Plagiarism is becoming an issue in many schools. As the number of plagiarized assignments is increasing, it is becoming increasingly difficult to catch the cheaters.

With the goal of keeping students from plagiarizing, Tracy High School has recently subscribed to the anti-plagiarism software called Turnitin.

“Turnitin is an online data base and the data base has every paper that’s ever been submitted, plus every paper that’s out there on the internet,” English teacher Regina Johosky said. “It will compare the paper that the student submits to all of the other documents and will look for similar sentences and chains of words together.”

Tracy High’s Budget Manager Debra Corona said, “It was a subscription cost, but you also had to get the pilot license which was $1,900, then you had to get the training as well which was $600. All together it was a total of $2,500.”

Students may feel “scared” by this software, but what they should know is that it’s not to get them in trouble, it is to help with their education.

“It will probably help catch plagiarized assignments,” Principal Jason Noll said. “It is not necessary to ‘catch’ cheaters. It is to help students understand what plagiarism is, and what you can and can’t do. You have to understand how to quote certain things and do certain things.”

“I think it will help catch more plagiarized assignments than teachers alone would catch,” World History teacher Jeffrey Alexandre said. “I feel like a lot of teachers are over-burdened with written work, and they may not investigate something as thoroughly as it should be.”

International Baccalaureate Coordinator Terri Sorgent said, “I’m sure it will not catch all plagiarized assignments, but if teachers use it regularly for their written assignments, it should help deter plagiarism.”

Having Turnitin available to Tracy High’s teachers will make grading assignments easier.

“I will definitely be using Turnitin in my classroom,” Johosky said. “I think it is awesome. It is going to save me so much time. It takes me hours to research other documents to see if students have plagiarized.”

“I would like to use it in my classroom,” Alexandre said. “I don’t think it will happen this year because I still need some type of training.”

“A big part of getting this software has to do with the rise in internet and Wikipedia. It is a lot easier to cheat,” Noll said. “It’s an easy check to see if the students are plagiarizing.”

Not only are high schools using Turnitin, but colleges are using it as well.

“Many colleges and universities are using it, so getting our students used to this program will make an easier transition to college,” Sorgent said. “Some teachers have shown interest in trying this program, so the IB program budget is paying for half of the cost.”

Some students feel that this program is not needed.

“It’s not necessary,” sophomore Alisyn Davis said. “I feel like as long as you cite your sources you’ll be fine. You don’t need a website to decide whether you are plagiarizing or not.”

As far as plagiarizing goes, other students say that it will make them more careful with their work.

“It makes me want to be more cautious about my work,” sophomore Alyssa Serrato said. “I’ll definitely make sure I cite what needs to be cited.”