Plagiarism Checker

Plag Tracker is a website that will check some written text for plagiarism.  To use this service you simply need to copy and paste the text of your paper into a box and click "start checking".  Plag Tracker will then scan the paper using it's database of academic papers and of course the web using it's own unique algorithm which will then generate a custom report for you.  Check out the screenshot below to see how easy it is to use...

You can also see that they have a poll asking what other features you would like to see used while scanning the paper.

Now What?

This is an excellent site for teachers who want to check and see if a paper was actually written with original content but also for students who would like to see if they have inadvertently plagiarized by using content from the web.  For those of you looking for a site with a little more functionality, Paper Rater is a site that will do the same as Plag Tracker but will also review for grammar, punctuation and spelling.

Paper Rater

I recently came across a blog post where I was introduced to a great website called Paper Rater.  On this site, students (or writers of all ages) can submit a paper for analysis of grammar and spelling, plagiarism and quality of writing.   Paper Rater is able to provide meaningful feedback through the use of natural language processing (NLP), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, information retrieval (IR), computational linguistics, data mining, and advanced pattern matching (APM).  In addition, Paper Rater will also generate a grade for the paper based on the above criteria and even create a printable analysis report

Now What?

Paper Rater is a great tool for students to use before they hand in a paper because it isn't always easy finding someone to proofread your work before it is submitted.  As a teacher Paper Rater is invaluable because you can hep your students clean up their work before it is submitted to you for a final grade.  This will save you a lot of time correcting grammar, spelling and usage.  You can also choose to use the plagiarism checker as a stand alone tool.