Plagiarism software has infiltrated universities around the globe; however, "two writers have discovered an unpublished manuscript they believe [Shakespeare] consulted to write 'King Lear,' 'Macbeth,' 'Richard III,' 'Henry V' and seven other plays." One of the writers explains: "'People don’t realize how rare these words actually are...And he keeps hitting word after word. It’s like a lottery ticket. It’s easy to get one number out of six, but not to get every number.'"
To further elaborate on the rarity of these words, the writer "ran phrases through the database Early English Books Online, which contains 17 million pages from nearly every work published in English between 1473 and 1700. He found that almost no other works contained the same words in passages of the same length. Some words are especially rare; 'trundle-tail' appears in only one other work before 1623."
While Shakespeare's influences have been studied for decades, this electronic form of research brings about a potential new light in understanding writers of our past.