What are ways to detect plagiarism just by reading the paper? What kind of things will stand out?
What are ways to detect plagiarism just by reading the paper? What kind of things will stand out?
user
We can look for any of the following:
assistant
Yeah, those are very obvious things that would definitely stand out. What about more subtle things?
user
The words “and” and “but” are often used a lot when plagiarizing, which also stands out as potentially very suspicious. The more repetition or “filler words” that show up, the more suspicious it might be.
assistant
Why do filler words indicate plagiarism?
user
In formal writing, we try to use only nouns, verbs, adjectives, and proper nouns (people’s names). In informal writing, these may be supplemented with adverbs and prepositions, and sometimes even conjunctions (as long as they are not modifying a preposition).  For a very simple example, consider the two sentences:
assistant
Are you saying those condensing the meaning by omitting words indicates plagiarism?
user
Yes.  It’s a sign that a sentence was copied (or “repurposed”) from another source.  So perhaps one sentence might have appeared in one place, and the author might have read it, and then used it with a very small number of changes (the fewest number of changes that would preserve the same meaning).   For example, this is what I might say if I was talking about what a “pest” is:
assistant
Wow, very interesting! Thank you
user