INTERNET RESEARCH

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

A faculty workshop on detecting & preventing high-tech plagiarism as well as evaluating the internet sources your students use

 

 
TOOLS TO DETECT & PREVENT PLAGIARISM

 

I.  How Can You Spot a Plagiarized Paper?

 

  Dead Giveaways

[Online] Available http://www.plagiarized.com/deadgive.shtml
This page provides a great list of "warning signs" to watch out for.

 

Student Cheating & Plagiarism In the Internet Era - Chapter 13  & 14

Chapter 13 covers the following indicators of possible plagiarism in great detail:

A Paper Seems to Be "Too Good"
A Paper Sounds Familiar
A Paper Appears to Be Just "A Little Bit Off"

Chapter 14 covers "structuring an effective assignment for a report or research paper".  There is a wealth of information in this chapter on how to create plagiarism-proof papers.

 

II.  Using Fire to Fight Fire - Using the Internet to locate the
       copied source

 

A.  Take heart teachers!!  I agree with the author of Eve 2.2.  "Teachers should use the internet as the best tool they have ever had for catching plagiarists!"  There are many ways to detect instances of plagiarism.  Here is the easiest, the cheapest, and the least time consuming:

1. Choose a relatively unique sequence of 8-10 words from the paper
2. Go to www.google.com or some other good search engine
3. Type the sequence of words in the search box.  Be sure to put quotation marks around the phrase.
4. In seconds you should receive a list of WebPages where that phrase appears.

B.  Use the following sites for other techniques!!

  Canexus.com

[Online] Available http://www.canexus.com

"EVE2 is a very powerful tool that allows professors and teachers at all levels of the education system to determine if students have plagiarized material from the World Wide Web. EVE2 accepts essays in plain text, Microsoft Word, or Corel Word Perfect format and returns links to web pages from which a student may have plagiarized. EVE2 has been developed to be powerful enough to find plagiarized material while not overwhelming the professor with false links."

 

  Cheating 101: Paper Mills and You

[Online] Available http://www.coastal.edu/library/papermil.htm
This great site from the Kimbel Library at Coastal Carolina University, covers the essentials about the online plagiarism issue.

 

GLATT Plagiarism Service

http://www.plagiarism.com
This company sells plagiarism detection and plagiarism teaching software.

MOSS

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~aiken/moss.html
"Moss (for a Measure Of Software Similarity) is an automatic system for determining the similarity of C, C++, Java, Pascal, Ada, ML, Lisp, or Scheme programs."

  PlagiServe

[Online] Available http://www.plagiserve.com 
"PlagiServe is [a] service designed to assist educators in detecting academic dishonesty. It is a powerful tool that verifies the originality of papers by using the latest Internet-based technology." (Plagiserve.com) This is a free service and many people are quite pleased with the results. It is easy to register and get started.

 

  Plagiarism and Anti-Plagiarism

[Online] Available http://newark.rutgers.edu/~ehrlich/plagiarism598.html
A useful site with a lot of information, suggestions and links from Rutgers University.

 

    Turnitin.com

[Online] Available http://www.turnitin.com/
You can sign up for a free trial at this site. You just submit your class papers and the system will send you back an originality report. Studies have shown this site to be the most accurate of this type of site. It is fee-based, but is relatively inexpensive for a single user. This is used by RIT and many other colleges and universities.  Many districts might consider a site license too expensive.  For additional information, read "Plagiarizers Beware: Turnitin.com is here to stop your cheating ways".

 

WordCheck: Keyword Software

http://www.wordchecksystems.com/
Plagiarism software that can be downloaded on a free trial basis.

 

III.  Stoping the Plagiarism/Cheating Monster Before It Rears Its Ugly Head

  Anti-Plagiarism Strategies for Research Papers

[Online] Available http://www.virtualsalt.com/antiplag.htm
As well as listing multitudes of "paper mills", the author provides insight into techniques that teachers can use to prevent plagiarism before it starts.

 

  Beating the Cheating

http://gladstone.vsb.bc.ca/library/cheating/
A WebQuest for teachers.

 

  Eagle Online - Cheating is common

http://eagle6.stark.k12.oh.us/Smith%20Stuff/allnews/news/97412/cheating.html
Here is an article written by students for The Glen Oak High School Student Newspaper about student cheating.   The following ways for teachers to stop cheating are listed.

·an ethics code for all;
·an honor statement signed by all students in class;
·peer group counseling;
·seat students as far away from one another as possible during
tests;
·different versions of tests;
·vary tests from year to year;
·automatic F.

  How Cheating Helps Drive Better Instruction

[Online] Available http://plagiarized.com/vanb.shtml
This article from www.plagiarised.org provides some techniques to discourage student plagiarism.

 

  How to Lessen the Chances of Plagiarizing

[Online] Available http://quarles.unbc.edu/lsc/rpplagia.html
This page is intended for students to read.  It provides tips for avoiding intentional and unintentional plagiarism.  From the Learning Skills Centre at the University of Northern British Columbia.

Seven Antidotes to Prevent Highway Robbery in an Electronic Age

[Online] Available http://fno.org/may98/cov98may.html
an article about the "new plagiarism" by Jamie McKenzie, author and editor of From Now On:  The Educational Technology Journal.

 

Plagiarism and the Web

[Online] Available http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfbhl/wiu/plagiarism.htm
This site is maintained by Bruce Leland, Knowledge Coordinator, Western Illinois University, Macomb IL 61455 Of special interest to teachers is the second part of the page which begins as follows" "What is a teacher to do? Here are some suggestions (many of which also help with the much more common problem of papers borrowed or purchased from friends)."(Bruce LeLand)

  Plagiarism Q & A

[Online] Available http://www.ehhs.cmich.edu/~mspears/plagiarism.html
An excellent site on many aspects of plagiarism. This site is intended for both student and teacher use and is authored by Michael Spears, a faculty member of Grosse Pointe North High School, Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

Redesigning Assignments Using the Internet

[Online] Available http://www.eirc.org/redesign.html
A workshop on plagiarism issues and how to redesign research projects to make correct and ethical citation more understandable and easier for our students.

  TLT.SUNY.EDU (Teaching, Learning, & Technology @ SUNY)

[Online] Available http://tlt.suny.edu/cheating.htm
From The State University of New York, this page contains information on recognizing and preventing "technology enhanced academic dishonesty".   The page provides links to the sites listed here and more.  But - the best part of the page is the list of  "22 Ways to handle technology enhanced cheating".

 

  What Can We Do to Curb Student Cheating?

[Online] Available http://www.educationworld.com/a_admin/admin144/ahtml

"Education World explores the problem of cheating. Included: Ways in which teachers combat cheating!"

Plagiarism and the Web

[Online] Available http://www.wiu.edu/users/mfbhl/wiu/plagiarism.htm
This site is maintained by Bruce Leland, Knowledge Coordinator, Western Illinois University, Macomb IL 61455 Of special interest to teachers is the second part of the page which begins as follows" "What is a teacher to do? Here are some suggestions (many of which also help with the much more common problem of papers borrowed or purchased from friends)."(Bruce LeLand)

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Background	Cheating	Paper Mills
Tools for Detecting & Preventing Plagiarism	Teaching Ethics & Determining Consequences
Critical Evaluation Techniques! ~ OR ~ It MUST be true! - I Found It On the Internet