Plagiarism checker how does it work

Nowadays, due to the quick development of the web resources, the question of originality is especially acute. While there are a huge number of websites providing information about various subjects, there is a total lack of programs that could define the authorship.

Despite such a critical problem, there is still a solution to it, i. By using one of the offered online programs, customers can scan their pieces of writing and determine whether they include any copied parts. However, one should not make snap decisions. First, it is necessary to find out how plagiarism checker work.

Those who are going to use particular plagiarism detection software should know that it scans only some excerpts, short pieces, or paragraphs. It searches for the similar sets of words by comparing the very text with other documents.

Almost all anti-plagiarism programs use the search engine when looking for copied material. The analyzed text is broken into small parts, and then each of them parts is being searched via a search engine.

In case there is identic information on some web. Some anti-plagiarism systems scan the text by browsing different online databases. The basics of the process of detecting plagiarism, string matching namely, are described below. The procedure is quite simple: take a short piece of text and try to identify the same piece in other papers. Afterwards, you should repeat the same actions with other parts of your work.

In order to detect the plagiarism percentage of the compared text, you need to paste its part into the opened window and press the respective button. This is the only thing you are required to do.

The pasted text is compared to thousands if not millions of web resources. To put this number into perspective, it would take approximately trillion sheets of paper to print out the entire internet, today. With all of this information so immediately accessible, is it any surprise that we've seen a rise in plagiarism as well? Fortunately, the growth of the internet and our need to find ways to search that content has led to developments in web crawling and indexing technology the latter of which is used to identify the content that is crawled that has led to technology that quickly identifies copying and the potential plagiarism of content.

First off, it is important to clarify that plagiarism detection software doesn't specifically identify plagiarism. No software will ever be able to accurately determine intent.

And intent is one of the factors that educators consider when looking at incidents of plagiarism in student work. The way that plagiarism detection software works is to identify content similarity matches. That is, the software scans a database of crawled content and identifies the text components and then compares it to the components, or content, of other work. Based on that comparison, the software will generate a report that highlights the content matches.

Plagiarism detection software crawls and indexes content very similarly to the ways that search engines, like Google, crawl and index web content. The key difference here is that plagiarism detection software is crawling and indexing content not to make it keyword searchable, but to identify similar content stored in the database of crawled pages. There are, generally speaking, four different ways to go about doing this.

The first way is through keyword analysis. What does that mean? Like a search engine, you enter in a keyword and the software scans documents to find instances of that word. Another way to scan text for similarity is to look at groups, or strings, of words. Rather than looking just at individual words, the software looks for strings or sequences of words say or more words ordered in such a way to create a sentence or sentence fragments.

As you may be able to see already, these two approaches can be pretty effective for identifying the strict or exact copying of content within one document to others. The shortcoming of these approaches, however, is that it doesn't identify paraphrasing--where the ideas and meaning may have been copied--but the text is different enough that it doesn't get identified as a match. A way to better get at this type of problem would be through a third way, which is to go about scanning for content matches by looking at the style of the writing and to compare that style to other documents.

In contrast, a research paper requires you to independently develop an original argument. It involves more in-depth research and interpretation of sources and data. The sections of a lab report can vary between scientific fields and course requirements, but it usually contains the following:. A lab report conveys the aim, methods, results, and conclusions of a scientific experiment. Lab reports are commonly assigned in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics STEM fields.

Random error is almost always present in scientific studies, even in highly controlled settings. You can avoid systematic error through careful design of your sampling , data collection , and analysis procedures. For example, use triangulation to measure your variables using multiple methods; regularly calibrate instruments or procedures; use random sampling and random assignment ; and apply masking blinding where possible.

Systematic error is generally a bigger problem in research. With random error, multiple measurements will tend to cluster around the true value. Systematic errors are much more problematic because they can skew your data away from the true value.

Random and systematic error are two types of measurement error. Random error is a chance difference between the observed and true values of something e. Systematic error is a consistent or proportional difference between the observed and true values of something e. On graphs, the explanatory variable is conventionally placed on the x-axis, while the response variable is placed on the y-axis. The difference between explanatory and response variables is simple:.

Controlled experiments require:. Depending on your study topic, there are various other methods of controlling variables. Place the figure before or after the first paragraph where it is mentioned. Refer to figures by their numbers in the text e.

Below the figure, place a caption providing the figure number followed by a period e. The caption is single-spaced and left-aligned, and followed by a blank line before the continuation of the main text. There are 4 main types of extraneous variables :.

A confounding variable is a type of extraneous variable that not only affects the dependent variable, but is also related to the independent variable. According to the APA guidelines, you should report enough detail on inferential statistics so that your readers understand your analyses. You should also present confidence intervals and estimates of effect sizes where relevant. Generally, you should aim to round numbers while retaining precision. For a published interview whether in video , audio, or print form , you should always include a citation , just as you would for any other source.

MLA , however, still recommends including citations for your own interviews. The main elements included in a newspaper interview citation across APA , MLA , and Chicago style are the names of the interviewer and interviewee, the interview title, the publication date, the name of the newspaper, and a URL for online sources.

The information is presented differently in different citation styles. One key difference is that APA advises listing the interviewer in the author position, while MLA and Chicago advise listing the interviewee first. In a factorial design, multiple independent variables are tested. If you test two variables, each level of one independent variable is combined with each level of the other independent variable to create different conditions.

Within-subjects designs have many potential threats to internal validity , but they are also very statistically powerful. Most medical school programs interview candidates, as do many though not all leading law and business schools. In research programs, it depends—PhDs in business usually do, while those in economics normally do not, for example. Some schools interview everyone, while others only interview their top candidates. In addition to thinking about your answers for the most commonly asked grad school interview questions , you should reach out to former and current students to ask their advice on preparing and what sort of questions will be asked.

Look back through your resume and come up with anecdotes that you could use for common questions, particularly those that ask about obstacles that you overcame. You should also read as much research in your field as possible. Come up with a few questions that you could ask them.

Graduate schools often ask questions about why you are interested in this particular program and what you will contribute. Understand what the program is looking for and come up with anecdotes that demonstrate why you are a good fit for them.

The elements included in a newspaper article citation across APA , MLA , and Chicago style are the author name, the article title, the publication date, the newspaper name, and the URL if the article was accessed online.

No page numbers are used in Chicago newspaper citations. Untitled sources e. For social media posts, which are usually untitled, quote the initial words of the post in place of the title: the first characters in Chicago , or the first 20 words in APA. Biden, J. It means more support to safely. This sort of information may be included in MLA too, but is not mandatory.

The main elements included in a lecture citation across APA , MLA , and Chicago style are the name of the speaker, the lecture title, the date it took place, the course or event it was part of, and the institution it took place at. All styles also recommend using timestamps as a locator in the in-text citation or footnote.

While a between-subjects design has fewer threats to internal validity , it also requires more participants for high statistical power than a within-subjects design. Between-subjects and within-subjects designs can be combined in a single study when you have two or more independent variables a factorial design. In a mixed factorial design, one variable is altered between subjects and another is altered within subjects. In a between-subjects design , every participant experiences only one condition, and researchers assess group differences between participants in various conditions.

In a within-subjects design , each participant experiences all conditions, and researchers test the same participants repeatedly for differences between conditions. If you have an idea for a topic we should cover, or you notice a mistake in any of our articles, let us know by emailing shona scribbr. You are free to display, distribute, and adapt Scribbr materials in your classes or upload them in private learning environments like Blackboard.

This applies to articles, videos, images, and any other content published on the Knowledge Base. Video transcripts and subtitles can be accessed on YouTube. Please credit Scribbr for creating any materials you use in your teaching. You may not republish, adapt, or translate our materials for public distribution without permission.

If you have ideas for adapting Scribbr content, email shona scribbr. As well as the Knowledge Base, Scribbr provides many other tools and services to support you in academic writing and citation:. The Knowledge Base is for students at all levels. The Scribbr Knowledge Base is a collection of free resources to help you succeed in academic research, writing, and citation.

Every week, we publish helpful step-by-step guides, clear examples, simple templates, engaging videos, and more. Each annotation in an annotated bibliography is usually between 50 and words long. Longer annotations may be divided into paragraphs. The content of the annotation varies according to your assignment. An annotation can be descriptive, meaning it just describes the source objectively; evaluative, meaning it assesses its usefulness; or reflective, meaning it explains how the source will be used in your own research.

Any credible sources on your topic can be included in an annotated bibliography , but you should usually focus on collecting journal articles and scholarly books.

An annotated bibliography is an assignment where you collect sources on a specific topic and write an annotation for each source. An annotation is a short text that describes and sometimes evaluates the source. The elements included in journal article citations across APA , MLA , and Chicago style are the name s of the author s , the title of the article, the year of publication, the name of the journal, the volume and issue numbers, the page range of the article, and, when accessed online, the DOI or URL.

In MLA and Chicago style, you also include the specific month or season of publication alongside the year, when this information is available. Random assignment is used in experiments with a between-groups or independent measures design. Random assignment helps ensure that the groups are comparable. In general, you should always use random assignment in this type of experimental design when it is ethically possible and makes sense for your study topic.

Then, you can use a random number generator or a lottery method to randomly assign each number to a control or experimental group. You can also do so manually, by flipping a coin or rolling a dice to randomly assign participants to groups. In contrast, random assignment is a way of sorting the sample into control and experimental groups. Random sampling enhances the external validity or generalizability of your results, while random assignment improves the internal validity of your study.

In experimental research, random assignment is a way of placing participants from your sample into different groups using randomization. With this method, every member of the sample has a known or equal chance of being placed in a control group or an experimental group. The information is presented differently in each style. Researchers often model control variable data along with independent and dependent variable data in regression analyses and ANCOVAs. Control variables help you establish a correlational or causal relationship between variables by enhancing internal validity.

Including mediators and moderators in your research helps you go beyond studying a simple relationship between two variables for a fuller picture of the real world. They are important to consider when studying complex correlational or causal relationships.

Mediators are part of the causal pathway of an effect, and they tell you how or why an effect takes place. Moderators usually help you judge the external validity of your study by identifying the limitations of when the relationship between variables holds. A confounder is a third variable that affects variables of interest and makes them seem related when they are not. In contrast, a mediator is the mechanism of a relationship between two variables: it explains the process by which they are related.

A mediator variable explains the process through which two variables are related, while a moderator variable affects the strength and direction of that relationship. When you want to cite a specific passage in a source without page numbers e. You might use a heading or chapter number, e. Smith, , ch. In APA Style , you can count the paragraph numbers in a text to identify a location by paragraph number.

For audiovisual sources e. Smith et al. It is not used in reference entries. Check if your university or course guidelines specify which citation style to use. If the choice is left up to you, consider which style is most commonly used in your field.

The main elements included in all book citations across APA , MLA , and Chicago style are the author, the title, the year of publication, and the name of the publisher. A page number is also included in in-text citations to highlight the specific passage cited. In Chicago style and in the 6th edition of APA Style , the location of the publisher is also included, e.

London: Penguin. A power analysis is a calculation that helps you determine a minimum sample size for your study. If you know or have estimates for any three of these, you can calculate the fourth component. The ideal time to do so depends on various financial, personal, and career considerations.

Graduate school is a big commitment, so you should apply at a time when you can devote your full attention to it. Your career path may also determine when you should apply. Most graduate school applications for American graduate programs are due in December or January for a September start.

In this case, you should aim to apply as early as possible to maximize your chances. Medical school follows a completely separate timeline with much earlier deadlines. A good starting point to aim for is about 18 months before you would start the program, or 6—9 months before the applications are due. In the first few months of the process, research programs and study for any standardized exams you might need.

You can then begin writing your personal statements and statements of purpose , as well as contacting people to write your letters of recommendation. Ensure that you give recommenders plenty of time to complete their letters ideally around 2—4 months. In statistical hypothesis testing , the null hypothesis of a test always predicts no effect or no relationship between variables, while the alternative hypothesis states your research prediction of an effect or relationship.

Statistical analysis is the main method for analyzing quantitative research data. It uses probabilities and models to test predictions about a population from sample data. But if the law is either spread across various sections of the code or not featured in the code at all, include the public law number in addition to information on the source you accessed the law in, e.

In your APA methods section , you should report detailed information on the participants, materials, and procedures used. The conclusion may also reflect on the broader implications of your argument, showing how your ideas could applied to other contexts or debates. The conclusion paragraph of an essay is usually shorter than the introduction. To cite multiple reporters, just separate them with commas in your reference entry.

This is called parallel citation. For example:. If you cite multiple Shakespeare plays throughout your MLA paper, the in-text citation begins with an abbreviated version of the title as shown here , e.

Each play should have its own Works Cited entry even if they all come from the same collection. Shakespeare 1. No, do not use page numbers in your MLA in-text citations of Shakespeare plays.

Instead, specify the act, scene, and line numbers of the quoted material, separated by periods, e. Shakespeare 3. This makes it easier for the reader to find the relevant passage in any edition of the text. The risk of making a Type II error is inversely related to the statistical power of a test.

Power is the extent to which a test can correctly detect a real effect when there is one. To indirectly reduce the risk of a Type II error, you can increase the sample size or the significance level to increase statistical power.

The risk of making a Type I error is the significance level or alpha that you choose. The significance level is usually set at 0. When an article e. In an MLA style Works Cited entry for a newspaper , you can cite a local newspaper in the same way as you would a national one, except that you may have to add the name of the city in square brackets to clarify what newspaper you mean, e.

The Gazette [Montreal]. Dallas Observer. If you focus on a particular contributor e. If your citation of the podcast focuses more on the contribution of someone else e. In statistics, power refers to the likelihood of a hypothesis test detecting a true effect if there is one.

A statistically powerful test is more likely to reject a false negative a Type II error. Your study might not have the ability to answer your research question. While statistical significance shows that an effect exists in a study, practical significance shows that the effect is large enough to be meaningful in the real world. Statistical significance is denoted by p -values whereas practical significance is represented by effect sizes. There are dozens of measures of effect sizes.

Effect size tells you how meaningful the relationship between variables or the difference between groups is. A large effect size means that a research finding has practical significance, while a small effect size indicates limited practical applications.

In APA style, statistics can be presented in the main text or as tables or figures. To decide how to present numbers, you can follow APA guidelines:.

Since these are general guidelines, use your own judgment and feedback from others for effective presentation of numbers.

In an APA results section , you should generally report the following:. Using descriptive and inferential statistics , you can make two types of estimates about the population : point estimates and interval estimates. Both types of estimates are important for gathering a clear idea of where a parameter is likely to lie. Standard error and standard deviation are both measures of variability.

The standard deviation reflects variability within a sample, while the standard error estimates the variability across samples of a population. The standard error of the mean , or simply standard error , indicates how different the population mean is likely to be from a sample mean.

It tells you how much the sample mean would vary if you were to repeat a study using new samples from within a single population. Glass, I. When citing a whole podcast series, if different episodes have different hosts, list the executive producer s instead. Again, include a label identifying their role, e. Lechtenberg, S. Books of the Bible may be abbreviated to save space; a list of standard abbreviations can be found here.

Page numbers are not used in Bible citations. Yes, in the 7th edition of APA Style , versions of the Bible are treated much like other books ; you should include the edition you used in your reference list. Previously, in the 6th edition of the APA manual, it was recommended to just use in-text citations to refer to the Bible, and omit it from the reference list. MLA recommends citing the original source wherever possible, rather than the source in which it is quoted or reproduced. For example: qtd.

If a source is reproduced in full within another source e. When you want to cite a PowerPoint or lecture notes from a lecture you viewed in person in MLA , check whether they can also be accessed online ; if so, this is the best version to cite, as it allows the reader to access the source. If the material is not available online, use the details of where and when the presentation took place.

To make it easy for the reader to find the YouTube video , in APA Style you list the person or organization who uploaded the video as the author in your reference entry and in-text citation.

When you need to highlight a specific moment in a video or audio source, APA Style recommends using a timestamp in your in-text citation. In an MLA song citation , you need to give some sort of container to indicate how you accessed the song.

If this is a physical or downloaded album, the Works Cited entry should list the album name, distributor, year, and format. However, if you listened to the song on a streaming service, you can just list the site as a container, including a URL. In this case, including the album details is optional; you may add this information if it is relevant to your discussion or if it will help the reader access the song. When citing a song in MLA style , the author is usually the main artist or group that released the song.

However, if your discussion focuses on the contributions of a specific performer, e. To figure out whether a given number is a parameter or a statistic , ask yourself the following:. If the answer is yes to both questions, the number is likely to be a parameter. For small populations, data can be collected from the whole population and summarized in parameters. If the answer is no to either of the questions, then the number is more likely to be a statistic.

Both require letters of recommendation , a statement of purpose or personal statement , a resume or CV , and transcripts. Outside the US, PhD programs usually also require applicants to write a research proposal , because students are expected to begin dissertation research in the first year of their PhD.

The exact cost depends on the country and the school: private universities usually cost more than public ones, and European degrees usually cost less than North American ones.

There are limited possibilities for financial aid. PhDs often waive tuition fees and offer a living stipend in exchange for a teaching or research assistantship. However, they take many years to complete, during which time you earn very little. This depends on the country. This varies by country. In the United States, PhDs usually take between 5—7 years: 2 years of coursework followed by 3—5 years of independent research work to produce a dissertation.

A PhD, which is short for philosophiae doctor doctor of philosophy in Latin , is the highest university degree that can be obtained. In a PhD, students spend 3—5 years writing a dissertation , which aims to make a significant, original contribution to current knowledge. A PhD is intended to prepare students for a career as a researcher, whether that be in academia, the public sector, or the private sector. Others focus on professional training for a specific career.

To avoid plagiarism when summarizing an article or other source, follow these two rules:. A summary is always much shorter than the original text.

A summary is a short overview of the main points of an article or other source, written entirely in your own words. When a source has no title , this part of your MLA reference is replaced with a description of the source, in plain text no italics or quotation marks, sentence-case capitalization.

The main guidelines for formatting a paper in Chicago style are to:. The main guidelines for formatting a paper in MLA style are as follows:. To format a paper in APA Style , follow these guidelines:. To include a direct quote in APA , follow these rules:.

Instead of using quotation marks , you place the quote on a new line, and indent the entire quote to mark it apart from your own words. In academic writing , there are three main situations where quoting is the best choice:.

Every time you quote a source , you must include a correctly formatted in-text citation. This looks slightly different depending on the citation style. A list of tables and list of figures appear in that order after your table of contents, and are presented in a similar way.

Copyright information can usually be found wherever the table or figure was published. Images found on sites like Flickr are listed with clear copyright information. If you find that permission is required to reproduce the material, be sure to contact the author or publisher and ask for it. If you adapt or reproduce a table or figure from another source, you should include that source in your APA reference list.

You should also include copyright information in the note for the table or figure, and include an in-text citation when you refer to it. Tables and figures you created yourself, based on your own data, are not included in the reference list.

An APA in-text citation is placed before the final punctuation mark in a sentence. Parenthetical citation: Brown, , as cited in Mahone, Narrative citation: Brown , as cited in Mahone, states that…. On the reference page , you only include the secondary source Mahone, Read more about alphabetizing the APA reference page. If the author of a work is unknown, order the reference by its title.

A lukewarm recommendation can be the kiss of death for an application, so make sure your letter writers are enthusiastic about recommending you and your work! Always remember to remain polite. Your recommenders are doing you a favor by taking the time to write a letter in support of your graduate school goals.

This depends on the program that you are applying for. Generally, for professional programs like business and policy school, you should ask managers who can speak to your future leadership potential and ability to succeed in your chosen career path. However, in other graduate programs, you should mostly ask your former professors or research supervisors to write your recommendation letters , unless you have worked in a job that corresponds closely with your chosen field e.

Choose people who know your work well and can speak to your ability to succeed in the program that you are applying to. Remember, it is far more important to choose someone who knows you well than someone well-known. While you might be tempted to save a striking argument for last, research papers follow a more formal structure than this. All your findings and arguments should be presented in the body of the text more specifically in the results and discussion sections if you are following a scientific structure.

The conclusion is meant to summarize and reflect on the evidence and arguments you have already presented, not introduce new ones. The conclusion of a research paper has several key elements you should make sure to include:. In MLA Style , you should cite a specific chapter or work within a book in two situations:. If you cite multiple chapters or works from the same book, include a separate Works Cited entry for each chapter.

Yes, if relevant you can and should include APA citations in your appendices. Use author-date citations as you do in the main text. Any sources cited in your appendices should appear in your reference list. Do not create a separate reference list for your appendices.

Something is only worth including as an appendix if you refer to information from it at some point in the text e. The arithmetic mean is the most commonly used mean.

But there are some other types of means you can calculate depending on your research purposes:. You can find the mean , or average, of a data set in two simple steps:. This method is the same whether you are dealing with sample or population data or positive or negative numbers.

An essay is a focused piece of writing that explains, argues, describes, or narrates. In high school, you may have to write many different types of essays to develop your writing skills.

Academic essays at college level are usually argumentative : you develop a clear thesis about your topic and make a case for your position using evidence, analysis and interpretation. To write a good hook, avoid overly broad statements or long, dense sentences. Your essay introduction should include three main things, in this order:. The length of each part depends on the length and complexity of your essay. The median is the most informative measure of central tendency for skewed distributions or distributions with outliers.

For example, the median is often used as a measure of central tendency for income distributions, which are generally highly skewed. In contrast, the mean and mode can vary in skewed distributions. To find the median , first order your data. Then calculate the middle position based on n , the number of values in your data set. A data set can often have no mode, one mode or more than one mode — it all depends on how many different values repeat most frequently.

To find the mode :. There are three key steps in systematic sampling :. Systematic sampling is a probability sampling method where researchers select members of the population at a regular interval — for example, by selecting every 15th person on a list of the population.

If the population is in a random order, this can imitate the benefits of simple random sampling. Here are three examples of topic sentences you could use for each of the three body paragraphs :. Each of these sentences expresses one main idea — by listing them in order, we can see the overall structure of the essay at a glance.

Each paragraph will expand on the topic sentence with relevant detail, evidence, and arguments. The topic sentence usually comes at the very start of the paragraph. However, sometimes you might start with a transition sentence to summarize what was discussed in previous paragraphs, followed by the topic sentence that expresses the focus of the current paragraph. Topic sentences help keep your writing focused and guide the reader through your argument. In an essay or paper , each paragraph should focus on a single idea.

By stating the main idea in the topic sentence, you clarify what the paragraph is about for both yourself and your reader. A topic sentence is a sentence that expresses the main point of a paragraph. Everything else in the paragraph should relate to the topic sentence. The interquartile range is the best measure of variability for skewed distributions or data sets with outliers.

The two most common methods for calculating interquartile range are the exclusive and inclusive methods. The exclusive method excludes the median when identifying Q1 and Q3, while the inclusive method includes the median as a value in the data set in identifying the quartiles. The exclusive method works best for even-numbered sample sizes, while the inclusive method is often used with odd-numbered sample sizes. While the range gives you the spread of the whole data set, the interquartile range gives you the spread of the middle half of a data set.

The way you present your research problem in your introduction varies depending on the nature of your research paper. A research paper that presents a sustained argument will usually encapsulate this argument in a thesis statement. A research paper designed to present the results of empirical research tends to present a research question that it seeks to answer. It may also include a hypothesis —a prediction that will be confirmed or disproved by your research.

The introduction of a research paper includes several key elements:. Homoscedasticity, or homogeneity of variances, is an assumption of equal or similar variances in different groups being compared.

This is an important assumption of parametric statistical tests because they are sensitive to any dissimilarities. Uneven variances in samples result in biased and skewed test results. Statistical tests such as variance tests or the analysis of variance ANOVA use sample variance to assess group differences of populations. They use the variances of the samples to assess whether the populations they come from significantly differ from each other.

Yes, you can create a stratified sample using multiple characteristics, but you must ensure that every participant in your study belongs to one and only one subgroup.

In this case, you multiply the numbers of subgroups for each characteristic to get the total number of groups.

Using stratified sampling will allow you to obtain more precise with lower variance statistical estimates of whatever you are trying to measure. For example, say you want to investigate how income differs based on educational attainment, but you know that this relationship can vary based on race. Using stratified sampling, you can ensure you obtain a large enough sample from each racial group, allowing you to draw more precise conclusions.

In stratified sampling , researchers divide subjects into subgroups called strata based on characteristics that they share e. Once divided, each subgroup is randomly sampled using another probability sampling method.

The thesis statement is essential in any academic essay or research paper for two main reasons:. Without a clear thesis, an essay can end up rambling and unfocused, leaving your reader unsure of exactly what you want to say. The thesis statement should be placed at the end of your essay introduction. Follow these three steps to come up with a thesis :. A thesis statement is a sentence that sums up the central point of your paper or essay. Everything else you write should relate to this key idea.