profile -- and denies it .. . you s-! The quest for originality has spawned the services of online-dating coaches and profile writers. Some of them are victims, too. Dave Mizrachi, 34, of Miami sells an & amp;quot;Insider Internet Dating course for $97. They weren''t even from real people. They were cribbed from sample profiles posted online at E- Cyrano.com by dating coach and profile writer Evan Marc Katz. It just seems so short-sighted, says Mr. Katz, of Los Angeles. Everybody steals the same lines so they are not original anymore. The Internet makes plagiarism anonymous and easy. Nearly half of high-school students and nearly 40% of college undergrads confess they copy online sources, according to surveys conducted by Donald McCabe, a founder of the Center for Academic Integrity at Clemson University in South Carolina. Stealing for appearance''s sake is a new twist. People are still trying to develop a sense of how to present themselves online, says Joseph Walther, a communication professor at Michigan State University. The book & amp;quot;Online Dating for Dummies; tells readers not to fret about copying. TheProfileCoach.com, meanwhile, offers 12 proven profiles for $4. Sample: there is a shallowness, a fakeness to much of the ''singles scene. A number of blogs offer free headlines for social- networking profiles, including, Ernie''s train of thought has derailed.For $50, weeklyscore.com offers 20 personal essays and 100 headlines, all updated weekly. Thierry Khalfa says he had a good excuse to copy: His English isn''t so good. The 44-year-old Frenchman first cobbled a ho-hum profile that said he liked to cook and enjoyed walks on the beach. Then he stumbled across the profile of Mike Matteo, 47, a screenwriter in Tampa, Fla. Mr. Matteo''s profile had such nuggets as, I have a sweet tooth, love my strawberry twizzlers and cheesecake jelly beans. Look at what everyone else is saying and then SAY SOMETHING DIFFERENT dvises the site. Yahoo Personals provides two examples with the plea, Don''t copy these profiles exactly. But a quick search shows plenty have.Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com/ pqdweb?did=1429338021 & amp;Fmt=3 & amp;clientId=65562 & amp;RQT=309 & amp;VName=PQD