Resources for Instructors - Plagiarism Guide for Faculty - LibGuides at J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College

Faculty guides

Does the paper include a work cited list? If so, are the sources recent or are they all several years old?
Does it have unusual formatting, such as grayed out letters?
Is the quality of writing consistent? Does it have a mixture of different writing styles? Does it have a sophisticated body but poor introduction or conclusion? Is the writing level characteristic of the student’s previous works?
Does the paper address the assignment requirements? Does it cover areas beyond the requirements but leaves out portions that should be addressed?

Ask the student to provide copies of cited material. Check with them to see if the materials were obtained from the library, the web, or somewhere else.
Search for unique or unusual words, phrases or sentences using search engines such as Google or Yahoo. These three search engines have turned out to be the most popular ones among the students. Enclose the phrases or sentences in quotation marks to ensure a phrase search. Please note that most search engines search for a maximum of ten words. Check our online guide, A Googling Safari, located at: http://libguides.reynolds.edu/google for some advanced Google search tips.
Check library databases. Although most students will plagiarize directly from the web, some may copy from the sources retrieved from the library databases. The most popular full-text databases that are available through JSRCC libraries include:

Academic Search Complete

Factiva

Literature Resource Center

FACTs.com

CQ Researcher

Find Articles
All the above databases are licensed except FindArticles, which is free to the public. To access the licensed databases from off campus, please check the instructions at: http://library.vccs.edu/reference/login.html.
Check Internet paper mills that sell or offer free papers. Coastal Carolina University has maintained a comprehensive list of Internet paper mills at http://www.coastal.edu/library/presentations/mills2.html.

Include a statement about plagiarism in your syllabus. Make it clear that you’ll check for plagiarism and enforce the College’s academic honesty policy.
Teach students how NOT to plagiarize. Check out our Avoiding Plagiarism resource page from our Guide to Research at JSRCC Libraries. It provides examples of acceptable or unacceptable paraphrasing and the strategies to avoid plagiarism.
Teach students how to cite and make it a requirement that a works cited list be attached to their papers. Check out our Citing Sources resource page from our Guide to Research at JSRCC Libraries. Also check out our Citation examples page for MLA, APA, and Chicago.
Require specific components, such as theories, interviews, recent sources, etc. which will make it difficult to find a “perfect” article to plagiarize.
Assign a string of research opportunities, such as outlines, research proposals, oral reports, shorter papers, etc., so that the students get more practice on planning, research and revision.

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