Eighty to ninety footnotes in a 12-page assignment, language geared to cheat the software and omitted source references: High school and university students struggle to navigate their institutions’ use of so-called ‘plagiarism detection software’ that is used to compare texts and detect cheating.
A study led by the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Food and Resource Economics sought to develop a better empirical understanding of text-matching software (TMS) worries among students in Switzerland, Denmark, Hungary, Ireland, Lithuania, Portugal and Slovenia.
Asked about how they felt about their institutions’ use of plagiarism software 47% of high school students and 55% of undergraduates participants in the study expressed concerns about being monitored. Concerns that extend beyond the fear of getting caught cheating.
According to postdoc researcher Mads Goddiksen, lead author of the study, these concerns stem largely from an uncertainty about how the software is used and what counts as cheating.
“It’s paradoxical that a technology intended to ensure academic integrity is causing unnecessary worries among students. Our research clearly shows that uncertainty about how the software operates, how it’s used, and what constitutes plagiarism leads to worries and counterproductive writing practices,” says the researcher.
Writing to outsmart the software, not to learn
In interviews, students described how they avoid reusing sources from previous assignments or unnecessarily rewrite texts to “outsmart” the software – a development that Mads Goddiksen warns against:
“The biggest issue isn’t the worry itself, but that students lose focus on writing well and ethically. Instead, it becomes about avoiding the software flagging something as problematic. This affects the quality of both their assignments and overall education,” he explains.
Goddiksen emphasizes that plagiarism detection software cannot independently determine whether plagiarism has occurred – it merely highlights text overlaps. Understanding this distinction is crucial.
“There’s nothing inherently wrong with paraphrasing or reproducing content from other sources in an assignment – this is largely what academic writing involves, as long as it’s done transparently. However, today, such practices may pop up in plagiarism checks because the software identifies similarities in phrases and formulations. This makes students nervous and renders the software ineffective if used on its own,” Goddiksen explains.
However, many students in the study mistakenly believe that the software alone determines what counts as plagiarism, even though this is not the case. This misunderstanding makes the students change their writing behaviour to adapt to the perceived control. For example, one Danish undergraduate stated:
”I am really afraid to gamble with these things. So I make a lot of footnotes, roughly 80–90 in a 12-page assignment. I have not had any critique yet, but I don’t think it is what you are actually supposed to do.”