Viper The Anti-plagiarism Scanner 3

Overview

Viper The Anti-plagiarism Scanner is essentially the CopyScape for essay writing. The software checks essays against as many as 10 billion online sources of previously published work.

The Viper anti-plagiarism tool can scan other essays already stored on the same computer or access essays across the internet to make comparisons between textual content.

The software can pull up any content found where the essay matches the one being checked. A side by side comparison is then possible where both documents are displayed and the software highlights passages or sentences that are close or exact matches to the original content.

The tool is most useful for teachers and lecturers who need to check the originality of submitted assignments, reports and dissertations. Viper is also useful for students who wish to check that they haven't accidentally tripped up a potentially warning because their wording is mistakenly too similar to one or more existing essays.

The Viper web site also has the option to have the submitted essay edited, proof-read, or graded.

Installation

The Viper package needs to be installed and setup.

Once installed, a login page appears to access the anti-plagiarism service. There are options down the left-hand side of the install dialog window to help create a new account if the user doesn't already use the service and so is without an account. An internet connection is necessary to get the account created and then log the user in.

There was no adware, toolbars, spyware or malware included with the setup package.

Viper The Anti-plagiarism Scanner requires Windows

Interface

The interface is useful and functional rather than flashy.

The user can upload their essay document to be checked. Then a search can be run from all online sources to see whether there is a match.

The number of results is shown, with the path to the essay file being checked.

The URLs for pages with content partly matches the essay being checked are displayed along with two indicators that suggest what percentage of the content may be a match or a concern.

There is then a “Compare” button to the right of each match providing the option for the user to view a side-by-side comparison with the matching content highlighted in a pink color.

Pros

• Check essays against billions of online content to verify originality
• Runs quickly across all internet sources
• Shows URLs with content that is a match
• View side-by-side comparisons with highlighting of text that is a close or exact match
• Free service
• Add on services available from the provider like editing

Cons

• Basic interface
• Requires customer account to start using the service

Alternatives

Turnitin has an iPad app that offers some plagiarism checking for academic content to ensure students are not ripping off original previous work. 

Conclusion

Viper The Anti-plagiarism Scanner is a helpful service for teachers and students alike to check essays against online sources for duplication or similar content.