Detecting Plagiarism

If you suspect plagiarism, remember that you can contact a librarian and we will help determine if your suspicions are founded. If you want to begin by doing some searching yourself, here are a few search tips you can use to detect 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:

Google
http://www.google.com

Yahoo
http://www.yahoo.com

Ask.com
http://www.ask.com

AllTheWeb.com
http://www.alltheweb.com

To search exact phrases, use quotes around your search terms. For example, search the phrase "gambling has become America's pastime" in Google. You should retrieve a number of sites where a copy of a paper on gambling is freely available online.

Library Resources

You can also use library resources, to check student bibliographies. Search the library catalog or the E-Journal Finder to see if items listed in the bibliography are available to students from the library. You may also need to look for cited articles in some of the Article Databases. The library purchases many indexes that contain full-text articles. Some of the most popular ones used by undergraduate students include:

Academic Search Premier

Expanded Academic ASAP

LexisNexis Academic

All of these indexes are available from the Articles Databases page of the UNC University Libraries homepage. Identifying plagiarized text from online articles is not terribly difficult, but it can be time-consuming if you don't know which indexes might contain the article.

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:

Plagiarism.org
http://www.plagiarism.org/

Turn It In
http://www.turnitin.com/

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Preventing Plagiarism | Detecting Plagiarism | Papers Available Online | Recommended Readings & Resources