How to Scan Works for Plagiarism for Free

Plagiarism is a form of academic dishonesty where one does not cite or attribute material that is not their own. Plagiarism can be intentional and unintentional. With intentional plagiarism, a student makes an attempt to deceive. With unintentional plagiarism, a student lacks sufficient attribution.

One of the most high profile sites for checking for plagiarism, student or otherwise, is Turnitin.com. The controversy surrounding Turnitin.com and its intellectual property rights issues is fairly well known, but there are alternative, albeit in some cases less effective, ways to check for plagiarism that are absolutely free and accessible to everyone.

While a large institution, district, or university may be able to afford the expensive contract of Turnitin.com so that their faculty and staff members may be able to check for plagiarized materials, individuals still have access to plagiarism scanning software.

Of course, nothing replaces the direct method of checking each paper individually using search engines such as Google and reading for style, but not everyone has the time to check each and every hunch that arises when reading large quantities of works.

So, to supplement more direct plagiarism checking, there are various free alternatives for checking plagiarism available.

The first site can be found at www.plagium.com and is a simple cut and paste window that will search the web and news sources. Under the advanced options link, www.plagium.com offers the chance to search pages in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. The site www.plagium.com does not store any of the text as it is deleted after the search is complete. The search can be completed from the front page or an account can be established.

The next site that searches for plagiarism for free is iScan, which is located at www.plagiarism.uk.com. In order to complete a scan, a user must register for a free iScan account. Once registered, the user has the option to scan for plagiarized text.

The next free online tool for checking plagiarism is The Plagiarism Checker found at www.dustball.com/cs/plagiarism.checker, which was developed for a project at the University of Maryland. This tool is accessible for checking for plagiarism from the front page without any prompt to sign up for an account. This plagiarism checker is an open window for cutting and pasting text. The user also has the ability to upload a Microsoft Word file. A small link above the free plagiarism checking tool links to a more advanced version of The Plagiarism Checker that claims to be "3x as accurate" for a monthly fee of $8.

PlagiarismChecker.com, found at www.plagiarismchecker.com offers a free cut and paste text box on the front page. When searching for plagiarism, the site offers to use the Google or Yahoo search engines. In addition, the site allows for preferences such as Google Alerts and customizable shortcuts. This plagiarism checking website also checks for plagiarism of web pages.

A different kind of plagiarism tool is Pl@giarism found at www.plagiarism.tk. This is a downloadable program used by the Law Faculty at the University of Maastricht in New Zealand. This tool only checks for plagiarism in the papers submitted to it. It does not do outside research; instead, this tool discovers plagiarism between students in the same program or class. The tool is a 3.1 MB download located on the site.

Doc Cop is located at www.doccop.com and requires a guest ID provided by their site to check uploaded files or cut and paste documents. The service is free, but it does require some registration for use. Of all the plagiarism scanning sites, this is the most ad-heavy one.

Finally, PlagiarismDetect.com found at www.plagiarismdetect.com offers several options for finding plagiarism in documents. The site does require registration, but the user can upload a file or cut and paste text into a text box. In addition, the site also offers a free plug-in for Microsoft Word 2007. This plug-in checks the document for plagiarism right in the word processing software.

Overall, there are many choices for checking papers for plagiarism that are free and easy to use. Although www.turnitin.com is a high-profile industry standard, it is far too expensive for individual use or smaller schools (and even homeschooling), especially in tough economic times. But as lack of access to expensive plagiarism scanning software isn't necessary. There is no excuse for eschewing academic honesty. Now you have the tools to fill in those gaps.

If you find any resources of your own, feel free to put a link in the comment box. Share! The best resource for teachers is each other.