PLAGIARISM DETECTION TOOLS.

Since the plagiarism scandals, iThenticate has sent offers to 200 newspapers in the U.S. It says it has added a number of them to its roster of clients, the papers wish to remain unidentified. Rates vary, but most newspapers can expect to pay a flat fee and an additional fee for every 500 words submitted for scrutiny. The program scours gargantuan databases of academic papers, Web pages and published work and in seconds produces a color-coded list of possible plagiarism instances. "The Courant" is using the software on many of its opinion-editorials to guard against shortcuts by contributors who may not know the guidelines for attribution, but not in other sections of the paper. Another plagiarism-detection service, MyDropBox, which launched in fall 2003, says it too has newspaper and magazine clients. But like iThenticate, it is keeping mum about who they are. For drive-by plagiarism detection, editors can turn to WCopy-find, a free downloadable program.