15 hours of free training in just 5 minutes a day
 
Sign up here to get
Free Daily Technology Tips
Email:
  Home              Index Mission Statement Links                  Articles

Sign Up Now

Google
Web 180techtips.com

 
Technology Tip Number 10
To Catch a Plagiarist

So you’re reading a student’s essay and you’re shocked!   It’s outstanding, exactly what you wanted to see.  Unfortunately some things are just too good to be true.  Your student might have just become one of the millions of kids each year who choose to copy a paper (or parts of a paper) off the internet rather than do their own work.  You may have just caught a plagiarist.  But how do you prove it? 

Consider the definition for plagiarism that I have listed below:

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, whether intentional or unintentional, is a breach of professional or academic trust, in which a person takes credit for someone else's work. It comes from a Latin word meaning 'kidnapper,' because a plagiarist is one who makes off with another person's ideas.
 

Let's say a student just turned this definition in to you and you were concerned that this wasn’t their work.  Let's say you suspect they just copied and pasted this definition from the internet.  Here’s the easy way to catch a plagiarist.  Go to http://www.google.com and type a phrase or sentence from the suspected work into Google in quotes, like this:

Click “Google Search” and if you’re right you’ll find the exact webpage the suspected plagiarist pilfered their work from.

And your students thought you’d
never figure out how to catch them.

Additional Information:  If you're looking for a more sophisticated way to check a student's work against the internet try this website:  http://www.doccop.com/.   DOC Cop claims to compare the submitted work to the internet and it provides a report  that details the correlations and matches between the submitted document and the web.  There are some fees involved but you can do a paragraph check for free:  http://www.doccop.com/paragraph_check.html

Here are some additional readings on the topic:

To Catch a Plagiarist, by Sally Feldman, Times Higher Education in the United Kingdom.

Researching English Papers Online, by Denis G. Jerz, Associate Professor at Seton Hill University in Pennsylvania.

Plagiarism.org - The online resource for people concerned about internet plagiarism.

PRACTICE ACTIVITY Try finding the website I copied the definition for plagiarism from.  If you can’t find it I have listed the webpage below under “Works Cited”

TO KEEP ON LEARNING:  Just as students can use technology to cheat educators have to know how to use technology to catch them.  To learn more about using technology to catch plagiarists try searching the internet for:

Plagiarism
Catching plagiarists
free research papers
 

Have a Nice Day!

Works Cited

Jerz, Dennis G. "Jerz's Online Resource Room." Researching English Papers Online. 19 Apr. 2001. Seton Hill University. 15 Sept. 2005 <http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/academic/research/online.htm>.

Google
 
Web www.180techtips.com
 
 

 

Technology Tips Index:
 
 

 Microsoft Windows

 

 Internet

   Computer Hardware
   MS Outlook
   MS PowerPoint
   MS Excel
   MS Word
         
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20
21 22 23 24 25
26 27 28 29 30
31 32 33 34 35
36 37 38 39 40
41 42 43 44 45
46 47 48 49 50
51 52 53 54 55
56 57 58 59 60
61 62 63 64 65
66 67 68 69 70
71 72 73 74 75
76 77 78 79 80
81 82 83 84 85
86 87 88 89 90
91 92 93 94 95
96 97 98 99 100
101 102 103 104 105
106 107 108 109 110
111 112 113 114 115
116 117 118 119 120
121 122 123 124 125
126 127 128 129 130
131 132 133 134 135
136 137 138 139 140
141 142 143 144 145
146 147 148 149 150
151 152 153 154 155
156 157 158 159 160
161 162 163 164 165
166 167 168 169 170
171 172 173 174 175
176 177 178 179 180
         
         

Home & Index
Mission Statement
Links

Sign Up Now!
to get
Free Daily Technology Tips


Free Quote Slides

   
Copyright © 2006- 180TechTips.com