Plagiarism Detection Software

wills72

Hi

I have been wrongly accused of plagiarism. A sentence that I wrote was similar to one on a website, so my university said I 'Lightly paraphrased'. I now have to write another 3000 words. The whole procedure has been an absolute nightmare.

I know they use plagiarism detection software, I want to be able to do the same. Not so I can cheat, but so I can make sure I don't write anything similar to sites that I haven't visited!

All the software sites I have found seem to be for universities - does anyone know of any for students?

Thanks.

aurora_borealis_2

try here

I use google (for students).

studentphil

I am sorry they are completely frightened to death of Plagiarism to the degree thaat it is stupid. Things like people have been given 0 for missing quote marks or rephrasing lecture handouts. It is a bit stupid how unreasonable some places seem about it.


Do you submit in electronic format as that is the only way it will have gone through Plagiarism software?

I think most people would not call Rephrasing or Rewording as Plagiarism as long as you put you have read the piece somewhere in your writing.

tomstickland

Like all things, the software can only do much, after that a person should review the content.

I can see both sides of it. Some people are so unimaginative that they probably would just cut and paste stuff from the internet rather than bother rewording it. Then again, lazy teaching staff can save themselves a lot of effort by just running all the essays through some wonder software.

In the OPs case, if one bit of one sentence is claimed to be plagiarised why are they demanding so much extra?

sentence that I wrote was similar to one on a website

Similar! Most sentences are going to be similar to another one somewhere.

studentphil

Sadly with Plagiarism like this that is not really Plagiarism in the bad sense it is often the universities fault for setting questions that are not original as so it means that people often have almost near answers to access anyway or the title encourages people just try and rewrite the sources.
Any essays titles with what are is X or theory X as a major element of the title is just opening the door to Plagiarism

Oldernotwiser

studentphil wrote:

I am sorry they are completely frightened to death of Plagiarism to the degree thaat it is stupid. Things like people have been given 0 for missing quote marks or rephrasing lecture handouts. It is a bit stupid how unreasonable some places seem about it.


Do you submit in electronic format as that is the only way it will have gone through Plagiarism software?

I think most people would not call Rephrasing or Rewording as Plagiarism as long as you put you have read the piece somewhere in your writing.

But if you leave out quotation marks there's no way of telling that you've used somebody else's words; you're talking as though it's the same thing as missing out a comma! If you've used the lecture handouts then you need to cite them in your bibliography or footnotes; if you've not been taught these academic conventions then perhaps you should suggest that it should be covered in a study skills tutorial period. In my experience this is usually the case but perhaps some institutions neglect to do so.

melancholly

when you mark work, it can be very obvious when certain parts are plagiarised. the whole essay has a certain style and then there are one or two paragraphs which stand out as having different sentence structures. it really can stand out a mile. the other dead give away is when all 40 essays you mark all use exactly the same phrase, not put in inverted commas and without a citation.

using sources is not a bad thing, but you have to cite them in the text. if you 'lightly paraphrase' someone else's work, then immediately cite them at the end of that sentence. then you're not trying to claim credit for their words.

there are a lot of people who abuse the internet and copy and paste in huge chunks of work. it undermines all of the work that diligent students do.

sounds like a total nightmare to re-write an essay - but as universities automatically 'expel' students who are found to be plagiarising in their work, you could be in a much much worse situation. just add in all the citations and it severely reduces your chances of being accused.

incidentally, i don't think universities setting questions that students can answer is any kind of excuse for plagiarism. students are not 'encouraged' to simply re-write sources; they are daft for thinking they will get away with it and by doing so, are showing no understanding of the literature themselves. being accused of plagiarism for one sentence, as with the OP, is extreme, but people who do nothing more than paraphrase handouts are just being lazy.

most universities now make students sign a form stating that they understand what plagiarism is and the consequences of doing so. the idea that the nature of the questions opens the door to plagiarism is just a poor poor excuse.

MercilessKiller

studentphil wrote:

Sadly with Plagiarism like this that is not really Plagiarism in the bad sense it is often the universities fault for setting questions that are not original as so it means that people often have almost near answers to access anyway or the title encourages people just try and rewrite the sources.
Any essays titles with what are is X or theory X as a major element of the title is just opening the door to Plagiarism

I agree!

In our fundamentals of mobile computing courseowrk it was asking questions about infrastructure of different technologies which is given as VERY short bullet points in lectures, so no matter who's writing it its going to look the same or similar to the points from the lecture...

I.e Phase Shift Keying Moduleation is used for a certain technology and requires a certain addition to the infrastructure!

Obiviously that can be re-worded but how many times? And surely even without remembering the words exactly you MAY write down the same thing purely by accident!

The way it was put to us was if whole paragraph's were copied THEN its plagarism unless special references were used etc.

studentphil

If you Paraphrase then adding in "Mr Smith is taken here to mean . . . " then it makes it clear that you are using someone else's ideas in some way but you are using your own words and adding your take to it

studentphil

Oldernotwiser wrote:

But if you leave out quotation marks there's no way of telling that you've used somebody else's words; you're talking as though it's the same thing as missing out a comma! If you've used the lecture handouts then you need to cite them in your bibliography or footnotes; if you've not been taught these academic conventions then perhaps you should suggest that it should be covered in a study skills tutorial period. In my experience this is usually the case but perhaps some institutions neglect to do so.

But it is an error not a crime. Plagiarism is a university crime, missing out a quote mark is an error and is not really intensioned Plagiarism in most cases, so Universities should be flexiable and slightly forgiving.

studentphil

melancholly wrote:

when you mark work, it can be very obvious when certain parts are plagiarised. the whole essay has a certain style and then there are one or two paragraphs which stand out as having different sentence structures. it really can stand out a mile. the other dead give away is when all 40 essays you mark all use exactly the same phrase, not put in inverted commas and without a citation.

using sources is not a bad thing, but you have to cite them in the text. if you 'lightly paraphrase' someone else's work, then immediately cite them at the end of that sentence. then you're not trying to claim credit for their words.

there are a lot of people who abuse the internet and copy and paste in huge chunks of work. it undermines all of the work that diligent students do.

sounds like a total nightmare to re-write an essay - but as universities automatically 'expel' students who are found to be plagiarising in their work, you could be in a much much worse situation. just add in all the citations and it severely reduces your chances of being accused.

incidentally, i don't think universities setting questions that students can answer is any kind of excuse for plagiarism. students are not 'encouraged' to simply re-write sources; they are daft for thinking they will get away with it and by doing so, are showing no understanding of the literature themselves. being accused of plagiarism for one sentence, as with the OP, is extreme, but people who do nothing more than paraphrase handouts are just being lazy.

most universities now make students sign a form stating that they understand what plagiarism is and the consequences of doing so. the idea that the nature of the questions opens the door to plagiarism is just a poor poor excuse.

A what question or a define question does open the door to Plagiarism as naturally people will look in the text book or for the article that answers this. The question is not asking for oringinal thinking, so the marker should not be surprised if he or she gets rehashed stuff bad. That is the problem, whilst it is not an excuse, a first year who has not written many essays could easily slip into Plagiarism faced with such questions. How many original ways is there to say A is A after all?