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Checking for Plagiarism
[ROUGH DRAFT]
After detecting a possible case of plagiarism, how can you check that a student plagiarized? This guide, created and maintained by Lehigh's librarians, reviews library and other sources to consult for this purpose.
This guide does not discuss cues that can help you identify possible instances of plagiarism. For example, does the student's bibliography contain anomalous or obscure sources? See the section "Informational Resources about Plagiarism " for discussions of such cues.
After identifying a case of possible plagiarism, what should you do? First, identify words, phrases, or sentence constructions that seem suspect. These can include vocabulary or complex sentence structure, or voice or sentences that are out of sync with the paper as a whole. Then, run searches in the resources identified below.
You may want students to submit the electronic file of their written work, since the ability to copy and paste phrases from student work into a search engine may relieve the need to do lots of typing when you are checking for plagiarism. Stating in your class why you require an electronic file when students submit their work might help deter plagiarism.
This webpage describes resources that can help you check for plagiarism. To discourage plagiarism from the start, you may want to look at our model assignment ideas at Resources for Faculty: Plagiarism-Proofing your Courses (**No duct tape required) on Navigating Information@Lehigh. Also, you may wish to see the other resources at this Lehigh webpage devoted to Academic Integrity Resources as well as the resources at the Center for Academic Integrity, as well as the other Informational Resources about Plagiarism below.
Resources:
Search suspect phrases from the student’s work in a popular search engine such as Google.
This webpage (Marywood University Library) illustrates how to do this in Google. Also, Google’s documentation spells out another way to do this: “If you're looking for an exact match, try a phrase search. When you enclose your search query in quotation marks, you'll only get results for the exact terms you entered in the order you entered them. For example, [ "Julia Fractals" ] rather than [ Julia Fractals ].”
The library has many databases that contain full text of documents. Some include full text for all items retrieved; others only in part. Here are some examples of how to use such databases to check for plagiarism. These databases are included in this list. (Also, check publisher websites as well as electronic books.) Consult with a Lehigh librarian if you need help identifying possibly relevant databases for your subject area. At some later point, the librarians will post here a list of full text databases and procedures for searching them.
As the examples illustrate, a general procedure is to identify suspicious keywords or phrases in the student's work, unique enough to locate readily the plagiarized article within a full text database. Look for help documentation that will supply you with examples of how to do a keyword or phrase search in relevant databases. Once you link to the article, see how to search within the article. For example, use the drag down “find” capability of your web browser or the comparable search utility if the document is in pdf.
See Further Resources for Plagiarism Checking for a discussion of bibliographic databases that do not contain full text but that can lead you (in many cases, very easily) to the full text of articles from which students may have plagiarized.
Another technique is to check whether the student's citations are real citations. Here is an example. Aside from being problematic in themselves, fabricated citations may presumptively indicate that other aspects of the student's work are also problematic.
Software (including "Turnitin")
Greg Reihman, Director of Faculty Development, created this webpage about the "Turnitin" software available at Lehigh. From the webpage: "Turnitin is a web-based tool that allows students and faculty to check for unoriginal material in papers, homework, lab reports, computer code, etc. We have also installed software that simplifies the use of Turnitin by allowing users to submit assignments and obtain results from within Blackboard. Please use this document to familiarize yourself with Turnitin and to help discover ways to use this tool appropriately and effectively."
Additionally, t he Plagiarism Resource Site includes links to open source software, forums, and essays.
Further Resources for Plagiarism Checking
In addition to the resources mentioned above, many other resources provide additional resources that can help you check for plagiarism. Lehigh's librarians can assist with their use. These resources, at least some of which you may only want to consult after using the resources above, include:
Informational Resources about Plagiarism
The following webpages are worth consulting for information about plagiarism, including cues that can alert you to possible cases of plagiarism.
For questions or comments relating to this webpage, contact a Lehigh librarian.
latest update 11/29/05