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If you suspect the paper may have come from the Web,
you might try these strategies to find it:
- First, go to Findsame, at www.findsame.com,
a powerful content-search engine, and type or paste in a suspect paragraph.
Findsame will return a list of matching pages, ranked by percent of
sameness. You can even view your suspect text and the matching texts
side by side for comparison.
- You might also try HowOriginal at www.howoriginal.com
for another text-matching tool.
- If you find nothing with these tools, try several of the large-database,
full-text search engines like Google, Northern Light, or Fast Search,
and perform an exact phrase search on a four-to-six-word phrase from
a suspect part of the paper (find a phrase that has two or three relatively
unusual words in it). Remember that no search engine covers more than
about a third of the visible Web, so you should try several engines
before you give up.
- Next, locate some appropriate databases on the invisible Web, depending
on the subject of the paper. You can find many of these databases by
consulting the "World
Wide Web Research Tools" page on this site. If indicated, visit
some of the online encyclopedias as well. Here, you will have to use
keyword searches rather than exact phrase searches, but using a string
of appropriate keywords can be very powerful.
- Now go to your library's online database subscriptions and search
on subject-appropriate databases using keyword searches.
Use a plagiarism detector.
- If you do not find the paper this way, you might want to turn to
some commercial services that provide plagiarism detection. Here are
some of the services: Plagiarism.com at
www.plagiarism.com. Educational materials and a software screening
program that creates a test of familiarity for a student to complete.
The company says that no student has been falsely accused. CD ROM program.
- Plagiarism.org at /www.plagiarism.org.
Online service that checks submitted student papers against a large
database and provides reports of results.
- Also monitors term paper mills:
Integriguard at www.integriguard.com.
Compares submissions against a database of other papers and Web sites.
- Eve at www.canexus.com/eve/index.shtml.
Inexpensive software agent that searches the Web to compare a suspect
paper with Internet content. Shows site and degree of match.
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