How to Identify Plagiarism in a Paper
When grading student papers, there is a simple and effective method to catching most instances of plagiarism. Just follow these steps to catch unscrupulous students in the act.
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Instructions
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Before reading each paper, mentally review the writing and research skills of the student. Watch for excellent work from students who usually turn in only fair or poor work.
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On the first reading of the paper, disregard your grading criteria and look for suspicious sections. Pay attention to citations. Papers with few or no citations may include plagiarism from students that simply don't understand the academic rules for citing sources.
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If you find a sentence that you suspect was written by someone other than the student, launch your Web browser and navigate to a powerful search engine. Enter the entire sentence with quotation marks around it and conduct a search. If an exact match appears, it is likely that the student plagiarized this source. Read the source further and compare it to the rest of the student paper.
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If you want to apply fair practices for identifying plagiarism and maximize your chances of finding it, make it a policy to search two or three random sentences from every paper on a powerful search engine.
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Tips & Warnings
Before accusing any student of plagiarism, build a strong case.
Some instances of plagiarism constitute intentional efforts to deceive teachers and avoid work. Others may simply be evidence of a failure to fully understand the concept of plagiarism and rules for citing sources. Try to determine the nature of each instance before confronting the student.
