What causes a post to be automatically flagged for plagiarism?

When posts are submitted to our plagiarism checker, those post are checked for both external plagiarism (plagiarism from sources found anywhere on the web) and internal plagiarism (plagiarism from a student copying a post they or another student made on Packback). Here are causes to why our AI automatically flags a post after being submitted to our plagiarism checker: 

• The post contained under 20 words of original text, when excluding any "matched" text.

• The post contains over 300 'matched characters' from a single source. (Approx. 3 Sentences)

• The post contains less than 40% original, unmatched text.

Why are posts checked for plagiarism?

Our plagiarism algorithms are put into place to insure that students are submitting quality work that is of original thought and to relieve the burden on professors from having to check for plagiarism themselves! When a post is submitted on Packback that is over 600 characters in length, it is automatically submitted to be checked by our Plagiarism algorithms!

What do our Algorithms look for?

• The language or structure of your post
• The potential discussion that would come out of your post
• Any other factors that may lead to a low-quality discussion such as lack of creativity or originality

How are flagged posts reviewed for plagiarism?

When a post is sent to our moderation queue that is flagged for plagiarism, our moderators review the plagiarism report generated by our Plagiarism checker. This report allows our moderators to review how much content t in a students post matches from an outside source or an internal post that already exist on our platform. Our moderators will then determine if this text outweighs the original thought that a student has put into their post.

If ANY of the following is true, the post is MODERATED for plagiarism:

• The percentage of original thought from the learner is less than 60%

• The learner has included any "matched" text from another source but has not properly quoted and cited this content.

• The learner has not added at least 20 of their own original words that are NOT found in any matched sources.
• The learner has a duplicate post already existing on the platform 

If ALL of the following is true, the post is DISMISSED for plagiarism:

• All matched text is put in quotations and cited (either in the citation box, inline, or using academic references)

• The student has contributed sufficient original, "unmatched" content that--if "matched text" was removed from the post-- it would still not be flagged for being 'short' (>20 words).

Note: Remember that we still moderate a post even if you’ve included quotation marks! Copy-and-pasting doesn’t effectively demonstrate curiosity as much as exploring the content. Ideally, your thoughts should be able to stand alone without the addition of citations (which are used to support your post).

Still have questions?

If you're still unsure why a post was moderated for plagiarism, reach out to our Support Team through this Request Form and we'll gladly help!