If we steal thoughts from the moderns, it will be cried down as plagiarism; if from the ancients, it will be cried up as erudition. - Charles Caleb Colton
What is Plagiarism?
Plagiarism occurs when a writer duplicates another writer's language or ideas and then calls the work his or her own. Copyright laws protect writers' words as their legal property. To avoid the charge of plagiarism, writers take care to credit those from whom they borrow and quote. Note: Similar theft in music or other arts is also called plagiarism. - The American Heritage® New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, (2005) Third Edition, Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Plagiarism Detectors
In schools, colleges and universities plagiarism is a very serious offense and it should result in penalties such as reducing or not passing grades on assignments. However, many students cheat because they believe that dishonesty is okay to achieve success in modern society. Teachers (and institutions) sometimes also cheat, so as to inflate the results of tests given in their classrooms. There are various motives for that.
Causes of Plagiarism
The most common causes of plagiarism:
1. Not enough time to accomplish an assignment.
2. No or poor language skills.
3. Not understanding plagiarism and copyright issues.
4. No citation skills.
5. No anti-plagiarism policy and no punishment rules in secondary schools.
Types of Plagiarism
It is commonly believed that there are two basic 'types' of plagiarism:
1. Intentional.
2. Unintentional.
It is often hard to establish the degree of 'intentionality' or 'unintentionality.' Some researchers differentiate collusion – a secret agreement for fraudulent or treacherous purposes: either the paper was written jointly and presented as if done individually or done and corrected by someone else.
How to Detect Plagiarism?
There is no ideal and 100% reliable plagiarism detection software. Some scholars argue that many online companies dealing with anti-plagiarism are simply not honest. In Chronicle.com we can find the following information: “Two online services that help professors check student papers for plagiarism, PlagiServe.com and EduTie.com, appear to have ties to websites that sell term papers to students. The two services might be secretly selling the very papers that they claim to check” [See the article written by Jeffrey R. Young. Anti-Plagiarism Experts Raise Questions about Services with Links to Sites Selling Papers].
Online Plagiarism Detectors 1.Googlehttp://www.google.com can be used as a free plagiarism detection tool to track down Internet plagiarism. Google search engine can locate key phrases that may appear in students' papers. Perform an exact phrase search on a phrase from a suspect part of the paper using the Advanced Search: Step 1. On Google's main page, click on “Advanced Search”. Step 2. Select a phrase from a suspect paper and type in the "with the exact phrase" search box and click on "Google Search". 2.PlagiarismChecker: http://www.plagiarismchecker.com 3.DocCop:http://www.doccop.com is fast, capable of processing one million words within 20 minutes. 4.CopyScape: http://www.copyscape.com/ checks website content. 5.DupliChecker: http://www.duplichecker.com is simple to use - enter your text and press Search.
Reliable Plagiarism Detectors Can be Purchased Online