PaperToolsPro™ Versus Other Products

 

PaperToolsPro™ is the best program for students to take notes, create bibliographies and citations, and avoid plagiarism—and is very reasonably priced from $35 for a downloadable copy of the site licensed Academic version to $55 for a Standard version on CD including QuickTime® tutorial movie.  Click Home above and then click Pricing for more information.

 

Several software programs are currently available to help write research papers.

 

A.  The following programs provide the means to gather information from varied sources:

            NoteBook [$30.00-$50.00] (http://www.circusponies.com)

            NoteTaker [$39.95-$69.95] (http://www.aquaminds.com)

            askSam [$149.95-$395.00] (http://www.asksam.com)

            Power Researcher [$79.95-$129.95] (http://www.powerresearcher.com)

            Microsoft OneNote 2003 [$99.95] (http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/FX010858031033.aspx)

 

However, these programs to write a research paper can lead to accidental plagiarism and a lack of rigorous understanding of the material.  They enable the user to easily

• confuse an author’s exact copied words with summaries and acceptable paraphrases in the user’s own words;
• copy/paste or drag/drop passages (especially long ones) from the Internet without reading, understanding, analyzing, or synthesizing the information;
• gather information without recording accurately its source.

 

B.  The following programs provide the means to create bibliographies and citations (click here for detailed comparison to RefWorks):

            Endnote [$239.95-$299.95] (http://www.endnote.com)

            ProCite [$239.95-$299.95] (http://www.procite.com)

            ReferenceManager [$239.95-$299.95] (http://www.refman.com)

            WriteNote [subscription] (http://www.writenote.com)

            RefWorks [subscription] (http://www.refworks.com)

            Citation [$79.95-$299.95] (http://www.asksam.com)

            NoodleTools [subscription] (http://www.noodletools.com)

            SourceAid [subscription] (http://www.sourceaid.com)

 

These programs create citations and bibliographies either through installed software or web-based subscriptions, but none has provisions for taking notes to these sources.  (All prices effective October 31, 2004.)

 

C.  Finally, we would like to emphasize that PaperToolsPro™ does not do what Internet detection services like Turnitin.com do [subscription] (http://www.turnitin.com).  These services compare a student’s paper with the contents of their extensive databases of Internet pages and previously submitted papers.  These programs differ significantly from PaperToolsPro™ in function.  For example (click here for detailed comparison to Turnitin.com):

 

• The teacher receives a report of any potential plagiarism found in the paper after it is written.  PaperToolsPro™ helps students understand the material they are reading and avoid plagiarism while they are taking their notes and writing their papers. Thus, with Internet detection services, students learn not to get caught plagiarizing; with PaperToolsPro™ they learn how to write a research paper with integrity.

 

• Internet detection services attempt to catch students committing plagiarism without actually distinguishing between intentional cheating and simple documentation errors.  PaperToolsPro™ helps avoid plagiarism by teaching and reinforcing good researching skills and academic honesty.

 

• Internet detection services assume that students cheat and that teachers are too overworked to spend time trying to detect plagiarism so their services are required to keep students honest.  PaperToolsPro™ assumes that students can learn to write with integrity and that teachers can readily monitor their progress.  Plagiarism is merely a symptom of a greater learning problem--students are disengaged from their learning, they do not understand the information they are reading, or they do not document it carefully.  PaperToolsPro™ helps schools address the real educational problems, not just the side effects.

 

• Internet detection services give a false sense of thoroughness: They cannot access text for comparison purposes from websites requiring passwords, paper mill sites which email purchased papers, non-electronic sources like books, or papers written by friends or classmates.  Students using PaperToolsPro™ can email the database of their work--the original quoted text, notes, citations, and bibliography entries--to their teachers for display in their own PaperToolsPro™ program.  Outline and rough drafts can also be emailed as word processor documents.  All of these items can also be printed.  Thus, a student's work as both a product and a process is transparent for a teacher to evaluate.

 

Although Internet detection services may have a friendlier user interface because all a student does is submit the paper and the teacher gets the report, PaperToolsPro™'s greater functionality is intuitive and easy to use after reading the tutorial.  High school students have spent between 10-30 minutes learning the program to the point of thinking about what they are reading and writing rather than how to use the program.  It provides the students the ability to do their best work with rigor, integrity, ease, and careful documentation.  Educational institutions should be more concerned about students learning and succeeding than about teachers policing.  Internet detection services may be popular because of their intensive marketing, not because students who submit their papers to them write better research papers.

 

PaperToolsPro™ is the best and most economical program for students

 to use for writing research papers!