Unethical Lifehacks #3

This is a new series, follow me for more of these!

These unethical hacks are for students (and maybe for those too who are planning to publish research paper).

1. Almost every university now uses some kind of plagiarism software for checking students' assignments. For this purpose, Turnitin is used mostly. Well, there is a way to avoid this altogether.

In my university, we are asked to upload the assignment on LMS and then Turnitin automatically checks it for plagiarism. What you can do is to zip the file before uploading. Turnitin can't check zip files. When professor will be seeing the plagiarism reports, he won't find yours. He is most likely to ignore it and pass it as a technical glitch. Even if he tries to figure out, it will be a miracle if he actually finds the root of problem.

1. There is also another trick to avoid plagiarism check but this works for only short pieces of text in large reports, mostly quotations. For example, if you have quoted the actual words of the director of the company, Turnitin will show it as plagiarism but you can avoid it.

Open a word file. Write the quotation. Keep its format same as of report like font, colour, size etc. Now take a screenshot of it. Save it as a picture and insert in the actual report. Remove the borders of the picture. Now place it wherever you want. Turnitin can't check pictures for plagiarism.

1. This hack most students know but I will still put it here. If the assignment specifies the number of words but you are too lazy to actually complete assignment then you can use this trick.

Write some gibberish, change the color of the text of this part white. Now reader won't be able to read this part (one can't read white text on white background), but it will show in final word count.

1. This trick is purely for bilingual people. The trick is to find the material in language other than what you will be using in your report. For example, if you want to write your report in Spanish, find material in English, use online translators to translate this English into Spanish and you are good to go. But we all know how idiot translators are so you will need to proofread before using the material.

All these techniques work because of the unfamiliarity of the professors with technology. A lot of professors, especially the aged ones show aversion to technology. You can use this aversion to your own benefit.

Please keep sitting.

Addition: If it's your presentation in class and you are not prepared for it, you can delay it for some time. You just need a smartphone. There are several applications which you can use to turn on and off projectors. When another student is giving presentation, turn off the projector through your smartphone. IT guy will fix it and turn on. You turn off it again. This will definitely delay your turn for some time.