Free Plagiarism Finder?

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As part of my current editing assignment I'm supposed to check for plagiarism. I'm finding a lot just by grabbing a suspect sentence and plugging it into Google. (The plagiarism is usually by the paragraph, but the sentence gets me there.)

It's not foolproof, though -- I've found plagiarism in about half the articles by a single author I've edited so far, but am not sure whether the other half are devoid of plagiarism or I just haven't picked the right sentence.

It seems to me like there must be something out there where you plug in an entire document and it brings up online matches. Seems like high schools and universities would have a use for something like that.

But not sure a) if it exists, or if it does, whether b) it exists in a form that is free.

Thanks!

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It certainly exists.

The free I know nothing about.

(Half an encouragement is better than no cake?)

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Hmmm... half an encouragement and a cookie, maybe...

So I went ahead and Googled "Free plagiarism finder", and whaddya know:

http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Business/Educational_Tools/Plagiarism_Finder_Download.html

http://www.downseek.com/download/27733.asp

http://www.popularshareware.com/Plagiarism-Finder-download-14985.html

(Not quite free, can try it free but then have to buy it.)

Still wary of downloading something I know nothing about, so feedback welcomed, whether it be a specific recommendation or a general approach so as to be confident that what I'm downloading is fine.

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Check out a few of these:

http://www.comp.lancs.ac.uk/computing/users/angie/plagiarism/plaglinks.htm

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Thanks, fishin'!

This (from your link), looks promising, but no longer free:

http://www.turnitin.com/static/products_services/plagiarism_prevention.html

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FWIW, there used to be a program for English teachers that would spot inconsistant style. It wasn't free, and I don't recall the name.

In other words, "Hi, how ya doing tonight, soz?"

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I've got that, in spades, right here <taps noggin'>!

That's what I've relied on so far. Just went through 8 articles by this person -- found an online source for at least one paragraph (and often great chunks of the article) for all of 8 'em, just by following my nose. A li'l tedious, though.

Other than that, I'm fine! :-) You?

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I hadn't even asked him, but my boss (I guess -- I'm freelance enough that he doesn't feel particularly bossy) came up with a great one:

http://www.webmasterlabor.com/tools/checker/

That will save a TON of time. (Which means it will save him money, too, but that's not a part I enjoyed so it's cool.)

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Have you tried turnitin.com? When I was in school all of teh professors had us turn everything in to that and I know it worked really well at the time (dammit!) Just kidding. Hope that helps??

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Thanks for the suggestion! That was mentioned up a few posts, when I checked into it seems to no longer be free. The webmasterlabor one works really well -- but is pretty easy to stump. :-? I have seen a lot of phrases that sound suspicious to me and if I Google just fragments I find out that the author has just changed one or two words.