Alex Tabarrok, an economist who blogs over at MarginalRevolution, has pointed out an irony about Turnitin (Turn-It-In), an anti-plagiarism web site (see: Turnitin: Arming both sides in the Plagiarism War). Also see: Plagiarism, Singularity, and the Appropriate Use of Data from the Web. Here is his recent note with only minor edits:
The internet has made plagiarism much easier and by most accounts plagiarism is increasing rapidly. As a result, over a million instructors now use services like Turnitin, a plagiarism detector that compares submitted manuscripts against a large database of material, including previously submitted manuscripts. What is less well appreciated is that Turnitin also sells its services to students. In fact, students whose professors use Turnitin are encouraged to pre-submit their work to Writecheck which will analyze and “verify” for the students that their paper has “properly quoted, summarized or paraphrased” previous work and it will also relieve students from “worrying that their paper will be recycled without their knowledge.” Uh huh. In other words, WriteCheck will tell students if their essays will pass Turnitin! David Harrington summarizes nicely:
Turnitin is playing both sides of the fence, helping instructors identify plagiarists while helping plagiarists avoid detection. It is akin to selling security systems to stores while allowing shoplifters to test whether putting tagged goods into bags lined with aluminum thwart the detectors.
From the Turnitin home page, here's a bulleted list of the capabilities of the anti-plagerism system:
- 150+ million archived student papers
- 90,000+ journals, periodicals & books
- 1+ million active instructors
- 14+ billion web pages crawled
- 10,000 educational institutions
- 20+ million licensed students
- 126 countries
From the WriteCheck page, here's a summary of the services offered to students:
Avoid Plagiarism Improve Your Writing: Developed by the creators of Turnitin, WriteCheck helps students check for plagiarism and correct grammar, style and spelling errors with user-friendly reports and helpful resources to improve writing.
Brilliant! Sell your software services to both teachers and students. Help the latter by correcting grammar, style, and spelling errors. Also provide "help" to students by indicating whether any portions of the essay will be flagged for "accidental" plagiarism when the teacher submits the same paper to the web site a few days later.
If, you want to prove your excellence in academic activities, you will have to be self-disciplined to avoid plagiarism. Remember, the teaching staff might prefer using a free plagiarism checker to detect whether you have presented your original work or are simply trying to be over smart by submitting the copied coursework and assignments.
Posted by: Plagiarism checker | February 11, 2013 at 12:49 PM