Plagiarism refers to “the act of copying materials without actually acknowledging the original source”. Plagiarism has seen a widespread activity in the recent times. The increase in the number of materials available now in the electronic form and the easy access to the internet has increased plagiarism. Manual detection of plagiarism is not very easy and is time consuming due to the vast amount of contents available. Techniques are available now which help us to detect plagiarism. As the amount of programming code being created is increasing, techniques are available now to detect plagiarism in source code also. Current research is in the field of development of algorithms that can compare and detect plagiarism. In this paper a few techniques used in the Plagiarism Detection is shown along with some tools which are being used

Using Plagiarism Detection Techniques we can compare a given material with any target material which is either a particular document or in a repository. Different techniques used in the Plagiarism Detection algorithms are discussed in detail here. Here I have given more emphasis on source code related plagiarism. A few case studies show that detection can be done within a large repository. The efficiency and time of the output depends on the algorithms used.

Plagiarize according to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary is

 to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own
 to use (another's production) without crediting the source
 to commit literary theft
 to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.

The expression of original ideas is considered intellectual property and is protected by copyright laws, just like original inventions. Almost all forms of expression fall under copyright protection as long as they are recorded in some way (such as a book or a computer file). In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.

The following are considered as plagiarism

 turning in someone else's work as your own
 copying words or ideas from someone else without giving credit
 failing to put a quotation in quotation marks
 giving incorrect information about the source of a quotation
 changing words but copying the sentence structure of a source without giving credit
 copying so many words or ideas from a source that it makes up the majority of your work, whether you give credit or not Plagiarism can be deliberate or accidental.

Deliberate plagiarism is done when a person’s self esteem is very low. The person, therefore, actually steals the property of somebody else and claims it to be his own. He might also hire somebody to do his work. Accidental plagiarism is done when somebody unknowingly cites a phrase or copies words without acknowledging the author of the material

Avoiding Plagiarism:

Plagiarism in all kinds of work has made people to sit and think regarding the ways to avoid plagiarism. Mainly two methods exist to avoid plagiarism.

 Plagiarism prevention
 Plagiarism Detection

PLAGIARISM PREVENTION

 A collaborative effort should be made to recognize and to counter plagiarism at every level.
 We should educate students about the appropriate use and acknowledgement of all forms of intellectual material.
 Minimize the possibility of submission of plagiarized content while not reducing the quality and rigor of assessment.

 Installing highly visible procedures for monitoring and detecting cheating.
Plagiarism prevention is difficult to achieve and takes a long time to inculcate but the effects are long term

PLAGIARISM DETECTION:

Plagiarism can be detected manually or with the help of software manual detection takes more effort. Now the detection Techniques is software programming methods which are easier, simpler and faster to detect plagiarism