Plagiarism in academia

outline

1. Introduction (Plagiarism in Academia)

• What it is
• How to avoid it
• How it may be punished if used by students
• Disadvantages of using copied material (If not caught a student might pass but he/she will not be qualified to handle a job)

The keywords

Custom Term Paper, Custom Essay, Custom Research Paper, Custom Coursework

Length 500 words

The first 100 words should focus on general plagiarism and plagiarism in Academia

We should target using every keyword once every 100 words and optimize the article with possible search combinations. E.g. someone might search for ‘best site for a research paper’ so our target keyword would be Best Research Paper.

2. List of Services to be Evaluated

http://www.plagiarism.org

1. WriteCheck.Turnitin.com
2. Turnitinadmissions.com
3. iThenticate.com
4. Turnitin.com

http://www.copyscape.com

1. Copyscape Premium
2. Copysentry

http://www.doccop.com

1. Doccop.com/file_check
2. Doccop.com/web_check

http://www.plagiarism.com/

1. Glatt Plagiarism Teaching Program (GPTeach)
2. Glatt Plagiarism Self-Detection Program (GPSD)
3. Glatt Plagiarism Screening Program (GPSP)

http://www.checkforplagiarism.net

http://www.ipd.uni-karlsruhe.de/jplag

3.

(a) Criteria, used to evaluate top plagiarism check services

• Formats allowed for submission. E.g. PDF,RTF,DOC
• Document length
• Can they detect spanned articles?
• Algorithms used to run a search (We might encounter problems here)
• Where their searches target e.g. search engines, campus databases
• How they reveal results, on the spot or via email
• Turn around per search
• Do they store results?
• Screen Shots displaying results

(b) Description of services according to criteria

• Free or paid (prices)
• Target (Students/professors/general)
• How accurate are they
• Limits (Some engines will decline a search with obscene or sexual content)
• Terms of service that should be noted. (e.g. if they retain a copy)

4. The overview should be 3000 words using the following keywords

• avoiding plagiarism – 4
• catching plagiarism -2
• content spinning – 2
• check a paper for plagiarism – 2
• check for plagiarism – 12
• checking for plagiarism – 2
• detecting plagiarism – 3
• how to avoid plagiarism – 3
• internet plagiarism – 3
• online plagiarism – 8
• plagiarism check – 27
• plagiarism checker – 33
• plagiarism detection – 12
• plagiarism detection services – 5
• plagiarism detection software – 4
• plagiarism finder – 6
• plagiarism prevention – 2
• plagiarism search engine – 5
• plagiarism software – 10
• software plagiarism – 2
• plagiarism correction -2
• encoding plagiarism – 2
• plagiarism in preaching-1

5. External useful links

To provide valid links to sources about plagiarism (trusted resources with high rankings)

http://www.pace.edu/library/pages/instruct/plaig.html

http://www.enotes.com/topics/how-avoid-plagiarism

http://www.famousplagiarists.com/academia.htm

Plagiarism Portal

http://www.copyscape.com/plagiarism.php

http://www.rasmussen.edu/articles/100-apps-for-teachers.asp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2008/jun/18/theadmissionoftheleading

http://www.web-miner.com/plagiarism

http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/writing/Examining%20Anti.htm

http://www.outofur.com/archives/2006/08/word_for_word_w.html

Introduction

There is a common online joke attributed to Wilson Mizner that:

“Copy from one book = plagiarism;”

“Copy from two books = an essay;”

“Copy from three books = a compilation;”

“Copy from four books = a dissertation.”

Today, if you want a term paper, you need to copy from four books and the Wikipedia or download from paper mills. Many people define plagiarism as “copying” or “borrowing” someone else’s original content without their consent although in most cases is defined as, stealing someone’s work and claiming ownership. The words ‘copying’, ‘borrowing’, and ‘stealing’, are used to emphasize on the seriousness of this act. This is an offense and if caught with copied text or material, one is likely to be sued as there are copyright laws that protect the original material.

When you ‘borrow’ material or ideas without the owner’s consent, you are committing academic plagiarism. Copying other people’s work and claiming it as your own, is academic dishonesty same as cheating on an exam. If you get caught having copied your coursework from a fellow student or having ordered a custom term paper from a professional, it could lead to academic censure or even worse, expulsion or being labeled as a fraud. Professors who supervise students doing research should be careful not to pass copied work. If the research is later on detected as plagiarism, it could discredit the professor

Plagiarism has become a common offense especially in academia. The expanding education system has become a challenge to student and this is why most students are finding a hard time to complete their course work. However, there are numerous reasons why students plagiarize. Assignments are at times overwhelming and deadlines come quickly than expected making plagiarism more pronounced. The question remains, what are students, tutors and professors are doing to avoid plagiarism.

There are a number of tips a student can apply to avoid plagiarism in a research paper. When writing this paper, a student should be careful when taking notes and quoting words. Searching for the topic on the internet and spinning it would seem like the perfect solution. Or maybe ordering the topic from a research expert could also help, but not all services offered on the internet are professional and guarantee accurate results. Plagiarism is not only found in academia, actually it’s very rampant on websites and journalism as well.

Since detecting plagiarism in academia has been made easy by plagiarism scanners, students are opting to hire experts on the intent to do their work for them. For a low fee you can get a custom essay written in a matter of hours. The essay will be of high quality and even 100% original but the truth remains, you used another person’s knowledge not your own. What happens if you pass, are through with college and get hired? Will you hire the same expert who wrote that high quality custom research paper for you back in college to work on your behalf?

1. http://plagiarism.org

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

This is one of the leading plagiarism detection services offering plagiarism check services to academic institutions, corporations and individuals. They use different plagiarism detection software for detecting plagiarism. Plagiarism.org encompasses four plagiarism checker services used to check for plagiarism in different areas.

e) Turnitin.com

This is a paid plagiarism checker service that targets academic institutions. It is used by teachers and Professors in plagiarism prevention and for catching plagiarism. This service has an extensive database that is used to compare papers. Turnitin.com can be integrated with other plagiarism detection software like Black Board to ease plagiarism detection. Turnitin plagiarism checker assists in plagiarism prevention through checking for plagiarism on submitted work by searching against over 12 billion crawled and archived web pages, millions of students’ papers, newspapers, magazine and journals. It allows bulk, zipped and even individual files upload. After checking a paper for plagiarism, results are displayed and be compared side by side.

f) iThenticate.com

It is a plagiarism search engine that offers paid services for detecting internet plagiarism. iThenticate plagiarism checker targets corporations, publishers and other companies. It assists in avoiding plagiarism by comparing documents to document and searches against the internet and proprietary offline databases. It also offers IP protection as a way of preventing online plagiarism. It uses patented plagiarism software with a very fast turn-around. Its offline database links with other databases worldwide. It also uses ABC-CLIO. This is a database containing electronic books and reference material from publishers, media, researchers, legal, government, and financial. iThenticate plagiarism checker reports with four different similar reports showing material that matched.

g) WriteCheck.Turnitin.com

It is a paid plagiarism checker powered by Turnitin that helps a student to check a paper for plagiarism. Besides being a plagiarism finder, it can spell check and correct grammar. It accepts all standard formats for submission. To run a plagiarism check, a student can upload a document in WordPerfect, PostScript, MS Word, HTML, PDF and RTF. It also allows cutting and pasting plain text on the submission window with a maximum of 5,000 words. When reporting, it shows unoriginal content and offer suggestions on how to avoid plagiarism by giving tips on proper citation or paraphrasing. It has a turn-around of 5-15 minutes depending on load.

h) Turnitinadmissions.com

It offers paid plagiarism detection service for academic institutions with a 30 day free trial. It uses the same plagiarism software as Turnitin for detecting plagiarism during admission into graduate or undergraduate programs. It is a plagiarism finder that assists in finding recycled or duplicate submission, purchased documents, scholarships and admission essays, reference letters, personal and residency statements. It accepts all standard file formats. Turnitinadmissions works by searching linked databases from different institutions.

2. http://www.copyscape.com

Rating: 4.8 out of 5

This is an online service used for detecting online plagiarism. Copyscape is one of the most renowned plagiarism search engine. It offers two types of plagiarism detection services. The free service can be used to check for plagiarism by entering a website’s URL and Copyscape’s plagiarism checker will check for matching content from other websites. In avoiding plagiarism, Copyscape offers free “do not copy” banners to test on a website. Their paid services are:

a) Copyscape Premium

It offers plagiarism detection for content buyers and website owners. It is a paid service that charges 5c per search and requires a user to sign up. Their plagiarism finder uses Google API and to fasten plagiarism detection, they crawl and archive web pages. After running a plagiarism check, the plagiarism software displays pages that were found to match your content. It shows exact copies, partial copies and copies that have undergone content spinning. Unique features on their plagiarism detection services are case tracking that allows a user to follow up multiple cases of internet plagiarism in the future. Another striking feature about this plagiarism checker is the ability to perform bulk searches. One can check for plagiarism by submitting up to 10,000 pages in a single operation.

b) Copysentry

It helps in protecting your website against online plagiarism by checking daily or weekly for internet plagiarism or content theft and sends you an email immediately another person’s content matches yours. It is very effective against content spinning by detecting modified content. It allows the user to set the number of copied text for a match and the user can also choose sites to ignore. For a weekly protection on your web pages, a fee of $4.95 will cover up to 10 web pages and $0.25 for every additional page. For a daily protection, a fee of $19.95 is charged per month with an extra charge of $1 for every additional page per month.

CopyScape works by using an advanced proprietary statistical algorithm, powered by a search engine back end.

3. http://www.doccop.com

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

It is a web-based plagiarism checker that requires free sign up in order to run a plagiarism check. When detecting plagiarism, Doccop offers two types of services.

c) Doccop.com/file_check

For those in academia, the plagiarism software referred to as file check allows submission of up to eight .doc or .pdf files with a maximum of 100,000 each to be compared against each other. This is ideal for plagiarism detection in manuscripts, assignments, books and dissertations. When checking for plagiarism, a user can choose between a string length of 8-12 words and a report format of either .doc or .html. The plagiarism finder sends reports in emails.

d) Doccop.com/web_check

When checking for online plagiarism, a user is required to use the web check plagiarism software. Web check detects online plagiarism by searching for submitted content against the tree major search engines (Google, Yahoo and MS Bing). It does not crawl or archive web pages. It runs live plagiarism detection. It has a word limit drawback of only 550 words and a user cannot run a second plagiarism check until the first is completed. It is powered by Google and requires the IP address of the user. If the user is not using to provide an IP address, he/she cannot use Web Check.

Doccop neither archives results nor checks for plagiarism against databases. Submitted material is deleted after a plagiarism check is over. Doccop will not check for plagiarism on material containing profane, obscene, defamatory, indecent and unlawful material. It does not assure accuracy of reports. It has a fast turn-around and can complete a 550 word web check in 45 seconds depending on load. It has status button used for checking the status of your plagiarism check and the load on the system. When displaying results, texts suspected to have been copied will be capitalized and highlighted in green. Currently Doccop has 24,913 users.

4. http://checkforplagiarism.net/

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

This is a plagiarism checker offering plagiarism detection services that targets students, teachers, writers and professionals. Being a US and UK based company, it has access to numerous databases in both countries and other databases worldwide. They also offer special searches targeting specific fields such as medicine, law and schools etc. Their plagiarism search engine will also check for plagiarism on the internet. When checking for online plagiarism, they use archived and live web pages, blogs, forums and bulletin boards. After running a plagiarism check on publications such as books, magazines, articles and newspapers, their report will hint on intentional or un-intentional plagiarism.

In addition to publications, databases and the internet, this plagiarism software has a patented approach to plagiarism whereby it checks whether a document was paraphrased improperly. It can also be used for plagiarism detection to check on words and phrases that were spanned. This is possible when it runs a document changing synonyms and re-running the check to come up with different documents. This is because most software spinners in the market will only change synonyms and a few phrases making avoiding plagiarism detection possible. Their plagiarism checker allows comparison of multiple documents to spot differences and plagiarism. This feature is charged extra.

Besides being a plagiarism finder, checkforplagiarism.net offers plagiarism correction services. After you check a paper for plagiarism, you can submit for correction and proofreading. This is done within 14-48 hrs. Correcting plagiarism and proofreading a 500 word document will be charged around $70. A cheaper way would be to use their custom paper writing services which would charge $33 for a 500 word document. It accepts files submitted in standard file formats including the latest .DOCX. They do not retain copies of submitted documents. The plagiarism checker supports documents written in Spanish, German, French, English, Italian, and most Western languages.

5. http://www.plagiarism.com

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Also known as Glatt Plagiarism Services offers 3 different programs that help in avoiding plagiarism as well as assist in plagiarism detection. Plagiarism.com targets plagiarism in academia. It is the oldest plagiarism checker.

d) Glatt Plagiarism Teaching Program (GPTeach)

This is plagiarism software that teaches what plagiarism is and how to avoid plagiarism. Its computer based software that expounds on direct and indirect plagiarism. It helps students in detecting plagiarism in their work, and aide them in re-writing. It instructs students about plagiarism constitution and ways of avoiding it. With this program, students are taught the differences between paraphrasing and plagiarizing, and proper attributions and citations. Glatt Plagiarism Teaching Program is easy to use and enables a student learn how to avoid plagiarism.

e) Glatt Plagiarism Screening Program (GPSP)

It is a plagiarism checker that does plagiarism detection using the “cloze procedure” created by Wilson Taylor. Sometimes a student can order a custom written paper which will pass any plagiarism checker. This program can be used by a teacher or professor if a student’s paper is suspected to be custom. The program will eliminate every fifth word and replaces it with a blank space. The student will then be asked to fill in the missing words. The student is expected to remember the missing words so the number of correct responses, time used for intervention, and other factors are used to consider the final plagiarism score.

f) Glatt Plagiarism Self-Detection Program (GPSD)

This is a plagiarism checker designed to help someone become more accustomed to his/her own writing style. It also gives some insight on how someone can detect and avoid plagiarism. For $65 you can order the plagiarism software that can be installed on your computer. Though not as effective as the GPSP, it gives the user an idea of text that someone may have unintentionally plagiarized. It is good to note that results from the self-test are less reliable thus advisable to run a plagiarism check with another plagiarism finder.

6. http://www.plagiarismfinder.com

Rating: 2 out of 5

This is a windows’ based plagiarism checker that checks documents in PDF, HTML, .DOC, TXT and RTF. After running a plagiarism check, it displays results on the screen. It highlights areas that the plagiarism finder found to be copied and provides links to the source. Once you purchase the installation package, it has an unlimited license with an unlimited submission of documents for plagiarism check. It is compatible with Windows XP, VISTA and Window 7. It is available at €149 on a CD or €299 in a USB stick. It also offers a 30 day free trial.

This software can also be used to run a plagiarism check in reverse. Authors or journalists, who have copy written material, can run a check omitting websites that have been permitted to use their content. The plagiarism checker will search and report on websites that are using their content without their permission. The turn-around is usually 2-40 minutes depending on the level of scan. A user can run a random, detailed, normal, or user defined plagiarism check. It does not archive documents. This is because the plagiarism checker runs directly from the computer. Running a check from your computer is the only way you can be sure that your data is not being store elsewhere.

This plagiarism detection software will edit a maximum of 1,000 documents at a go and review 1,000 pages. Regardless of the language used in the document, this plagiarism checker automatically detects up to 6 languages and updates online for two years at no extra charge. The plagiarism search engine does not transfer any data to foreign servers. It is commonly used in Germany, Austria and Switzerland with over 5,000 installed versions. Depending on the settings, plagiarismfinder can be used by multiple users.

7. http://www.safeassignment.com

Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Safeassignment.com is a plagiarism checker service that integrates with BlackBoard. It was designed to help in catching plagiarism in academia. It’s accessible by students and instructors. Besides being used to check for plagiarism, it has features that educate about plagiarism and how to properly attribute any borrowed content so as to avoid being red-flagged by plagiarism software. The plagiarism checker uses the same technology as MyDropBox from Sciworth Inc. BlackBoard offers plagiarism check services only to clients with BlackBoard Enterprise Licenses. Currently, is available in English but can generate reports on all alphabet based languages.

The Safeassignment plagiarism search engine checks submitted papers against the internet, ProQuest ABI/Inform database with over 2.6 million articles dating back to the 90s. It will also check for plagiarism against institutional documents archives and Global Reference Database that contain papers from various institutions. This helps in preventing plagiarism across institutions. Safeassignment will retain a copy of every document that runs through their plagiarism checker although BlackBoard never claims ownership rights to any content submitted. Safeassignment supports plagiarism check submissions in .DOC, .TXT, .RTF, .PDF and HTML. Currently, it does not support MS DOCX. It also works on load balanced multi-server BlackBoard systems used by large institutions.

To ease plagiarism detection, Safeassignment allows instructors to instruct students to submit papers via the BlackBoard with Safeassign integrated and Safeassign plagiarism checker will run plagiarism check and submit the assignment together with the originality report to the instructor. The originality report highlights text that is copied and links back to the source whether on the internet, content databases or the submitted documents. This allows a line-by-line comparison of an original text and the matching source. Although students are requested to submit papers to the Global Reference Database voluntarily, they cannot remove the papers they submitted in the future. Most people term this as a violation of student copyright.

8. http://www.plagiarismdetect.com

Rating: 3.9 out of 5

It offers both paid and free services for plagiarism detection. The free service requires registration and the paid service costs $14.99 per month. The free plagiarism checker service has a slower turn-around and only supports .DOC and TEXT files. The paid service uses an advanced multi-layered algorithm during plagiarism detection. The first algorithm calculates results found and passes them to the next plagiarism checker. Based on the results of the first plagiarism check, the second algorithm runs a check and passes it to the third. After all three algorithms are through with checking for online plagiarism, a report is generated based on the similarity percentage results.

The paid plagiarism check service APDS (Advanced Plagiarism Detection Service) supports direct upload of 8 different file formats (.TXT, .DOC, .DOCX, .RTF, PPT, PPTX, XLS, XLSX). For plagiarism check in academia, tutors or instructors can upload up to 20 papers on the plagiarism checker and they will get a report detailing plagiarism and similarity detected. Plagiarismdetect.com holds a personal database and does not link to other databases. This means that, it is more suitable for detecting online plagiarism than offline.

The plagiarism checker can detect encoding plagiarism. Encoding plagiarism is where a writer would change an English letter to a Cyrillic letter. When you run a plagiarism check on this plagiarism checker, it will detect whether the correct encoding is being used.

Plagiarismdetect.com also offers a plagiarism check plug-in for use with MS Word 2007. This tool helps in plagiarism correction as it will check for plagiarism as you type. This saves time and avoids accidental plagiarism. Once plagiarism is detected, it will give a report with the links of sources that matched your text. The report includes the percentage of the checked text, number of words and the sources. The MS Word plug-in is a good choice for people who are worried about the privacy of their content. This is because it checks and reports in real time from your computer.

9. http://www.scanmyessay.com

Rating: 3 out of 5

It is a free service that requires a user to install their plagiarism software called Viper on a Windows based computer. Viper runs on Microsoft .NET 2.0 Framework. It checks academic papers against 10 billion resources. Besides offering plagiarism detection online, Viper can be used to scan documents in your computer. This can be useful to instructors and tutors when checking submitted documents against each other. After the plagiarism checker completes a plagiarism check, it highlights the similarity of the documents and offers a side-by-side comparison. Its unique feature is the ability to choose a specific area e.g. health, computers, law etc before running plagiarism detection.

Although Viper is free to use, when a user uses this service to check for plagiarism, it will retain a copy of any processed document. It may also use the documents to market Viper or any website associated with the company. On their terms and conditions, the following should be noted: “…you agree that any right you may have to remuneration for the use of the documents to which you hold the copyright is waived. Academic Answers Limited agree not to use documents by the program without your consent, and in any event, not within six months of the document being processed.”

Alongside plagiarism check, Viper also offers editing services. This is offered in three levels: gold, silver and bronze. Gold offers proofreading, grading and editing for plagiarism correction. Students can order for custom papers of up to a maximum of 50000 words on almost any given subject. The paper is delivered within 48 hours and will cost £450. Scanmyessay also offers ‘Protect My Essay’ services. This is an online storage service where students can upload their documents. It is a paid service with a 30 day trial. Viper has no limitation on documents lengths or re-submissions. It supports .TXT, .DOC, .RTF and HTML. Although version 1.5.00 detects .RTF file as corrupted.

10. http://www.duplichecker.com

Rating: 2 out of 5

Duplichecker is a web-based free plagiarism checker. The plagiarism software allows a user to cut-and-paste or submits files in .TXT format. When running a plagiarism check, the user can check for plagiarism without quotes or with quotes. The plagiarism checker will check for plagiarism using Google, Yahoo or MSN. The user gets to choose. About 332682 people have used this service to run a plagiarism check. Duplichecker recommends a user to use Mozilla Firefox when running a plagiarism check because Mozilla enables a quicker processing speed.

On its website, Duplichecker also offers tutorial services. It defines plagiarism, types of plagiarism and ways of avoiding plagiarism. It states that minimal plagiarism is a type that is common in academia and is done by synonym substitution. It also defines substantial plagiarismas where a document is added more details and the pattern of words are changed. Still on the tutorial service, Duplichecker shows that complete plagiarism occurs when a document has not been changed or re-worded.

Plagiarism has become widely spread from academia to preaching. Plagiarism in preaching has also being reported. This is where a pastor takes sermon prepared and preached by another pastor and uses it for a sermon.

Software plagiarism is where a student or any other coder copies source code, modifies it a bit and claims ownership. Many plagiarism check services will not run a plagiarism check on source code. https://www.ipd.uni-karlsruhe.de/jplag/ offers plagiarism check services aimed at detecting software plagiarism. Jplag was created by Guido Malpohl in 1996. Jplag is owned by Karlsruhe Institute of Technology under Institute for Program Structures and Data Organization. (IPD).