A Brief Guide to Searching Online for Sources of Plagiarism [1]
A Brief Guide to Searching Online for Sources of Plagiarism Beyond journal articles and books in the library, the most common source of plagiarized material is the internet.
There are many different ways to search and find information online, but the most common is using a search engine.
This brief guide indicates some of the ways searching can be streamlined and refined when searching for sources of
suspected plagiarism. (For tips on what might constitute suspicious work, see the Recognising Plagiarism
Checklist available at http://www.teachingandlearning.uwa.edu.au/page/72852.)
This guide is based on using Google, but there are a large number of other search engines which may return different
results. There are also specialist search engines targeted at many academic disciplines. However, almost all search
engines will have similar operators and functions to those described here.
Operators Most searches begin with the word or words being typed into the main Google window (at http://www.google.com).
However, there are sometimes thousands or even hundreds of thousands of results. To refine your searches there are
many ‘operators’ available which allow you to limit or alter your search in particular ways.
The most common operators are:
Operator Example
"string" "To each his own"
OR
Sydney OR Melbourne
+
Star Wars Episode +I
–
virus –computer
~
~food ~facts
*
red * blue
Description
Would only return searches the exact phrase to each his own.
Any search that is surrounded by double quotation marks will only return
results that contain that entire phrase (or ‘string’).
Would find pages containing the word Sydney or the word Melbourne.
To find pages that include either of two search terms, add an uppercase OR
between the terms.
Would fine pages containing Star Wars Episode and I (‘I’ would normally
be excluded).
Google ignores common words and characters such as I, where, the, how, and
other digits and letters which slow down searches without improving the
results. (Google indicates if a word has been excluded by displaying details
on the results page below the search box.)
Would return pages with the word virus but NOT the word computer.
The minus sign “–” allows you to exclude pages with a particular word.
Would return both pages with the terms food facts, and it synonyms, such as
pages containing food information, nutrition facts and nutrition
information.
If you want to search not only for your search term but also for its synonyms,
place the tilde sign ("~") immediately in front of your search term.
Would return pages with the words red and blue separated by one or more
words.
The asterisk “*” search allows you to return pages with two terms separated
by an unknown third word (or series of words).
Searching for Sources of Plagiarism Once you have found a passage or distinctive phrase which you suspect is plagiarised, try and find the four or five
consecutive words which sound most like they were plagiarised. The best starting point is to do a string search for
the precise passage. However, if that returns no results, think laterally before giving up. More determined
plagiarists sometimes attempt to avoid detection by using similar words (so use a synonym “~”search) or changing
joining worlds.
For example, if your suspicious passage was “resolute tactical resistance and political impermanence” and a
standard string search returned no results, the word most likely to have been changed is “and”. Thus, this
combination of string searches and an asterisk search – "tactical resistance" * "political impermanence" – would
find results if, for example, the original source had read “resolute tactical resistance plus political impermanence” or
“resolute tactical resistance combining with political impermanence”.
The Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning <http://www.catl.uwa.edu.au>
A Brief Guide to Searching Online for Sources of Plagiarism [2]
Advanced Searching Google’s Advanced Search page (http://www.google.com/advanced_search) lets you refine searches even further,
both using standard operators and adding more specific ways to search. Here is a screenshot from the Advanced
Search page:
Beyond the standard operators, the ability to specify which language(s) material should be written in to be included
in the search is often one of the most helpful features.
As a rule of thumb, if there are conditions which allow you to narrow or refine your search, then use them.
Other Google Searches Google, and other large search engines such as Yahoo, offer specialist search engines as well as their general search
functions. The three specialist searches most likely to be sources of plagiarism are:
1. Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com/). This growing index includes mainly material which has
substantial academic standing such as journals or other reputable sources.
2. Google Book Search (http://books.google.com/). This allows users to search the contexts of many printed
texts (including an increasing number of full-texts from academic publishers).
3. Google Groups (http://groups.google.com/). This search encompasses the contents of many online
discussion groups, including the entire UseNet, or ‘news groups’, archive.
Google Scholar and Book Search both have Advanced Search pages (accessed via a link to the left of the search
window on the main page). As with the regular Advanced Search page, these may help refine searches even further
to find specific material.
As they expand, Google Scholar and Google Book Search may well become very popular tools with students
because these searches are often far quicker and simpler than the comparatively complex library searches.
Bibliography This guide has been primarily complied from information on the following pages:
ƒ Google Help Center, ‘Advanced Search Made Easy’, http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/help/refinesearch.html
ƒ Google Help Center, ‘Advanced Operators’, http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/help/operators.html
ƒ ‘Google Help: Cheat Sheet’, http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/help/cheatsheet.html.
More often than not students use Google and plagiarise because they do not fully understand why they shouldn’t.
The best way to prevent having to search for plagiarism a lot is to ensure that courses explicitly arm students with a
full understanding of good academic conduct. Similarly, demonstrating to students how easy it is to find sources of
plagiarism may very well dissuade potential plagiarists.
The Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning <http://www.catl.uwa.edu.au>