How to Detect and Combat Plagiarism

"With the advent of the Internet, and particularly the World Wide Web, opportunities for cheating have increased significantly, while the means for detecting it seem to have diminished." Stebelman, Scott. "Cybercheating: Dishonesty Goes Digital" American Libraries, September 1998, Volume 29, Issue 8, Page 48. EBSCOhost, Version 3.1. Shasta College Library, Redding, California. 4 November 1999 <http://www.epnet.com/ehost/login.html>.

Students plagiarize assignments for a variety of reasons. Here are some ways to detect and combat plagiarized material:

Detecting Plagiarism

Change in writing style or tone of the paper.
Vocabulary with which the student would be unfamiliar.
Odd layout of the paper or strange use of space on the page.
Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is listed at the top and/or bottom of the paper.
Student is unfamiliar with the materials cited in the paper.
Try to locate the paper via Web search engines. For example, an AltaVista search of the terms "john howard griffin" +"white society" +"leading advocate" found the English class example paper "Black Like Me."
See the October 1999 edition of California Educator. This issue features information about cheating and plagiarism.
Other ideas?

Combating Plagiarism

Make students aware of what plagiarism is and why it is wrong.
Make the paper assignment a process by requiring rough drafts, outlines, etc.
Inform students that you are aware of online paper mills and also the ways that students plagiarize from electronic sources.
Have students submit written work at the beginning of the semester so that you will have examples of their writing styles.
Explore services that are designed to prevent plagiarism. For example, Integriguard and Plagiarism.org are fee-based services that help instructors deter plagiarism.
Have the students discuss their papers in class after the assignment is due.
Other ideas?

Shasta College Library
http://library.shastacollege.edu/detectcombat.html

This page last updated 11/09/99