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Plagiarism is on the rise. Many people seem to think there is nothing wrong with copying someone else's hard work and taking credit for it themselves.

Plagiarism seems to be rampant these days. Many people feel that there is nothing wrong in stealing the hard work of others; and it is stealing no matter which way you look at it.

Just look at the majority of online writing sites that don't pre-check or edit content, and you will see articles lifted right off other websites. Many students, instead of doing research into a paper, just copy what they find on the web. As they say on Plagiarism.org: "Plagiarism is quickly becoming part of our educational culture".

Students have to be taught that they are not doing themselves any favour by taking the easy way out; that writing can be an enjoyable pastime; and that there is real pride to be taken in the fact that what you have written came from your own hard work. In the meantime, there are many steps that a teacher or an editor can take to detect whether or not an essay is original.

Step 1:

Compare the student's previous work to the essay you are checking. If you notice a marked improvement in the student's writing from previous assignments, there is a chance that it was not written by the student.

Step 2:

Check to see if the style of writing changes during the essay. For example, if the title of the essay or the introduction has many misspellings, and then the words are spelled correctly or differently throughout the essay, there may be a chance it is plagiarised. However, this is a tenuous step as it doesn't always prove plagiarism.

Step 3:

Check to see if there is any text in the essay that doesn't belong. For example, if text is copied, the student may have inadvertently left something included that does not belong -- like a URL or the text of an advertisement. I have seen copied articles online that have left the advertisements intact.

Step 4:

Check the essay on many of the online sites dedicated to detecting plagiarism. The entire text of the essay can be submitted to sites such as Turnitin and Glatt Plagiarism Program, where it will be checked for plagiarism.

Step 5:

Check a portion of the essay on Google or another search engine. You can copy up to 32 consecutive words from the essay and insert them in the search field of the search engines, encased in quotes. If the text has been printed elsewhere on the Internet the search engine will show you which sites it has appeared on. Chances are, if it was copied from a catalogue site or Wikipedia, that it was not written by that student.

Hopefully, the plagiarism epidemic will slow down. I don't have great hopes for that, so it is up to educators and editors to find plagiarism wherever it exists and try to stamp it out. Plagiarism will never completely go away. It is not only students who plagiarize; occasionally journalists have been found out to have plagiarized, and even authors (some very well known) have plagiarized the work of others. However, they are usually found out. There is always someone who will have read the essay or article elsewhere who will notice. It's not worth ruining your career over it.
Susan Keeping's picture
About this Author:
Susan likes words. She likes writing on any number of topics, if you research it it will come. Currently she is writing several blogs: Uninvited Writer (a personal writing journal with links to her online writings) and RememberingRFK (about the life and legacy of RFK) are two of those blogs. She has also recently discovered HubPages, which features an RSS feed.

View more information and all guides by Susan Keeping

Comments

I have learned a few things from your article such as how you can use Google or other sites to find out if an assignment is the result of plagiarism or not. Thank you for the useful information. As a teacher, myself, this type of information is useful to me as I will be able to help some of my students that may plagiarize.

Sylvie Leochko's picture
By Sylvie Leochko 1 year 20 weeks

    Thanks for the useful information.

    Sadaf Farooqi's picture
    By Sadaf Farooqi 1 year 16 weeks