Is anti-plagiarism software working?

As some form of anti-plagiarism software is used extensively in colleges around the world, the question should be raised: Are they actually successful in reducing plagiarism?

One report I researched suggested that plagiarism fell 4.3% in a short space of time in one university after the students were informed of the introduction of anti-plagiarism software. This would seem to indicate that the technology has a key role to play. But did plagiarism decrease because the students suddenly wanted to produce original work, or did the fear of getting caught have more to do with it?

In my view, the best way to reduce plagiarism is through education. Children should be taught in schools at the earliest opportunity the value of thinking for themselves. In this way we can have better graduates coming out of universities in years to come that are more valuable to the workforce in their chosen field.

Referencing

One of the key areas in avoiding plagiarism is proper referencing. Many supposed cases of plagiarism are inadvertent and can easily be avoided by properly citing sources. There are various different referencing styles which include Harvard, MLA, Oxford, Chicago and APA. Different departments may require different referencing styles for your papers so you should be clear on how to use the required one.

One of the most common referencing styles is APA which stands for American Psychological Association. I have uploaded a helpful video that is very informative on how to reference in this style. It contains information on both in-text and end-of-text referencing.

Once you get the hang of referencing, you'll find that it's not that hard to ensure your work is free from plagiarism.

 CC BY TheHartnessLibrary

Warning!

CC BY-SA 2.0 Atlanta Scott

The internet can be a great resource for learning how to avoid plagiarism, but students should beware. There is also a lot of information available with supposed 'tips' on how to trick the anti-plagiarism software into thinking your work is genuine.

Some of these tricks include:

1. Putting the whole document in quotation marks
2. Replacing spaces with white text - Turnitin won't accept this as it detects the words are too long
3. Replacing every "e" with a foreign letter that looks like it, such as a Cyrillic e
4. Usings the Macros tool in Microsoft Word to hide copied text

The anti-plagiarism software has developed a series of complex algorithms to combat all these tricks and more. None of them work, and if you're caught trying them you may look even more guilty, so don't be fooled into thinking you can get away with plagiarism!

Resources

There are many resources available online to assist students in avoiding plagiarism. Here is a quick guide to some of them that I researched. Let me know of any other good ones you find.

Plagiarism.org is a great website to help students avoid plagiarism. It defines plagiarism, has information on citing sources and a question and answer feature for individual queries. It also has a WriteCheck feature where students can submit their papers for a fee before officially submittinng it through Turnitin. It uses the same technology as Turnitin so students will know exactly how much of their paper matches other sources. At almost 8 dollars per paper it may seem a bit pricey but  there is a discount for multiple submissions and you also get your grammar checked. You can choose to pay extra to get your paper progfessionally critiqued.

http://plagiarism.org

 

A similar idea can be found at Grammarly.com which is essentially a grammar checker that claims it can correct up to 10 times more mistakes than popular word processors and correct over 250 types of grammatical mistakes. Like WriteCheck, it can also be used to check your papers for plagiarism before submission for a fee. It will check papers for plagiarism againtst 8 billion documents. The site gives you an opportunity to try before you buy so you can see if the features available are suited to your needs. I would recommend either of these sites for students if you arerequired to submit a large amount of papers through anti-plagiarism software.

http://www.grammarly.com/

 

The NUI Galway WRAP page is of particular interest to students of that University but would be helpful to all students. WRAP stands for Writing, Referencing & Avoiding Plagiarism and it contains a lot of very useful infomation on how to write better papers that adhere to the University's guidelines. It gives the official Uiversity's definition of plagiarism and explains the procedures that will be followed if a student is suspected of plagiarism. It contains information on proper referencing as well as online tutorials and a quiz that gives a good understanding of what constitutes plagiarism.

http://nuigalway.ie/wrap/

 

 

Presentation

How The Internet Affects Plagiarism from c_rudden

This is an Ignite presentation I gave as part of my CT231 course. Some of the slides may seem a bit obscure without the words but I'll be going into more detail on some of the topics at a later date. I think it gives a nice overview on what this blog is all about.

What is Plagiarism?

CC BY-SA 2.0 Valerie Everett

Plagiarism is essentially using someone else's words or ideas without acknowledgement. There are many definitions out there so rather than quote one I would suggest that students look up their own University's official definition to be clear on the guidelines.

 

In many cases, plagiarism is inadvertent and can be easily avoided through educating students on proper referencing. No-one wants to be dragged in front of an official college board and this blog aims to ensure that that will never happen. Hopefully some of the tips you will learn from this blog will be useful in your future studies.

Intro

Hi guys, and welcome to my new blog!

I have created this blog in an attempt to educate students on what plagiarism is and how to avoid it. This will hopefully lead to a more enriching college experience for all involved. This blog is intended to be run by and for students so feel free to leave any comments or suggestions along the way.