What is Plagiarism? The meaning of plagiarism may be understood best by examining both the definitions given the term by authorities and the forms in which it is manifested. Definitions The following examples indicate the range of definitions of plagiarism: Plagiarism . . . means trying to pass off someone else’s work as your own. 1 Plagiarism (derived from a Latin word for kidnapper) means using another person’s language or ideas without acknowledgment. 2 Plagiarism is defined as the attempt to fob off another’s thought or language as one’s own. 3 Fundamentally, plagiarism is the offering of the words or ideas of another person as one’s own. 4 Q. What constitutes plagiarism? A. Two or more words taken from a source without quotation marks. 5 Plagiarism means taking material written by another and offering it as one’s own. 6 To take an idea, even a suggestion, or the peculiar expression of another without acknowledgment of its source is to give the reader the false impression that the idea is your own. This is plagiarism . . . 7 Plagiarism exists when a writer Leads his reader to believe that what he is reading is the original work of the writer when it is not. 8 Forms The forms plagiarism may take are illustrated below. Each claims originality but is based upon the words of Irving Leonard Markovitz in Power and Class in Africa: An Introduction to Change and Conflict in African Politics (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1977), p. 207: The ‘style’ of the organizational bourgeoisie, from the brands of cigarettes they smoke to the child-rearing practices they follow, comes from abroad. Seydou Badian denounced ‘our cadres’ who are more integrated in the economy of our former metropoles than in those of their own countries. Their needs, the habits that they acquire, their taste--all these constitute a weight that crushed our states. To bring all to a certain level might be theoretically easy, but it doesn’t happen by a wave of a magic wand. ** But more disturbing than the style of life and ‘foreign’ alignments that separate the organizational bourgeoisie from the mass of the population is the crushing burden of this bourgeoisie upon the nations’ economies, a burden that weighed ever more heavily. Plagiarism from this passage may take two general forms, one involving an exact copy of the original and the other involving only a partial copy. Exact-copy plagiarism 9 A word-for-word copy of someone else’s work without citing that person as a source is one form of plagiarism. An example would be: The style of the organizational bourgeoisie, from the brands of cigarettes they smoke to the child-rearing practices they follow, comes from abroad . . . An extreme form of exact-copy plagiarism is a paper or take-home examination which is entirely the work of someone other than the student whose work it purports to be. Partial-Copy Plagiarism Plagiarism which does not involve an exact copy takes the following forms: Paraphrase Plagiarism 10 The work may be paraphrased, i.e., the ideas may be borrowed though the words are slightly changed. An example would be: The way of life of the dominant group is patterned after the way of life of people abroad. Maintaining their way of life is very costly to poor countries. Eliminating this exploitive class is not something which is easy to accomplish. Even though the words are different, the ideas come from the passage by Markovitz. Unless credit is given to the source, this is an example of plagiarized material. Mosaic plagiarism 11 A mosaic of copied and paraphrased materials presented without citing the source is another example of plagiarism. An example follows: The pattern of life of the organizational bourgeoisie, from the brands of cigarettes they smoke to the way they raise their children, comes from outside the country. More disturbing than the style of life and foreign alignments is the terrible burden this way of life puts upon the poor. Not only do the ideas come from Markovitz, but also many of the words. Source plagiarism Material you gather from one author that he has gathered from another is plagiarized if you do not give the author from whom you took the material credit. An example is the following: Seydou Badian condemns those who are more integrated in the economy of our former metropoles than in those of their own countries. Their needs, the habits that they acquired, their taste--all these constitute a weight that crushed our states. To bring all to a certain level might be theoretically easy, but it doesn’t happen by a wave of a magic wand. . . ( Les Dirigeants D’Afrique Noire Face A Leur People . 1965, p. 89). If you do include such a quote, you should indicate in the footnote where you found it, i.e., in the Markovitz book on page 207. Incomplete-citation plagiarism Plagiarism also exists when a source is cited for only part of the material copied. For example, the following involves plagiarism: The style of the organizational bourgeoisie, from the brands of cigarettes they smoke to the child-rearing practices they follow, comes from abroad (Markovitz, Irving Leonard in Power and Class in Africa: An Introduction to Change and Conflict in African Politics , 1977, p. 207) . . . . But more disturbing than the style of life and foreign alignments that separate organizational bourgeoisie from the mass of the population is the crushing burden of this bourgeoisie upon the nations’ economies, a burden that has weighed ever more heavily. The source quoted or paraphrased should be given for the whole passage, rather than for only a portion of the passage. Phrase Plagiarism 12 Sometimes phrases are borrowed without giving credit to the source. Most frequently this is done in paraphrased material. The result is another form of plagiarism. An example would be: The organizational bourgeoisie live according to customs of people in other countries. It is not possible to eliminate this group and bring about equality among peoples of a given country by a wave of a magic wand . The organizational bourgeoisie constitute a crushing burden on the backs of the masses of people in these countries. How Can Plagiarism Be Avoided? The key to avoiding plagiarism is documentation. When you take words, ideas or facts which are not common knowledge 13 from someone else, cite your source. Proper format may be found in any manual of style. Among such manuals are: The University of Chicago Press, A Manual of Style , Twelfth Edition Revised (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969) or Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses and Dissertations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955). How Serious is Plagiarism? The seriousness of plagiarism can be gauged by the words of authorities and experiences of those who have plagiarized. Writers have declared that: Plagiarism is the cardinal crime in the academic world . . . 14 As a rather grim analogy, copying a passage from a source without indicating that it is borrowed can be considered a felony. 15 The academic counterpart of the bank embezzler and of the manufacturer who mislabels his products is the plagiarist . . . 16 The penalties assessed against those who plagiarize can be very severe. These may range between failure on a paper to expulsion from a university. A recent case at CGU in which a Ph.D. was withdrawn from a former student on the grounds that his work was plagiarized is an example of the severity with which the offense is dealt. Perhaps more important than these penalties is the fact that the dishonesty associated with plagiarism may undermine the reputation of a person for the rest of his or her life. Conclusion Thus, the crime of plagiarism must be avoided. Through proper documentation we may enhance the academic integrity of ourselves and Claremont Graduate University. From: http://www.cgu.edu/pages/903.asp
By braniac, eHow User? Plagiarism is a serious offense. It can get you expelled from school , fired from a job and sued. While plagiarism may seem like a quick and easy fix to your writing troubles, it's dishonest and a form of theft. In addition, it can ruin your career as a credible writer. 1 Determine if the information is common knowledge. If the information has been cited in five other sources, it's safe to assume that it's common knowledge and does not need citation. 2 Make quotations and citations your friend. If someone said those exact words, quote them and give them credit. Credit should also be given to artwork. 3 Quote professionals, but provide your unique opinion and viewpoint. 4 Do not copy and paste. This makes it easier for you to plagiarize. Instead read over the sentence a few times and try to put it into your own words. 5 Put quotations marks around words or phrases you do not want to change and credit the source. 6 Check your paraphrasing against the original text to make sure it is not the same. 7 Do not purchase essays. You do not know where they came from or if they are reliable. Source: http://www.ehow.com/how_2166275_prevent-plagiarism.html
On Researchgate, one scholar asked how to check plagiarism?, and his presentation is as follows: I am not sure whether this question has been asked on research gate or not. If this topic is already theirs please send me link. One of the problem we are facing is to check duplication (copied from net or research articles or thesis) in a scientific document. When you get document from students or junior colleagues or from your team members you are always worried whether this is orignal writing or copied from net. Though there are number of software on net, it is difficult to trust on these software. I want to know from my colleagues at this platform what is the best way to check duplication. Is there any good server or service which can check duplication with high reliability in scientific writing (can check duplication in literature databases such as PubMed). Presently, there are about 30 answers to this question. Some of them provide the software sites to do plagiarism checking, some of them said they could detect whether the articles plagiarize or not by reading the whole paper. If they found the styles jumping from sentence to sentence or from paragaraphs to paragraphs, then this paper possibly plagiarize some paragraphs from difference sources. But if one plagiarizes a large part of their contents from one paper and we never read that plagiarized paper before, then how can we detect the plagiarism? In fact, one can only read a limited amount of papers, so it's rarely possible to surely detect a paper's plagiarism just by reading it. Even if you feel the paper has plagiarism, how can you provide the evidence? So software is very important in this aspect. According to my own working experience, I think software provided by iThenticate is very useful in checking plagiarism. The following is my answers to the question how to check plagiarism. Our journal (Journal of Mountain Science) will first check the plagiarism of a manuscript by using ITHENTICATE after it is submitted. The plagiarism checking software was incorporated into the online manuscript system. The crosschecking system will compare the similarity of the submitted paper with millions of papers previously published and articles in the internet (usually by google), and provide a separate similarity index with one single paper and the total similarity index with all these papers . The checked result is displayed in two columns, the left column is the checked paper, the system use different colors to mark the similar contents, and the right column is the list of the possibly plagiarized papers, which are listed in the order of similaritity index percentage. The marked color in the checked paper is corresponding to the color of the possible plagiarized paper. We usually set a similarity index for rejecting a paper. When the total similarity index is up to 40%, or the similarity index with one single paper reaches 20%, the manuscript will be directly rejected. When the similarity index has not reached the set level but is relatively high, we will read the whole paper and check which part is taken from othe papers. If the abstract or conclusion is almost the same with one single paper, we'll definitely reject it too. If most figures and tables are the same with one single paper or the key data are copied from one paper, we'll reject the paper too. If only the introduction part or discussion part is taken from other papers but not from one or two papers, we'll require the authors to revise the paper, and suggest them organize these two parts in their own way and write them in their own words. We start to use the iThenticate software from 2010. At first, we found that a relatively high proportion of papers plagiarized some paragraphs from other papers, some even copied a large part of contents from other papers. Now high plagiarism rate can be rarely seen for this year's new submission or there are still plagiarisms in some paragraphs, especially in the Introduction or Discussion parts. Following my comments, Jose Lobo from COLOMBIAN AMERICAN BINATIONAL CENTER wrote the following: Interestingly enough Dunlian Qiu I would reject papers with intros and conclusions that show traces of plagiarism no matter what.
A letter to authors whose papers are rejected after crosschecking Dear authors, Thanks for submitting your manuscript to JMS. we do crosschecking by software provided by Springer to prevent plagiarism and inappropriate citation. We know citations are necessary part of a research paper, but it is prohibited copying other’s papers paragraph by paragraph. Authors must write the whole paper from the very beginning in their own words. In the crosscheck report on your article, we can see some paragraphs are wholely copied from other's work, thus we can’t think your paper is original. Sorry we have to reject your manuscript for its present state. You can rewrite the paper in your own words and resubmit to JMS, then we can do another crosschecking for it. Thanks for your understanding! JMS _____@_____@______@______ How to Prevent Plagiarism By braniac, eHow User ? Plagiarism is a serious offense. It can get you expelled from school , fired from a job and sued. While plagiarism may seem like a quick and easy fix to your writing troubles, it's dishonest and a form of theft. In addition, it can ruin your career as a credible writer. 1 Determine if the information is common knowledge. If the information has been cited in five other sources, it's safe to assume that it's common knowledge and does not need citation. 2 Make quotations and citations your friend. If someone said those exact words, quote them and give them credit. Credit should also be given to artwork. 3 Quote professionals, but provide your unique opinion and viewpoint. 4 Do not copy and paste. This makes it easier for you to plagiarize. Instead read over the sentence a few times and try to put it into your own words. 5 Put quotations marks around words or phrases you do not want to change and credit the source. 6 Check your paraphrasing against the original text to make sure it is not the same. 7 Do not purchase essays. You do not know where they came from or if they are reliable. Source: http://www.ehow.com/how_2166275_prevent-plagiarism.html
Strategies for Avoiding Plagiarism Only when you clearly understand what is plagiarism and its consequences, can you formulate strategies to avoid them. On altruistic grounds you do not want to waste others' time to read your non-contributing article and rob others of the credit they deserve. As a stick, you want to be spared the shame of being called a plagiarizer or even a suspect of plagiarism. As a writer, reputation is your life. Plagiarism arises out of necessity. The college students are often the most frequent sinners of plagiarism. The deadline for a writing assignment is approaching and they are ill-prepared. They have wasted time that should be dedicated to the assignment; they now have a five-hour project to be done in one hour or half an hour. The same can happen with a popular science writer. The editor wants it by Friday and the author is not familiar with the topic. He requires additional five days to study the topic. All the plagiarizers take the shortcut. They simply copy and paste or translate others' work and assume authorship of it. Pre-writing Strategies The number one strategy to avoid plagiarism is to dedicate sufficient time to a writing project and admit that there is no shortcut in writing. Authors for popular science are all fast learners and they often write a broad spectrum of topics in many areas. But there is cost to go beyond one's trained field of study. The time cost of learning about a topic further away from one's trained field increases exponentially. Science writers should have the self-determination of bounds that balance the cost of knowledge acquisition and writing yield. Authors stepping out of their bounds often find that they have to plagiarize to be productive and commit tremendous amount of common sense errors. Regular readers should not be fooled to think that their science writers seem to have all that knowledge they penned. They simply do not. When they write, they have to consult technical books and online materials. Still, it is common to find errors in professional science writers, sometimes in their own field of training. The second strategy is to write without copying . You are by definition a plagiarizer if you rely so heavily on one source that you copy its content and start to modify or translate. I have little doubt that this is how Dr. Fang penned most of his science articles. You should take as little notes as possible when you study for your topic. The more notes you take, the more likely you will copy your notes and develop them into an article. You could be plagiarizing without realizing it. After appropriate amount of studying, you should be able to write from memory and internalized knowledge. The Chinese legends often exaggerate of memorizing capabilities of some geniuses. The Chinese Einstein can memorize materials by reading it once, so they often claim. Such persons have never existed and anyone who makes such claims should be condemned to hell for his fraud. When you write without copying, you will automatically be able to distinguish common knowledge where citing is not necessary from special knowledge where referencing is required. The third strategy is to develop a historical context . Many people will be confused. I only want to talk about the relationship between chicken and eggs. Now you want me to know all the history of chicken and eggs? That is exactly the idea. Knowledge accumulates with great minds. The least we can do is to pay attention to their historical contribution. Only with such attention can we grasp the finest detail of scientific knowledge. Only with such knowledge can we write a good science article that is accurate and free of plagiarism. If you do not believe in the merit of science, then here's the stick. Only when you know who have created the knowledge you accumulated, can you identify the appropriate sources to give credit to. Without a historical context, you may be able to write without plagiarism, but you may break other rules of ethical writing that includes misquote and lack of appropriate credit to ownerships. Strategies during Writing The fourth strategy is to give credit when in doubt . With the historical knowledge you gained about your science knowledge, you will naturally develop a sense of appreciation of what the pioneers had done in the past. You naturally want to praise or at least mention them for their endeavors. You will have almost no trouble to credit others. In the remaining few circumstances, you should give credit to people when in doubt. As a general rule, if a piece of knowledge comes to you only in one source, direct or indirect, you should always cite. The fifth strategy is to write with critics and students in mind . If you write articles that you do not want to read yourself, then writing is not an appropriate career for you. When you write, you should be emotionally prepared to write, more accurately, to share this incredible insight in knowledge you just gained. You should imagine a critic who wants to challenge your miraculous claims in the article or a student who wants to know all that you know about this topic but could not share because of word limit. Your credits to others will serve a double purpose of appreciation of pioneers for their wonderful work and guidance to additional reading in the field. This strategy improves your writing as well as protects you from ethical concerns beyond plagiarism. The sixth strategy is to write with a humble heart . There are many philosophical arguments for humility and it is a core value in Christianity. How does humility helps with writing? It serves two purposes. It prevents you from making claims that you later regret. A proud heart often causes us to step over bounds and make hard-to-justify claims. Many people are embarrassed to find them challenged in their own courtyard when they display a proud and vaunted attitude in their writing. What goes up must come down. The physical law applies to the emotional world as well. The readers have a tendency to identify with their authors. If you are high, they want to pull you down to prove themselves. On the other hand, if you are low, they want to promote you so that they are equally of value. With a humble heart, you tend to deflect away credit even if you deserve. Don't worry. The readers are ultimately fair and they never rob you of what you deserve. For example, if you write about a new idea of which you do not know whether someone had the same idea before, a humble person wants to give credit to someone else even if someone does not exist to his knowledge whereas a proud person will quickly write “I have this beautiful idea……” Imagine the embarrassment if the idea turns out to be a bad one. A proud you have certainly committed plagiarism if it turns out indeed someone had proposed the idea before. Technical Advice 1. Scope of Referencing Material Referencing Permission Direct copying Always Quotation marks or scheme clearly indicate start and end 10% or less=No 10%=Yes Text paraphrasing Always Has to be materially different No Cannot be extensive = 30% own content Translation (single source) Always with original authors Copying/paraphrasing rule apply Seek permission when possible Yes if translate whole article No for public materials Translation (multiple sources) Always Designate article type as “translated/compiled” If a single source constitute 50% of own content, see above Tables, figures, illustrations, unmodified Always Seek permission when possible Always Yes for copyrighted material/commercial use Tables, figures, illustrations, modified Always Note as not copy of original Depends on scope of modification Minor modification see above Ideas from mail, email, or any other personal communication Always Protection of privacy rules apply General facts and knowledge No. For emphasis, direct quote from authoritative source No 2. Paraphrasing Acceptability Examples Acceptability Expression Original Few laboratory creatures have had such a spectacularly successful and productive history as Drosophila . It first entered laboratories about 1900, revealed its talent for experimental genetics to Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students at Columbia University in the early 1910s, and after some ups and downs in status is still going strong almost a century later. (from Kohler, R.E. 1994. The Lords of the Fly . The University of Chicago Press, 321 pages.) Unacceptable: copying phrases without using quotation marks Despite some ups and downs in status, nearly a century after the fly revealed its talent to Thomas Hunt Morgan and his students, Drosophila genetics research continues its spectacularly successful history (Kohler, 1994). Unacceptable: emulating sentence structure No model organism has been so amazingly useful and effective as the fruit fly. The fly came on the scene as an experimental tool at the beginning of the 20th century, was adopted by Thomas Hunt Morgan and his Columbia pupils at Columbia University around 1910, and (despite some fluctuations in attention paid to it) is still a widely used experimental system (Kohler 1994). Unacceptable: emulating paragraph structure Drosophila is model organism with a rich and useful legacy. Upon arriving on the scene at the turn of the century, the fruit fly soon became the organism of choice for Thomas Hunt Morgan and his Columbia University pupils. Despite fluctuations in status, fly research is still central to the progress of genetics (Kohler, 1994). Acceptable: But bad practice – equivalent to original expression, should quote directly. Thomas Hunt Morgan and colleagues at Columbia University were among the first to use the fruit fly Drosophila as a model organism, adopting it as an experimental system around 1910. Since then, the popularity of the fly has waxed and waned somewhat, but the breadth and depth of current research indicates that Drosophila continues its legacy as an incredibly important research tool (Kohler, 1994). Acceptable: good practice – simplification Starting with Thomas Hunt Morgan and colleagues at Columbia University around 1910, the fruit fly Drosophila as a model organism has been adopted as an experimental system for nearly a century (Kohler, 1994). Acceptable: good practice – expanding for added information Thomas Hunt Morgan and colleagues at Columbia University were among the first to use the fruit fly Drosophila as a model organism, adopting it as an experimental system around 1910. The popularity of the fly had increased during 1940s. The interest of researchers waned significantly for the next two decades, but rebounded quickly in 1980s because of its potential for studying genetics. The breadth and depth of current research indicates that Drosophila is still an incredibly important research tool (Kohler, 1994). This table is adapted from The Biology Department @ Davidson Statement on Plagiarism ( http://www.bio.davidson.edu/dept/plagiarism.html )
Plagiarism (剽窃) is a very serious accusation against a scientist. I have read and heard much these days. Here, I would like to share a thing or two in my field, physical oceanography, as a researcher (for more than 15 years), as a reviewer (for both proposals and manuscripts since I was a student), and as an English editor (for more than three years). I have to say that I am very lucky to see less than 1% possible plagiarism in my field. This 1% case happened more than 10 years ago when I was asked to review two manuscripts by some Australian colleague, Part I and Part II of his work. Here is what I wrote: ... Part II is very interesting, but I couldn't help to notice that some of the results about the equatorial undercurrent are very similar to Yu and Schopf (1997, JPO). There is also a paper just published in JPO (March 1999) by Large and Gent on a similar subject. My take on Part II is that it has some very useful results, but could use fewer (numerical) experiments. Finally, I would like the editor to consider if this paper would be more appropriate for JPO, since it deals with some fundamental issues of ocean modeling. What I didnt say in my review was my initial reaction to Part II: This is exactly what I did a few years ago. I started this 3-year struggle, when I took my first job in late 1992. It was a painfully slow process, but it ended well. Let me just say briefly, what we came up with was a very neat scheme that reveals the underline dynamics clearly. To me, this author had to go through what I went through, which was a lot. I felt its not possible for someone to have come up with such an unusual idea (reducing complex equations to step functions), but I decided to give the author the benefit of the doubt . As you can see, never once I accused the author of any wrong doing, except to hint that he was not up to date with publication in the field. I also wish to note that our 1997 paper was not cited by the author, and the editor probably didnt know our paper. So, how did the editor found me? My guess was that a potential reviewer didnt want review it and told the editor to contact me. Six months later, I was asked to review this manuscript again. My recollection is that all that stuff similar to our 1997 paper was removed from the revised manuscript, which was the major content of Part II. This time, I wrote: I have exhausted myself over this manuscript. I don't think I will ever be happy with the author's writing, and therefore wish never to see this manuscript again. Well, that was not the end of my encounter with this author. He submitted this manuscript to another journal, and once again I was asked to review it. I wrote to the editor that I reviewed it twice for another journal, and wished NOT to see it again. What this little addition says is: Its a small world! The author should have told the second journal that he submitted his work to another journal earlier and now wanted to submit to this journal Finally, I want to say that I have edited more than 100 manuscripts for my clients in meteorology and oceanography; most of these clients are Chinese. I have never once felt that someone was plagiarizing. So, if you are tired of people plagiarizing in your field, consider switching to meteorology and oceanography
http://plagiarism.org/plag_solutions.html Plagiarism prevention technology The purpose of Plagiarism.org and Turnitin.com is to help put a stop to digital plagiarism. This means that papers will never again be recirculated or recycled every year, that papers will not be copied from one class and used for a different class, that papers from one university will not find their way to another university course, and finally, that papers acquired from the internet will never be used to fulfill a course requirement. We hope to achieve these results by offering educators the most advanced tools for plagiarism detection available anywhere. Now in its eighth year of development, our technology -- what we call Document Source Analysis -- uses a set of powerful algorithms to create a digital fingerprint of any text document. Here's how it works: First, we make a digital fingerprint of any submitted document using a specially developed set of algorithms. The document's fingerprint is cross-referenced against our local database containing hundreds of thousands of papers. At the same time, we release automated web crawlers to scour the rest of the internet for possible matches. Finally, we create a custom, color-coded originality report, complete with source links, for each paper. Detection When a manuscript is copied verbatim from a source on the Internet, it is easy for Turnitin.com to locate that source and flag the manuscript as unoriginal. However, some students may attempt to mislead an instructor by changing words, adding sentences, or reorganizing their papers. We've tested each of these methods to ensure that they do not thwart our anti-plagiarism technologies. Numerous studies indicate student plagiarism is frequently the result of last-minute desperation, often precipitated by procrastination or simple laziness. In its most flagrant form, plagiarism occurs when a student copies a paper from another source without alterations of any kind. In such instances, Turnitin.com will immediately flag the paper and locate the original document. Less obvious examples occur when a student alters an existing work or integrates it, uncited, into his or her own. Some common examples include the substitution of words or sentences within an already existing work or the cutting and pasting of phrases or entire paragraphs from an outside source into a new document. Document Source Analysis has been optimized to ensure that papers plagiarized in this manner do not escape detection. We have found, ironically, that the work involved in such an effort would be equal or greater to that necessary for the creation of a completely original document. Students attempting to bypass our system would quickly find they would be better off writing the paper themselves. The sections that follow outline in detail how Document Source Analysis works to uncover even the most creative efforts of would-be plagiarists. Word Substitution Below is an example of a sophisticated attempt to replace specific words, in a paper on Macbeth, with a corresponding synonym. The upper excerpt is a portion of the original text; the lower paragraph is the same excerpt with the substituted words highlighted in red. Macbeth Manuscript from the Internet (Intro Paragraph) Macbeth is presented as a mature man of definitely established character, successful in certain fields of activity and enjoying an enviable reputation. We must not conclude, there, that all his volitions and actions are predictable; Macbeth's character, like any other man's at a given moment, is what is being made out of potentialities plus environment, and no one, not even Macbeth himself, can know all his inordinate self-love whose actions are discovered to be-and no doubt have been for a long time-determined mainly by an inordinate desire for some temporal or mutable good. Same Manuscript with Modified Words Macbeth is shown as an empowered man of well-established character, prosperous in several fields of life and enjoying an esteemed reputation. We mustn't conclude, therefore , that all of his volitions and actions will be foreseeable ; Macbeth's essence , like most other men at any given time, is what's being created out of potentialities and his environment, and no one, not even Macbeth himself, can discern all his immoderate self-love whose behaviors are found to be-and without doubt have been for some time-determined primarily by an extreme desire for a temporal or changeable good. As you can see, students may attempt to find sensible synonyms for nearly half the words in a paper, but Turnitin.com will still flag the altered paper as such. Figure 1 (below) illustrates what happens as the percentage of word substitution in a paper increases. The red curve indicates our plagiarism index, or 'originality quotient'. It is scaled from 0.0 (no similarities)* to 1.0 (carbon copy). The yellow line indicates the threshold at which a paper has been altered beyond recognition. In this case, a student could replace about 45% of all words and the paper would still be considered plagiarized. Figure 1. Plagiarism index vs. percentage of words altered. When a submitted manuscript is contained within the Plagiarism.org database, there is no question it will be flagged in instances of plagiarism. Figure 2 (below) illustrates how an unoriginal manuscript sets itself apart from other papers in our database. Figure 2. An exact duplicate of the Macbeth manuscript is flagged as unoriginal within one portion of our database. After nearly half the words in the Macbeth manuscript were changed to synonyms, the paper was still flagged as being suspicious (Figure 3). In actuality this is an extreme and rather unrealistic example, for changing over half the words in a long essay would render any paper somewhat nonsensical, in addition to requiring an excessive amount of work. Figure 3. The same Macbeth manuscript is still flagged after alteration. Sentence Addition The replacement or addition of new content is the most typical form of manuscript alteration. At what point does a manuscript with added or altered sentences or paragraphs become original? The first paragraph (below) is an excerpt from an internet paper (A) on Macbeth. Below that is the same paragraph with new material cut-and-pasted directly into the body of the paragraph; the new material was from a second paper and is indicated in red. Paper A Macbeth Internet Derived Paper (Intro Paragraph) Macbeth is presented as a mature man of definitely established character, successful in certain fields of activity and enjoying an enviable reputation. We must not conclude, there, that all his volitions and actions are predictable; Macbeth's character, like any other man's at a given moment, is what is being made out of potentialities plus environment, and no one, not even Macbeth himself, can know all his inordinate self-love whose actions are discovered to be-and no doubt have been for a long time-determined mainly by an inordinate desire for some temporal or mutable good. Paper A + B Macbeth Modified Test Paper with Combined Added Content Shakespeare's famous play, Macbeth, is one of his great tragedies based around the classic theme of the hero's fatal flaw. Macbeth is presented as a mature man of definitely established character, successful in certain fields of activity and enjoying an enviable reputation. Yet, like any man, he is human, and thus in possession of flaw and foibles, hidden that they may be from public eye, and hinted at by foreshadow only by the author. We must not conclude, there, that all his volitions and actions are predictable; Macbeth's character, like any other man's at a given moment, is what is being made out of potentialities plus environment, and no one, not even Macbeth himself, can know all his inordinate self-love whose actions are discovered to be-and no doubt have been for a long time- determined mainly by an inordinate desire for some temporal or mutable good. This desire being so strong under certain circumstances as to override all others, even, as is usually the case in tragedy, the ultimate desire of self-preservation. Figure 4 illustrates how a paper created in this manner is still easily detectable with Document Source Analysis. Although the plagiarism index drops gradually as higher percentages of the second paper are added to the first, it still remains an obvious case of plagiarism, even when the original document has been appended with up to 100% of the second text. Figure 4. Plagiarism detection vs. percent of material added. Figure 5 Shows how we flagged paper A as completely unoriginal when no new content was added. Figure 5. Manuscript A is flagged as unoriginal within one portion of our database. Even more noteworthy is the fact that combining two separate sources not only fails to escape detection, but actually increases the likelihood a paper will be flagged: instead of one source to detect, we now have two. Figure 6 illustrates how a work plagiarized in this manner will be caught by Document Source Analysis on both counts. Figure 6. Our algorithms indicate that papers A and B were copied and used as the sources for the 'new' paper. Tech Summary Although it might seem improbable to expect high performance out of a search technology given the vast sea of written material out there, both in digital and conventional form, we feel that possible sources for a suspect paper can be narrowed down with a relatively high degree of accuracy. A thorough survey of the literature on term paper plagiarism has indicated that most instances of academic dishonesty involve the outright duplication of another work: from a colleague, from the internet, or even from oneself, by recycling an older paper from another class. Rarely will a student copy material directly from a book, out of fear that it will be known to the professor; studies have shown that even when this does occur it is, in fact, relatively easy for instructors to detect. Even though we primarily compare papers from term paper mills and other university and high school classes, we are still forced to limit the search of our multi-gigabyte database* to those papers statistically related to the one in question. Through the use of proprietary methods of dimensional reduction, we are able to automatically group papers by categories and specific mathematical relationships. Figure 7 illustrates how a fraction of our database (blue dots) is separated from manuscripts that relate (red dots) to a target paper (black dot). The three-dimensional curve represents the probability that one of those red dots is a copy of the target paper; this system gives us the freedom to concentrate primarily on the 'red dot' papers. Figure 7. Narrowing the Search *Our database is constantly being updated by a series of automated web robots that scour the internet for rogue term papers. We also receive a continuous supply from the institutions and individual instructors using our service.
标签: Plagiarism
