Detecting

Detecting plagiarism isn’t always easy, but there are some cases where it will be obvious — especially for instructors who’ve become familiar with their students’ work. For example, a teacher acquainted with a student’s writing style and participation in classroom discussion might find something fishy about specialized vocabulary, scholarly language, or terms of expression out of character for that student.

Here are some other ideas for detecting plagiarism:

Look for visual clues:

Unusual formatting, for example inconsistent font sizes or styles, greyed out letters or words, multiple page numbers on a single page
Mixed citation styles
Mixed up spelling styles, for example American and Canadian stylings: both "color" and "colour", "centre" and "center"
Strange or poor layout
Strange grammar or syntax (could be the result of using a web translation service to translate a copied paper into French or German and then back to English to foil detection).
Quotations that sound out of place
Sections or sentences that do not relate
Anachronisms
Check for original author identification clues
Check for original source identification clues
Essay was printed from browser

Look for content cues:

Does the paper line up with the assignment?
Is it the correct type of paper — descriptive, narrative, research-oriented?
Does it stray off topic, with a few paragraphs thrown in to bring it back?
Is the language consistent? Does it stay at a consistent level, or change from good to poor and back again?
Bibliography:
- Does the bibliography use a consistent style?
- Are sources current or out of date?
- Does the bibliography match sources referenced in the paper?
- Are the reference books cited available locally?
- Are the web sites listed active?

Student knowledge of paper content:

Can the student summarize the main points in their paper?
Can the student provide copies of cited material?
Can the student produce detailed research notes?

Tracking down originals:

Look for original text of sources listed
Search for unique keywords or phrases in Google or the search engine of your choice
Visit term paper mills
Browse Yahoo! especially Business and Economy:Shopping and Services:Writing and Editing: Academic Services: Research and Term Papers

Online detection services:

Turnitin.com
Google
Software for your computer: Plagiarism Resource Center (University of Virginia) distributes free software to detect plagiarism but requires local database of papers or texts to match (free); Glatt Plagiarism Services software to detect plagiarism ($300); Eve Software agent that searches the Web to compare a suspect paper with Internet content ($20/instructor)
Plagiarism.org maintain a large database of digital material including online paper mills and papers from academic web sites. A paper is compared against the database, utilizing a matching algorithm, resulting in a report of originality. ($100-$750)
MOSS A System for Detecting Software Plagiarism — an automatic system for determining the similarity of C, C++, Java, Pascal, Ada, ML, Lisp, or Scheme programs