Keep an eye out for jargon or advanced vocabulary that seems
out of place. Especially if your student is taking an entry-level
class, they are not likely to be fluent in the jargon of
the field.
On the other hand, beware of papers that appear to be of
grade school quality. Students are not picky about what
they cut and paste off the web - they can copy a seventh
grade paper just as easily as a college term paper.
Look for anachronisms, such as references to the formation
of NATO in the future tense, or comments about the present
state of the Clinton administration.
Works Cited pages and Bibliographies can be invaluable in
recognizing plagiarism:
Look for strange layout or formats in the paper. Some students
will hand in papers with words that appeard as hyperlinks
online, but on printed paper they are underlined or grayed
out.
Even more obvious, the student might hand in a paper with
the address of the website or the name of the company where
he got it printed at the bottom of every page (i.e. "Thank
you for purchasing from TermPapersAreUs").
Be alert to papers that are only on topic for the first
and last paragraphs, with seemingly incongruous material
in between. The student may have tried to tailor an internet
paper to fit the assignment.
Perhaps the best detection strategy of all: get to know
your students' writing style before they turn in their research
papers. Anything that is way beyond or below the student's
typical level of writing should be suspect.
Collecting
Proof:
Once you suspect you have a plagiarized paper, the
next step is to find the source of the plagiarism. Here,
there is good news. Just as the Internet makes it easier
for students to copy and paste, it also makes it easier
for professors to track down copying. Methods of plagairism
detection on the Internet can be broken down into two categories:
Free
Sources |
1. One easy way to check for
plagiarism is to utilize search engines. Just type
a suspect string of five or six words from the paper
into Google or another search engine. Be sure to put
quotation marks around the phrase so that the search
engine will look for your exact string of words. 2. Be familiar with the term paper mill sites that
are avalable online. Try tracking down the suspect
paper directly on their sites. For a comprehensive
list, go to http://www.coastal.edu/library/presentations/mills2.html.
|
Paid
Services |
Plagiarism detection sites are companies that compare student papers against material on the Internet. Some companies also compare against other student papers, encyclopedias, magazines, and online databases. At the end of comparison, companies provide a report to professors on which material in the paper might have been plagiarized, and the exact source of that material. Cost varies with site, but many offer a free trial. Turnitin.com (also known as Plagiarism.org): Students turn in papers at turnitin.com, where each paper is compared against texts in the database and Internet texts. Report is e-mailed to instructor within 24 hours.MyDropBox: Service runs submitted documents through three independent searches of Internet index, online reference sources, periodicals, and password-protected electronic document databases. Generates originality report with interactive features. Glatt Plagiarism Services: Program eliminates every fifth word of student's paper. The student is asked to supply the missing words. The number of correct responses, the amount of time intervening, and various other factors are considered in assessing the final Plagiarism Probability Score. EVE2: Download this software on site. Performs complex searches of Internet Sites. Generates a comparison report. |