Plagiarism Check –
manual and machine plagiarism detection

What does a plagiarism check involve?

The issue of plagiarism is of concern not only to the media, academic researchers, teachers, professors and lecturers, but increasingly to those people who write texts themselves: authors, undergraduate and postgraduate students, website operators, etc.

Although plagiarism in the true sense of the word can only be done consciously and intentionally, uncertainties in handling source material trouble even the most experienced of writers. That is why we offer you a plagiarism evaluation, a process frequently referred to as plagiarism detection or simply a plagiarism check.

Checking your own and others’ texts for plagiarism

This type of checking for freedom from plagiarism can be applied to your own or to another’s text. Whether you feel unsure yourself in your handling of source material, or have a slight suspicion when reading a text written by someone else — we will gladly be your plagiarism detectives.

Here are some examples of the type of text that can be subjected to a plagiarism check:

• dissertations, your own and other people's >>
• Master's theses >>
• Bachelor theses >>
• homework, seminar papers >>
• all other types of final assessment pieces
• websites, blogs
• books
• journalistic texts, newspaper articles
• technical and specialised texts: factual books, professional articles

We can use the following types of plagiarism check, or any combination of them, in order to support you:

Formal Plagiarism Check

This type of plagiarism evaluation involves formally checking through the source information, the citation method, the footnotes and the bibliography:

• Are the quotations used correctly and do they follow consistent style principles?

• Have all the cited sources been included in the bibliography?

• Conversely, have all the listed sources been cited in the main text?

• Does the method used for citing quotations correspond to the guidelines prescribed in the style guide?

• Does the source information include all pictures, tables, charts and diagrams?

This kind of plagiarism check can also serve as a type of academic proofreading or editing. If you wish, it can just involve the list of sources, the footnotes, and the bibliography. Alternatively, it could include a general proofreading, encompassing spelling, grammar, punctuation and style.

Computer-assisted Plagiarism Check

This entails an automated Internet search with the aid of specialised software. The programme seeks matches with Internet sources, and produces a report, listing suspicious locations. Internet-based and software-supported, this type of plagiarism check is the fastest, but also the least exact variety of plagiarism check.

More about the computer-assisted plagiarism check >>

Manual Plagiarism Search

Of course, we can also carry out manual Internet and library searches for you. A professionally qualified proofreader experienced in plagiarism checking can conduct a far more targeted, more intelligent search than can be effected by standard software, which frequently detects commonplace expressions, but fails to recognise the evidence of plagiarism in passages of text with only minor changes to the original.

An experienced plagiarism checker can not only detect instances of paraphrasing, but is also better able to spot indicators that will not be picked up by a programme. Stylistic inconsistencies and spelling irregularities, for example, instantly catch the attention of a human plagiarism checker, who will take a closer look at the relevant sections.

A manual plagiarism check offers a further advantage that should not be underestimated: offline investigation can also be conducted, entailing the scrutiny of cited works and others relevant to the subject, by the use of spot checks at the very least.

Preparing a Plagiarism Report

On request, we can also prepare for you an expert report evaluating the probability of the existence of plagiarism. As independent experts, we can make judgements on borderline cases, or run an initial analysis to detect questionable points. This option lends itself to use by professors, lecturers and teachers who are already starting to have suspicions, or in courts of law and other formal proceedings.

More about the expert report on plagiarism >>

Advice on the Use of Sources

Are you unsure as to how to cite your sources? How to set out the bibliography or how to proceed when citing sources from websites? We will be pleased to offer you individual advice or coaching on how to cite your sources.

Plagiarism Searches in over 90 Languages

We have qualified plagiarism detection experts working for us in a great number of languages: