By: Shawn Cox
Submitted: 2011-03-16 22:12:14 | Word Count: 655
Submitting other peoples work as your own is the simplest definition of plagiarism. Despite being unethical and absolutely discrediting for students, this activity still prevails in colleges and universities with every passing day. Judging from an academic perspective, what is the way for professors to detect apparent plagiarism in a students paper? In many ways and rest assured, the majority of professors do use them to scrutinize all papers that reach them for the purpose. Here we will take a look at 5 most recognizable and explicit indications of plagiarism in a paper and find out how professors conduct this job.
1.When your style of writing the paper seems apparently different to what you capable of.
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Possibly the most apparent sign of plagiarism is submitting a paper that seems totally different from your style of writing. It becomes plainly evident if you already possess a bad reputation with writing papers. Professors are aware of and always keep track of the writing capabilities of their students. So if a student not so good with writing turns in a remarkable paper, it arouses instant suspicion in the professors mind. Even so, most students with good writing abilities can also activate plagiarism sirens if they use a different writing style than what their professor knows about.
2.When you use more quotes than you actually do.
Many students have this notion that a paper full of quotes would get them better grades. This is because they think if they stuff their paper with seemingly impressive quotes from reputable authors, it might look to be relevant and they would get away with good grades. As a matter of fact, this approach puts the final nail in your coffin and ensures failure or inevitable charges of plagiarism. A lack of proper citation of the quotes makes the situation even worse making it seem your own doing. In order to avert all this, never ever use quotes more than your own content and never claim ownership of others work by refraining to properly cite them.
3.When you show extra confidence for plagiarized work and none at all for your other papers.
Like all professors know which student is good or bad at writing, they also know which one of them is more dedicated, confident and thoroughly committed and which ones are not. This becomes more evident in cases when a student usually shows a weak approach towards defending his ideas, a paper with strong and effective notions will definitely be thought of as someone elses work. And because plagiarized material more often shows strong contentions of the ideas, you would be more vulnerable to charged for plagiarism especially if you are not previously known for carrying out such work.
4.When you use old evidence, data or statistics.
The fourth undeniable display of plagiarism is using old and out of date evidence or research material. In fact, un-plagiarized research papers always have most recent evidence and data. Plagiarized papers on the other hand, contain very old and outdated sources of research and evidence.
5.When your paper is written in a remarkable writing style but is irrelevant to the topic.
The last clue that gives out a plagiarized paper is that it might just touch the topic but otherwise contain irrelevant data and statistics. As an example, suppose your paper is about the role of the US army in the Second World War. Now a well written but plagiarized research paper would may strongly present information and data about the Second World War but marginal or no information about the US army which was the actual part of topic question. Still, if you have any false hope that a finely composed but equally plagiarized and ordinary paper can get you an A grade or first class, you might have to think twice. It will definitely not be a coincidence if your professor finds out the truth and why not, after all, professors know their job.
