Detect Plagiarism

The common feature of plagiarism detection software is comparing a chunk of written text to a database of samples to determine the amount of similiarity. The online service Grammarly  lets users copy and paste text to be checked for "unoriginal text." It also checks for common grammar issues. It is available for a nominal fee. Turnitin, a commercial product that many higher education institutions purchase for deployment across the institution, accepts written work for analysis and issues an originality report.

Benefits

Having writers submit their work to a plagiarism detection service helps them to see areas where they might have inadvertently plagiarized another's work. This allows them to learn better paraphrasing and summarization skills.

One complaint about services such as Turnitin, is that it flags too many phrases as "not original." In the field of creative writing, originality is valued; but in highly specialized fields where key phrases are commonly used or where research is trying to expand and explore previous studies, these flags are misleading. This leads to feelings of  "wasted effort" in that writers feel there is a best way to write something then spend countless hours trying to re-write text that is already well written.

Next, we will briefly discuss what resources are on or just over the horizon that can help you unravel the sometimes thorny issue of who is actually taking, as opposed to being enrolled in, your course.