Plagiarism Guide

Proof

Proving plagiarism after the fact can be very labor intensive. You can take a low tech or a high tech approach to determining if a paper is plagiarized:

Low Tech

• How do the writing style and vocabulary compare with an "in-class" writing by your student?
• Does the paper contain all of the elements you required?
• Does the bibliography contain very recent materials?
• Can the student provide copies of materials cited in the bibliography?
• Are Web sites listed in the bibliography still available?
• Invite the student to discuss a questionable paper privately and express your concerns straightforwardly. What is the student's response?
• Can student summarize the main conclusions of the paper? Define some of the specialized or very sophisticated terms? Describe the research process, its pitfalls and successes?

High Tech

• Use the Google search engine to try to find a unique phrase that you consider to be suspect. Google will search for an exact phrase of up to ten consecutive words.
• Use a metasearch engine such as Metacrawler or Dogpile to try to find a unique phrase
• Search several of the online databases subscribed to by the RVCC library; search the full text of the databases for a unique phrase in the databases most likely to have been consulted, e.g.> CQ Researcher, PA Research II (ProQuest), Academic Search Premier, Wilson Omnifile, Literature Resource Center
• Visit Plagiarism.org and try turnitin.com-- use of this tool requires registration
• Visit Plagiarism.com to try one of their three software programs for deterring or detecting plagiarism
• Visit EVE2-- use of this tool requires you to download software to your computer

Proof-- how well do these online detection tools work?

A succinct Comparison of Plagiarism Detection Services has been done by librarians at Eastern Oregon and Western Oregon Universities.

A more extended discussion of the topic of plagiarism detection sevices and software can be found at Virtual Academic Integrity Laboratory at the Center for Intellectual Property at the University of Maryland. It includes a discussion of factors to be considered in deciding to use a detection tool and the limitations of the tools.

Actual tests of several of these detection tools were conducted by a librarian and a technology specialist at Colorado College and summarized in Downloading Detectives: Searching for On-Line Plagiarism. Their basic conclusions were that:

• None of the tools were effective enough for them to recommend the expenditure of college funds for their purchase
• Use of detection tools created an undesireable atmosphere showing lack of trust between teacher and student

One of the more popular detection tools, turnitin.com, has been the subject of some discussion on the question of whether it violates student rights. The issue was discussed in the May 17, 2002 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education in an article by Andrea Foster entitled Plagiarism-Detection Tool Creates a Legal Quandary