How Software for Detecting Plagiarism Works
Plagiarism, in general sense, is making one's original idea as your own. One can say that it is a form of cheating as it steals and implicitly attack one's intellectual property rights. Both college systems and corporate is packed with rules that scribbles, particularly newbie, are not aware of. Plagiarism is more likely to happen at higher education institutions due to the fulfillment of dissertation and researches which is a prerequisite for a diploma. An allege accusation of plagiarism, though unintentionally, can cause severe cost, including the expulsion of one in the school and worst, lost of credibility. All universities have their own rules and procedures on plagiarism and a high degree of likeness is found therein. It is important for college system to educate students about what constitutes plagiarism and the penalties for it. To avoid plagiarism, one must take the following steps:
First and most importantly, if one needs and cant get away of copying the same exact idea, one should quote the source of the idea. Any attempt to submit this work to any college system will always be considered cheating. Students should understand that study assignments are chances in learning more and helpful in assessing the level of learning they have obtained after reading all the resources affecting it. Citation of source is vital to one's paper because plagiarism has an immensely effect to its' success. Citation can be done through identifying the source in the body of the paper and successfully incorporating quotations. Bibliography, a form of citation, is an independent part of the paper that includes author's name, works, publication dates, and pages while endnote and footnotes, another citation form, are placed at the bottom of the paper.
The latest and most advanced software also makes detection of plagiarism easier. This software is online and not necessarily free. These software programs work by extracting text from an essay and checking whether it matches text from other sources, such as documents available online. It basically scans the World Wide Web for algorithms with any consistency of one phrase or sentence of one's paper to a source. It will provide a detailed report indicating sections of plagiarism and origin. This kind of software program is oftentimes subscribes to by college systems.
Anti-plagiarism software programs can make a successful effort on minimizing acts of plagiarism. Some programs requires electronically submitted essays directly to the software company which then send reports directly to the university handling the student. It is also worthy to be noted that some text copied through books may be present in the essay but cannot be electronically recognized.
However, there is a limit to which this kind of software could work. An excellent technical skill may deem this kind of software useless. The software programs could not detect or may come up with zero percent (0%) result when a copy of a plagiarized essay is converted to a .PDF file or from .PDF file to a .doc (word) file. Thus, students who know how to go around this loophole could successfully pass on a plagiarized paper and may have the opportunity to go out into the real world thinking that a plagiarized paper is as good as the one that is original.
Plagiarism has a lot of negative effect on college systems. First, passing a plagiarized essay or dissertation may prove the result as doubtful. Secondly, plagiarism is an act of cheating. It becomes prevalent when a student is under a lot of pressure. It would be unfair for those who were also under the pressure but still managed to complete the task but with a comparable grading. Lastly, college systems with high cases of plagiarism are at risk of having a negative reputation resulting to a lower community standing.