Plagiarism through Paraphrasing Tools—The Story of One Plagiarized Text

Libor Ansorge, Klára Ansorgeová and Mark Sixsmith
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Libor Ansorge: TG Masaryk Water Research Institute, Podbabská 2582/30, 16000 Prague, Czech Republic
Klára Ansorgeová: Faculty of Science, Charles University Prague, Albertov 6, 12800 Prague, Czech Republic
Mark Sixsmith: Faculty of Environmental Science, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, Kamýcká 129, 16500 Prague, Czech Republic

Publications, 2021, vol. 9, issue 4, 1-10

Abstract: This paper describes a unique case study wherein real plagiarism revealed in a scientific journal is compared with the original article. The plagiarized text contains many typical errors, such as inconsistent terminology, unclear meanings of sentence, missing tables and figures, and an incorrect literature list. The occurrence of similar errors in other manuscripts may serve as a warning against plagiarism. During the analysis of the plagiarized text, it was assumed that a paraphrasing tool was used for preparing this plagiarized text. To confirm this assumption, the chosen paraphrasing tool was used to create a paraphrased version of the article and this version was compared with the plagiarized text. The paraphrased version had far fewer changes from the plagiarized text than the plagiarized text had from the original article. Thus, it was confirmed that the plagiarized text was created using a paraphrasing tool. Information contained in this article can be used for detecting this type of plagiarism.

Keywords: plagiarism; paraphrasing; text spinning; context comparison; plagiarism detection (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 D83 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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