Teachers use several methods to curb plagiarism. One technique is to create
interim projects which link to the main term paper. Another is to assign a
topic that is impossible to find on the Internet, for example, the history, or
psychology, of anthropology of the very class they are taking. Even a paper
from the previous semester won't work because each class is unique. A third
method is to require the student to write three different beginnings to her
paper.
There are some sophisticated technical resources that faculty use to spot
Internet papers. The first is a program sold by Glatt Plagiarism Services. It
removes every fifth word in a student's paper and then the student fills in the
blanks. This is based on an old technique developed in the fifties. It is quite
reliable but cumbersome and slow. A better option is to use the Internet
itself. For example an on line service called "ithenticate" compares
submitted papers to a huge data base. Eve 2 Essay Verification is a search
engine that claims to find 80% to 90% of plagiarized material. Word Check
Systems is another search engine. As the number of sites on the Internet
explodes, these engines will need to get more and more powerful, but right now
student beware.