Strings work fine, the problem is the (single) quotes:
~ $ foo="echo 'hello world'"
~ $ for x in $foo; do echo $x; done
echo
'hello
world'
~ $ $foo
'hello world'
~ $ eval "$foo"
hello world
The splitting is by whitespace, so the single quotes remain in the arguments. Using eval (and double quotes to preven splitting), it gets processed correctly. That said, don't use eval; use functions or aliases instead.
Plagiarism is misrepresenting someone elses' work as your own, so wouldn't having a ghostwriter write "your" article still be plagiarism regardless?