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Advisors improperly cite or don’t cite their sources. Most advisors do this without even realizing it. This is a boring topic, but please read this to protect yourselves from legal problems.
I’ll make this as exciting as possible.
1. Not citing at all
When in doubt, cite it.
Anytime you discuss an idea that is not 100% original, whether or not you are directly quoting the source or not, you need to cite the source. Even if you’re just summarizing what someone said or wrote, you still need to cite the source.
I read market outlooks where advisors paraphrase something that another advisor, or a news source said, but no citation is included. Take the time to cite it because a quick Google search will find out you did that. Then you will get sued and have to pay significant fines. Trust me, I’ve seen this and it costs a lot.
Let me tell a little story that will shock you. When I was getting my MBA, there was an essay writing contest in the Investor Services Journal that I entered where I wrote about hedge fund volatility. Now, as this is a highly academic subject, I needed to call upon several third-party sources. Well, one of them was written by a woman named Hillary.
I remember not citing these sources particularly well. But, being younger, not as wise as I am now, I submitted the essay. Then I went to dinner with my friend Ben and he told me a story about how a professor of his lost his job by plagiarizing.
Eager to avoid any such a misfortune, I returned to the office late at night, revised my essay to include the proper citations, and submitted the essay before the impending deadline.
Well, I won the essay contest and it made international news. Lo and behold, Hillary herself read the essay and she personally contacted me to thank me for using her work and for recognizing her.
Just think about what would have happened if I had not had that conversation with Ben and taken the time to revise the citations! Not only could I have lost my cash prize and the notoriety that went along with winning the contest, I could have been sued if she really wanted to get nasty.
Most advisors don’t have a large following and their content isn’t read by many people – just being real with you – which is why they hire people like me to get exposure. Most advisors can get away with not properly citing things because they have a small audience.
The point of writing is to have people read it, and sometimes people who read these things are others from the industry whose work you may just have used.
2. Swiping charts without asking permission of the rights holder
Advisor marketing is rife with these infractions – almost every time I read a monthly or quarterly market outlook piece. The advisor plucks a chart or graph from another advisor or a news source illegally, blatantly copying and pasting the thing right out of the original source.
If you directly copy a chart or graph, not only do you have to cite the source but many times you are required to contact the work’s creator and ask his or her permission. Read the fine print in the disclaimers and it tells you what you need to do.
Here’s the rationale behind that.
Let’s say I’m Ken Fisher of Fisher Investments. I spend 10 hours of my research associate’s time compiling data for a chart that I publish. Now, because I am well known, many other advisors read my material and because it is high-quality research they want to pillage it.
Advisors don’t cite these graphs because they don’t want to give away credit to Fisher because he is a competitor.
But look at it from Fisher’s point of view. What gives another advisor the right to present my research that I spent time and hundreds if not thousands of dollars to create, and pretend it is his or her own original thought? It’s intellectual property theft.
Some advisors may not want to ask Fisher for fear he will say “no.” If this is the case then that is a signal that you are doing something you should not be doing.
You wouldn’t use a clip from Michael Jackson’s Beat It on your website without paying for it, would you? So don’t rip off Fisher for the same reason. Both are someone else’s intellectual property.
3. Snatching Google images
Countless times, when I ask an advisor where the images on a website or social media came from, I get this as a response: “Oh, my intern just did a Google search.”
Seems innocuous, but do you know how much trouble you can get in for that?
Whenever you use any image that you did not take with your own camera, ask yourself two questions:
- What is the license associated with this image? For example, if it is a Creative Commons zero license then anyone can use it for business or personal use and you don’t have to give credit.
- Who owns the rights to the license? If you don’t hold the rights (meaning you did not shoot it yourself or buy the rights from a site like Shutterstock), you are committing a violation.
By the way, you should always have the conversation with your web developer or marketing person about where he or she is getting the images for your website or social media. Here’s a sad story that illustrates why.
A few years ago I knew of a firm who got caught for mistakes their web developer made. Apparently the web developer used an image from Getty Images without buying it. Then the web developer went out of business. Years later, the client company got hit with a lawsuit for tens of thousands of dollars (yes that is how expensive Getty images can get!) and they have no throat to choke because their web developer has left town.
4. Improper citation
Citing is a pain in the neck which is why most people don’t do it right.
I use APA format which, in my opinion, is easier than MLA. Most advisors just throw in a footnote and call it a day but often they don’t include the right information. I find footnotes to be visually obstructive to the flow of the presentation because there’s all this eyesore text in the bottom margin.
Doing this right means you include an in-text citation at the end of the sentence or passage, and then include the full source in the list at the end. If you want to see an example, here’s a blog I wrote for a client. In the first paragraph there’s an in-text citation where I mention the HIPAA rule and then I also include the full source in the list below.
Yes, I know. It’s boring. But so ispaying your taxes correctly. It’s just something you have to do as a responsible business owner.
5. Not citing the original source
Let’s say you found an article in Forbes talking about Trump’s 2018 tax law changes and it links back to a table on the IRS website. You decide to use this as a source for your article.
Do you cite Forbes, the IRS or both?
If the IRS table page is still available, then you have to cite the IRS page. You cite through to the original source, in other words, the original producer of this content. Now, this is a huge pain in the neck because you can conceivably have to trace back a few steps, which is very time consuming. Let’s say the IRS found the content on some accountant’s website or something. You have to go all the way through to the accountant’s website and cite that. Let’s say the accountant found the table in a scholarly journal. And on and on…
It turns into this big game of telephone but you still have to go through the exercise otherwise you are improperly citing the source.
Now let’s say that for some reason the IRS table isn’t available anymore. Let’s say the Forbes article is a few years old and although the point they are making is still relevant, for some reason the IRS decided to toss out the table.
Read here to learn how the APA suggests handling that.
6. Not citing unusual sources
People assume that if it’s not written down on a piece of paper then it’s okay to pirate. Here’s the rule: cite everything whenever you appropriate the thoughts or work of another person. Literally.
In today’s day and age, the realm has expanded to include the following nontraditional venues:
- Let’s say that I watch a YouTube video of the Fed chairperson talking about interest rates, and then I mention that in a blog post. Cite it.
- I’m on social media and I see somebody make a really interesting comment that I later incorporate into an essay I write. Cite it.
- I’m reading a Yelp review and I hear someone’s opinion on a particular product or service that I use as a basis for an argument I make in a piece I put together on the subject. Cite it.
- I hear a song I like on the radio and then I find a copy somewhere on the internet and use it as my theme song in a video that I make for my website. Cite it. And by the way, also make sure you check the license and rights because music is very easily discovered. You may have to pay royalties for using the artist’s work.
Sara’s Summary
Look, I realize that taking the time to cite each and every source is not fun. As you can see, there are a million different sources you have to include and to do it properly is quite time consuming.
But you have to do it otherwise you’re purloining someone else’s content, the results of which can cause you to lose money, time and most of all your reputation, which you can never get back. Hire a copywriter or proofreader to check their work if you don’t know how to do this properly, which is why I have a business in some cases. Send me a message through APViewpoint, or email if you have questions about making sure you don’t rip anybody off with your marketing content.
Sara Grillo, CFA, is a top financial writer with a focus on marketing and branding for investment management, financial planning, and RIA firms. Prior to launching her own firm, she was a financial advisor and worked at Lehman Brothers. Sara graduated from Harvard with a degree in English literature and has an MBA from NYU Stern in Quantitative Finance.
Read more articles by Sara Grillo
Advisor Perspectives welcomes guest contributions. The views presented here do not necessarily represent those of Advisor Perspectives.
