Preventing Plagiarism
• Familiarize students with the school policy on plagiarism
• Define and give examples of plagiarism
• Insist on the original copy of the paper; don't accept photocopies
• Make students turn in all research and writing products
• Give specific topics for assignments.
• Keep past papers (or copies).
• Become familiar with term paper mills on the internet
• Use http://www.plagiarism.org
• If possible, familiarize yourself with each student's writing ability by getting an in-class writing sample early in the semester.
• Read all papers on the same topic together.

Detecting Plagiarism
• Internal Inconsistency: writing level varies from paragraph to paragraph
• External Inconsistency: the paper represents a remarkable improvement over previously submitted work (e.g., average student hands in a sophisticated and error free paper).
• “Teacher Radar”: if passages sound familiar, they probably are!
• Paper topic is different from assigned or promised topic.
• Typefaces don't match throughout the paper
• Paper is photocopied.
• No footnotes or quotations.
• Footnotes don't match the cited text.
• Citations and/or bibliography show citations for papers that are well above the sophistication level of the course you are teaching.
• Citations are all from older materials and the dates of publication are all within the same few years (student may have found an older article and is attempting to pass it off as their own).