How can I Check for Plagiarism in the Classroom?

It is well known that students often “copy-paste” their assignments or reports from the internet with no regard to plagiarism. It is, therefore, our role as teachers to conduct a strict check for plagiarism and ensure that they adhere to the moral code of respecting the writing of other authors.

Before cracking the whip down hard on the students, it is only fair that you talk to the students about it, telling them what constitutes plagiarism and why it is considered a ‘serious offence.’ A lot of students are clueless about plagiarism and this would serve as a warning and help set down the moral code that you wish to follow in your classroom.

There are various forms of plagiarism:

• Giving in someone else’ work on your own name.
• Copying from someone else without giving a reference to the original content.
• Missing out the quotation marks while quoting someone.
• Incorrect information about a quotation.
• Copying the structure of a sentence without quoting the original.
• Copying a massive chunk of someone else’ work.

One of the ways to prevent plagiarism is to design assignments that do not allow the student to copy content, but instead force them to write original work. Some of the ways to do that are:

• The assignment should be specific to the content taught in class.
• Ask the student to write an assignment posing as a particular character.
• Add a specific evaluation criteria, like the inclusion of some evidence, for a report.
• Insist that they draft a proposal with a bibliography.
• Require that students list the URL of every website source and attach a copy of every print source material.

In spite of these preventive measures, we must take steps to detect plagiarism:

• Check and see if the citations in the report are in the same format throughout the paper. If some are in MLA style and some in APA, it is likely that there has been some plagiarism.
• Observe the writing style and language used. A plagiarised report generally has language that would not sound like a student’s writing. Check for jargon and advanced vocabulary.
• Check to see if the report handed in is outdated.
• See if the font and font size/ colour in the report are the same throughout. If not, there is a highly probability that the work is plagiarised.
• If the report tends to miss the exact point of the assignment, it is possible that it may have been copied.

On suspicion, it is essential that we confirm whether the content has been copied from somewhere else. One way to check is to copy the text on to a search engine. Content with the exact words often show up on top of the search listings.

There are also a number of anti-plagiarism websites that one can use to detect copied content. Grammarly.com, duplichecker.com, turnitin.com, articlechecker.com, scanmyessay.com, copyscape.com, paperrater.com are some examples. Encouraging students to scan their reports before handing it in would help them prevent any unintentional plagiarism.

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Discuss Here: What are some ways you can check on plagiarism in your classroom?