Library : Plagiarism Prevention

The college subscribes to the originality checking service at TurnItIn.com. 

This service compares text of students’ papers against matching content on the World Wide Web, previously submitted papers, and major newspaper and magazines

Resources for Students

Students who are authoring papers for submission to a journal can refer to the resources on the library’s Writing & Publishing page.

Faculty who assign academic papers can refer students to the library’s pages:

• Citation Format Samples
• What is Plagiarism? This is a concise excerpt of material provided by the makers of TurnItIn.com.  Additional or better resources to guide students are welcome.  Please send suggestions to the library director.

A tip sheet for TurnItIn.com is available for students’ review in the computer lab.  It includes instructions for establishing a student login, for submitting a paper to the originality checker, and a current list of classes.  Students will need to know the current classID and submission password for any class where the teacher requires originality checking for academic papers.

What is Plagiarism?

The producers of the plagiarism checker at TurnItIn.com provide this guide:
Preventing Plagiarism: Student Resources (Word, 3 p.)
It has excellent advice for incorporating your research into the actual writing process. 

In a nutshell ...  all of the following are considered plagiarism:

• turning in someone else's work as your own
• copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
• failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
• giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
• changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
• copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not (see our section on "fair use" rules)

Source: http://www.plagiarism.org/learning_center/what_is_plagiarism.html

Resources for Faculty

The website www.plagiarism.org is sponsored by iParadigms, makers of TurnItIn.com.  It has extensive information and resources for preventing plagiarism, including Learning Center printable handouts.

Faculty who are authoring papers for submission to a journal can refer to the resources on the library’s Writing & Publishing page.

TurnItIn.com Basics

Individual instructors can establish an account (login is e-mail address and a private password).  Initially, both the college’s “account ID” and “account password” are required for this process.  See the Life West administrator.

After login, the instructor can set up classes and list assignments whenever originality checking will be required. 

Requiring students to submit written assignments to the service allows the instructor to:

• View a list of all students who submitted a paper
•  Sort the list by the percentage of “plagiarized” material found by the online checker
• Read the plain text of each paper
• View the color version of each paper.  The colored text denotes “plagiarized” material and corresponds to a specific source of original text that is also available for viewing. 

For instance, all the green text throughout a paper is linked to one original source.  Papers quoting or plagiarizing from many sources will be a virtual rainbow.  Keep in mind that legitimately quoted material might be color-coded.  The reader still has to determine which parts of the paper are truly plagiarized.  The originality checker simply makes this task possible and relatively easy to do. 

TurnItIn.com Training and Assistance 

See the local Life West administrator for a demonstration of how to set up and use the originality checker.  The computer education specialist is the administrator, with the library director substituting as needed.

Online training resources are available at the “Training Materials” link.  A button for Training Materials is visible only after login at TurnItIn.com.  Always refer to the most recent online version of the Instructor Quick Start Guide or the entire Instructor User Manual.  The manual covers some necessary detail, as well as some services that Life West has not purchased.  Scroll down the page to find narrated flash videos that demonstrate specific steps.

Instructors can have the local Life West administrator handle all or some set-ups. The administrator must use instructors’ individual login and password on their behalf.   There are many setting options to be considered such as sharing access to the submitted papers with other teachers,  due dates for revisions and final submissions, and allowing students to view the originality report or not. 

Instructors also have the option to handle every aspect themselves.  However, the local Life West administrator appreciates the following conformity:

• Everyone uses the same submission password (see the administrator)
• Everyone tells the administrator the ClassID for each class established in the current term

This cooperation will allow the administrator to provide accurate information to students when they seek assistance with submitting their papers.