Detecting Plagiarism

Search Engines

Use search engines to identify purchased papers or "copy-and-paste plagiarism" from the Web. Identify awkward or unique statements and search for these suspect phrases. Remember that the largest search engines only search approximately 20% of the Web so it is important to try at least two or three. Search engines you may want to try include:

To search exact phrases, use quotes around your search terms. For example, look at the following excerpt of a student paper:

Try searching the highlighted phrase "gambling has become America's pastime" in Google. You should retrieve a number of sites where a copy of this paper is freely available online.

Library Resources

You can also use library resources to check student bibliographies. Take a look at the following bibliography from a student paper:

Search the library catalog to see if items listed in the bibliography are available to students from the library. If they are not available it is an indication that the student may have not actually researched that subject.

Look for cited articles in online periodical indexes. The library purchases many indexes that contain full text articles. Some of the most popular ones used by undergraduate students include:

• Academic OneFile
• LexisNexis Academic
• Academic Search Complete

All of these indexes are available from the Databases and Indexes to Articles page of UT Library Online. Identifying plagiarized text from online articles is not too difficult if you search in the correct index.

Detection Services

Some companies profit from the growing problem of plagiarism in higher education by offering detection services for a fee. These companies compare submitted papers to their large databases of papers and essays available on the Web. Some faculty require their students to submit research papers electronically to the company for screening and then the company forwards them to the faculty for grading. This procedure notifies the student that their paper will be analyzed and it may provide a deterrent for those students who knowingly plagiarize.

Here are some of the companies that are offering this service:

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