Protecting Against Plagiarism

Introduction

Advancements in technology have safeguarded college students against potential charges of plagiarism, but students cannot only rely on these tools. It has never been easier for students to steal the written word because the works are now readily available with the click of a mouse. The challenge is that professors also have access to tools, workbooks, and websites that can investigate every paper submitted in a matter of minutes. Plagiarism used to be a time-consuming process where the only benefit was that the student did not have to come up with an original thought. Potential plagiarists had to find appropriate works from a limited pool of resources, usually a nearby library, and copy them by hand. Since these resources were almost always professionally written, the risk of detection was very high. While there are many sites where a student can buy a term paper, buying that paper is not the best way to benefit from the safeguards created by technology.

How Plagiarism Happens

A student looks at the clock and notices that the time is 10:42 in the evening. The student has to submit a final report at 7:00 the next morning, and the report is nowhere near completion. The student goes into panic mode and looks for shortcuts that will still return the best possible grade. He gets lazy with citing original works. Whether the oversight is intentional or not, it is still plagiarism. The student may have reworded original thoughts, stolen direct quotes, or simply neglected to assign proper credit to the original author. This action has the potential for severe disciplinary action. Not only will that student get a failing grade on the assignment, he may find himself sitting in the Dean's office facing expulsion (Sutherland-Smith, pp 31-40).

There are pros and cons to using any Internet tools. Now more than ever, students have virtually limitless resources for accessing data about any subject. With this resource comes the responsibility to cite when credit is due to an outside source. Fortunately, the same advancements in technology make it easy to cite and reference sources that are not original. There is software that examines documents to determine entries that require citation. There are also many electronic resources available provided by universities to college students with assistance in proper citation. In a nutshell, there is no reason not to apply proper credit to any borrowed work (Eisner & Vicinus, pp 29-90).

Prevent Plagiarism Using Technology

One important way to avoid copying and using someone else's ideas is to purchase a plagiarism finder. Students can purchase this software at relatively low costs. There are even discounts available for students who purchase the software using a student identification card (Carroll, pp 16-56).

Another way to avoid plagiarism is to compile notes using the Microsoft Office tools. Cutting and pasting original quotes and ideas into a word document that can be accessed later can prevent misquoting in the final paper. When a student has created a comprehensive log of references, he or she will be ...