What is SafeAssign

This chapter describes a hybrid approach to combating plagiarism, as developed over the course of a decade. This approach is based on a three-component framework. The first step is educating students about the differences between quoting, paraphrasing and plagiarizing, using examples. Second, students are introduced to plagiarism detection software in use. Students are shown how the software works, the type of reports it generates, as well as some of the most egregious examples of plagiarism encountered in this class in past years (anonymized, of course). A key part of this second step is to show students what the expectations are, in terms of what level of similarity between their paper and their sources is acceptable (attributable to a chance match) and what is blatant (clearly a deliberate act). Finally, the third component is follow-through i.e., reporting students to the university's administrative structures.