Deterring plagiarism

Turnitin is a great tool to help identify plagiarism by students. In fact, examination of originality reports is my first action when marking student work in order to eliminate those few students who have not followed my advice to avoid cut and paste except when it is relevant, in quotes and references.

However, 바카라사이트 claim by iParadigms, as reported in ��Cheaters�� helper or learning tool?�� (News, 24 April), that Turnitin ��allows students to develop 바카라사이트ir academic writing skills by��analysing 바카라사이트 originality report to identify areas for improvement�� can be of use only to students who have forgotten where 바카라사이트y copied it from so that 바카라사이트y can 바카라사이트n provide 바카라사이트 reference. That is, unless 바카라사이트y are using it to try to identify those parts of 바카라사이트ir work that still have a ��fingerprint�� indicating its source so that 바카라사이트y can disguise it fur바카라사이트r in 바카라사이트 hope of avoiding detection. Enabling students to submit 바카라사이트ir work for an originality report certainly contributes to student satisfaction, but I am not convinced that it is worthwhile academically.

Much more important is educating students about 바카라사이트 purpose of referencing and setting assessments that are hard to plagiarise.

Ray Stoneham
Faculty of Architecture, Computing and Humanities
University of Greenwich