Tips for Detecting Plagiarism

In Google:

• Search distinctive words or phrases.
• Search up to 10 terms (Google won't search more than this).
• Use quotation marks "" around phrases.
• If you can't pull up a page, use the link to see the cached page.

• You may find results from term paper sites that charge, but you won't be able to read the papers without paying. It may not be worth it.
• You will not be searching all of the web.
• You will not be searching proprietary databases, including the full text databases we subscribe to through the library.

In the library's subscription databases:

• Use the Advanced Search feature if one is available. The Advanced Search is the default for EBSCOhost, but not for InfoTrac Onefile.
• The default search generally is a keyword search of titles, authors, and subject headings for articles. Use the pull-down search features to be sure that you are searching the full text.
• Search for distinctive words or phrases.
• If you are not searching for a phrase, be sure to include the word and between individual terms.

• Most full text databases will not include articles published before the early 1990's.
• The PDF Perplex: you can't search the PDFs available on most full text databases from the search page (JSTOR is the exception) but on the bright side, PDF text can't be copied and pasted into a document.