Detecting Plagiarism

In the Student Code of Conduct plagiarism is said to have occurred when a student submits:

• the words, ideas, images or data of any other person as his/her own in any academic work which is a component of a course or program of study at Mount Royal;
• information or data which have been altered or contrived in any way that is intended to mislead; and/or
• work which includes misleading references to material or references that do not accurately reflect the sources used by the individual.

What you can do to make plagiarism less likely in your classroom (Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2003):

1. Support the research and writing process. Build activities, such as peer review and submission of early drafts, into the class structure.
2. State it in writing. Policies and expectations for documenting sources and avoiding plagiarism should be provided to students in writing.
3. Create original assignments. This reduces the likelihood that stock papers on the topic will be available on the internet.
4. Teach students proper citation methods. Ensure that students understand proper methods of citation.
5. Discuss the challenges. Discuss the particular challenges involved with writing and citation and suggest strategies for students to overcome them.
6. Engage students suspected of plagiarism. Meet with students who are suspected of plagiarism to determine whether the misuse of sources was intentional.

For more on this topic check out:

• Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices, Council of Writing Program Administrators
• Addressing the Issue of Plagiarism with your Students, Yale College Writing Centre
• Preventing plagiarism, Dalhousie University

Refer your students to the following websites to learn more:

• Avoiding Plagiarism, MR library
• Avoiding Plagiarism, from the Owl at Purdue, Purdue University
• TILT, a web-based, educational site focusing on fundamental research skills
• You Quote It, You Note It, a web tutorial on avoiding plagiarism

If you suspect that plagiarism has occurred try searching for the source of the plagiarised material. Try searching the web, the library's electronic resources and the catalogue.

Search the web

Try using a search engine to search for a suspect phrase (to search for the exact phrase enclose it in quotation marks or try Google's Advanced Search). It may be useful to try searching several search engines to be comprehensive.

Search engines you may want to try: Google - Dogpile - Yahoo

Note: Search engines do not necessarily search all potential sources of plagiarised material. They may, for example, not search some paper mills or the electronic databases subscribed to by the MR library.

Search the library catalogue for items in the bibliography

Try searching the MR library catalogue for items listed in the paper's bibliography or reference list. If the item is not available through the MR library it may indicate that the student did not actually look at the book he/she has listed

Search the library's other electronic resources

The library's Articles / Encyclopedias / Dictionaries page lists hundreds of databases, encylopedias and dictionaries. These tools are excellent sources of information and, therefore, a source for potential plagiarism. A search on Google will not necessarily search any of these information sources.

Tip: When searching the databases you will want to search the full-text of the documents. Most databases allow you to select this option. The following are examples of how to do this using two of the library's most commonly used databases:

• in EBSCO's Academic Search Complete click on Search Options then place a check in the box next to Also search within the full text of articles.
• in Proquest's Research Library select More Search Options and then change the pull down menu next to Look for terms in from Citations and abstract to Citation and document text.

Software tools can assist with the process of detecting plagiarism in various ways, but the decision of whether plagiarism has occurred still remains with the instructor.

Text-matching software

These tools compare student work against various sources for matching text. If matching text is found, the instructor must determine if the passage was cited correctly or if plagiarism has indeed occurred.

Note: There are ethical concerns associated with some plagiarism detection products, including privacy issues surrounding the fact that a copy of the student's essay may be stored on a server outside of the MR campus and frequently in the United States. Turnitin has been banned by at least one university in Canada and in 2005 a student at McGill University successfully fought a mandatory policy to submit student essays to Turnitin software.

Turnitin

• Turnitin, the most commonly used text matching software
• Compares student work against a bank of previously submitted papers and the internet
• Student papers are stored in a U.S. database

Essay Verification Engine (EVE2)

• Software downloaded to instructor's computer
• Student papers are stored on the instructor's local computer.

WCopyFind

• Free software
• Download to instructor's computer
• Student papers are stored on the instructor's local computer
• Searches for matching text within the collection of documents..
• Does not search the web.

Other types of software

Glatt Plagiarism Services

• Removes every fifth word from a paper.
• The student is then asked to fill in the blanks.
• Likelihood of plagiarism is determined by a formula derived by Glatt.

• Library instruction sessions. Have students attend a library session. Librarians can include discussion of the importance of proper citation techniques and provide students with tips on correctly incorporating research into their work.
• Citation information. Citation information, including custom MR handouts are available on the library webpage.
• Search assistance to faculty. Librarians are available to help instructors search for original sources of information if plagiarism is suspected. Contact your subject librarian.