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Is there a service which allows you to check if a paper/article was plagiarized?

At this moment, I use Google to check if some papers are plagiarized or not, but I think that are other smarter methods

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Are you a professor? What's the context for this question? – Lauren Ipsum Jun 3 '12 at 12:14
I'm not sure this is a writing question. Thoughts, people? – Standback♦ Jun 3 '12 at 13:32
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@Standback I vote for "on topic". A proper answer could provide advice on avoiding "accidental" or otherwise unintentional or misconceived plagiarism (improperly citing a source or using a phrase that appears in another written work. And as a professor (if the OP is indeed a professor), one of his jobs is critiquing the writings of others, and part of that critique is ensuring the proper use of citations and ensuring that all uncited written work is original content. – Jed Oliver Jun 3 '12 at 15:02
I agree with Jed, this is on-topic - I see it as a tools question. – Neil Fein♦ Jun 3 '12 at 15:28
The question is, why didn't he use Google to search for a smarter method? And if he did, what's wrong with the options he found? – John Smithers Jun 5 '12 at 10:55

1 Answer

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There are many software options available (see Wikipedia's page on plagiarism detection), some free, and some paid.

To my knowledge, one of the most commonly used commercial options available is Turnitin; there is also Turnitin's student version, WriteCheck. Another commercial option is PlagScan. These options can be somewhat expensive though; PlagScan, for example, charges by the word: $13 gets you 50,000 words of plagiarism checking.

There are several free services, but they should be used with caution and their limitations should be understood. Some, for example, simply do what you've been doing: they take the sentences and search in Google. This "direct plagiarism" is much easier for the software to look for. Others, like the Viper plagiarism-scanner, do a pretty good job in my experience (from a long time ago), but still only match direct matches, and won't catch things where a word or two have been changed here or there. I've since stopped using them because they have a somewhat sketchy data retention and policy: whatever you upload, they add your work to their "study site" (or essay mill or whatever you want to call it). (To Viper's credit, they are transparent about how they use your data!)

IMPORTANT NOTE: The bottom line with free is that unfortunately you need to be very careful with them--be sure you closely read their privacy policies and their data retention policies. Commercial services may also retain your data, but generally offer an option to purge your account; nevertheless, it never hurts to read the terms of use and other relevant documents, particularly in cases of sensitive information.

If you are checking against a known local database of documents (which it doesn't sound like you're doing, but I thought I'd mention it), you can check out WCopyfind. It might not be the most intuitive, but it is promising and free. You might use this software, for example, if you have a database of papers students have submitted in the same course offered in different years, to check whether a student in the current batch of students is plagiarizing from an earlier student or from someone else in their class.

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