Disclaimer: This guide is for informational purposes only.

Introduction

Why do we suspect students of plagiarizing? Is it because teachers have a general distrust of their students? Or, is it because we were all once students with little time to devote to assignments, watching our classmates with even less time sometimes do inappropriate things to complete course requirements? Because the Internet provides students with a wealth of information and opportunity to borrow text and ideas from sources without proper documentation, it has become important that instructors are familiar with ways to detect plagiarism. In an instructor’s continued quest to enable students to reach their educational goals, it is imperative that instructors take the time necessary to critically evaluate their students' writing and provide guidance as they develop intellectually.

This guide focuses on finding indicators of possible plagiarism in the body of a text itself, usually without comparing it to an outside source. It will provide a list of indicators for student plagiarism that may justify further investigation. This list is not exhaustive, and the presence of many of these indicators still may not confirm that plagiarism has taken place. All “alarms” or potential indicators of plagiarism should be presented to the student and taken in the context of the particular student’s body of work, writing style, and the requirements of the course or assignment.

In addition to looking for these indicators, a teacher can use one of the plagiarism detection tools or software packages currently available. While these tools can be convenient for investigating borrowed text that may have originated on the World Wide Web, when the origin of suspected plagiarism is completely unknown or the detection tools fail to identify a source, it may prove useful to investigate and evaluate the body of the actual written document. For more on this method of discovery and an overview of the products available please see the VAIL guide entitled Detection Tools and Methods.

In Formatting
In Context
In Style
In Bibliographies and In-text Citations
In Examinations

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