Possible Indicators of Plagiarism

• Cited research is old
• Writing style is poor, or extremely good, or uneven (particularly the introduction or conclusion compared to the rest of the paper)
• Contains specialized vocabulary beyond expectations of students at that level
• Inconsistent fonts, pagination, and/or layout
• Lacks citations and/or bibliography
• Contains evidence of downloading from a Web site (i.e. URL, "faded" text from a link)
• Student cannot produce sources
• Sources are all unavailable in the Colby Libraries
• Paper is about the topic instead of on the topic; does not answer the question posed (though keep in mind that this is a common mistake of student papers)

Paper Mills

Paper mills vary in sophistication from barely acceptable pre-written stock papers on "the usual subjects" to custom-written materials and rush jobs; usually sites accept all major credit cards. Most of the papers will turn up using a simple search of an unusual phrase in search engines such as Google. For a lengthy list of available paper mills, see Margaret Fain's "Cheating 101: Paper Mills and You."

Using Search Engines

If you suspect that a paper has been plagiarized, you can search for the original online without too much difficulty. The following suggestions may help, or you can contact a Reference Librarian for assistance.

• Use one of the search engines on the Web Search Guide.
• Enter entire phrases in the search engine using the "exact phrase" feature or quotation marks. This will give you any sites which use that phrase; they could be articles, Web pages, or complete papers.
• Use more than one search engine.
• Use text from various portions of the paper, particularly in the body of the material.

Detection Services

Detection services will take a paper you submit to them electronically and run it through various searches, issuing a report on which text appears in various places on the Web. Some also include standard print reference works and texts. Many services, such as Turnitin.com, will keep a copy of the paper on file, which could violate the student's copyright. In most cases, it's simpler to track the paper yourself using a search engine.