1. Writing style, language, vocabulary, tone, grammar, etc. is above or below what student usually produces. It doesn't sound like the student.

2. Essay is grade school level. Most term papers on the Web are abysmal.

3. Anomalies of style such as British and American spelling and grammar in the same paper. Dramatic shifts in writing style from paragraph to paragraph, such as one paragraph in journalistic style, the following paragraph in a scholarly tone, and the next paragraph on grade school level.

4. References are cited in a variety of styles—MLA, APA, Chicago , etc.

5. Paper is way off topic and includes a few weirdly placed on topic paragraphs.

6.   Look for strange text at the top or bottom of printed page. Students have been known not to remove tags such as:

“Thanks for using Term Paper Mania” from the bottom of a paper.

The paper's title page says “by Jane Jones,” but you see “Smith—22” at the top of the
third page of the paper and four pages later you see “Roberts-88.”

7  Look for gray letters in the text, often an indication that the page was downloaded from the web, since color letters on a screen show up gray in a black and white printout.

8.   Strange or poor layout. Papers that have been downloaded and re-printed often have page numbers, headings, or spacing that just doesn't look right. Paper doesn't follow your formatting requirements.

10.  References to graphs, charts, or accompanying material that isn't there or is only partially there. If you see half of a graph, be suspicious.

11.  Essays are printed out from the student's Web browser with only a title page added.

12.. References to professors, classes, or class numbers that are not taught at MC.

13.. Citations are to materials not owned by MC Libraries or are all from another country. The library can tell you if we own a particular title and if it has been checked out or used in the library but we cannot tell you which student checked it out or used it.
Keep in mind that the most heavily used collections in the Libraries are full-text electronic databases. Journals in the databases do not appear in Webvoyage, the catalog, but can be easily found via the Libraries' Web page www.montgomerycollege.edu/library . Click the appropriate link under “Articles, Databases and More."

13.  Students cannot identify citations or provide copies of the cited material. Paper includes incomplete or badly done citations.

14. Students can not summarize the main points of the paper or answer questions about specific sections of the paper.

15. When provided with a page from their paper that has words or passages removed, students cannot fill in the blanks with missing words or reasonable synonyms.

16. Students cannot use the vocabulary contained in the paper accurately. This may be the result of an overuse of a thesaurus, but questions such as: “What do you mean by egregious?” can be illuminating.

17. Students cannot tell you how they found the information. Ask, “Which index did you use?

18. Dead giveaways for the recycled paper:

Web sites listed in citations are inactive.

All citations are to materials that are older than five years.

References are made to historical persons or events in the current sense.