What are plagiarism detectors the answer for?

If a university student repackages other people’s ideas and presents them as their own, they might be suffering from—among other things—pressure to achieve, fear of failure, lack of confidence, or lack of education, and so they resort to bottom-dwelling catfish tricks in order to survive. In this case, one hopes the plagiarism detectors raise red flags with staff so that the student receives more attention and guidance throughout their studies.

If, however, a plagiarizing individual who has otherwise assimilated to society willfully disregards the idea that we stand on the shoulders of giants and so continually pilfers the scholarship of others, then plagiarism detectors will only teach that individual how not to get caught. Indeed, they will teach the student how to mask their theft, to add quotation marks and to tweak their words just enough so that their crime goes unnoticed.

What if we considered plagiarism detectors educational tools that students could use before submitting their work, providing them opportunities to learn about mistakes they’ve made when attributing thoughts and discoveries to others; offering them chances to spot unrecognized patterns and trends in their writing, and maybe even their own thoughts?

Our history is riddled with examples of previously unknown scholarship leading to breakthroughs—think continental drift, plant genetics, calculus. Leveraging technology that scans for textual similarities could speed up the process of drawing connections between new and existing scholarship, but this won’t happen unless we move away from the punitive view of such tools.

We need to realize that the spirit of plagiarism demonstrates weakness of character which won’t be remedied by the threat of detection. Most of us don't need security cameras in order not to steal. Those who do should be pitied, not scorned, or how else do we get better?