What is Plagiarism?
Using another person’s work without giving due credit is known as plagiarism. It is using terms, concepts, or data from a source without properly attributing them in academic writing.
Types of Plagiarism
- Complete Plagiarism
The most dangerous form of plagiarism, which can have legal repercussions, is when you present someone else’s work as your own.
This act violates academic integrity rules at most educational institutions, which carry fines that range from a warning to expulsion.
- Self Plagiarism
This kind of plagiarism occurs when you use portions of your previously published work in a new work, especially without proper citation.
Most journals restrict the percentage of content that can be reused from previous publications by the same author, though there is some debate regarding this practice.
In academic contexts, students who turn in all or part of a previously presented work are also considered to be guilty of self-plagiarism.
- Direct Plagiarism
While this type of plagiarism is similar to complete plagiarism, it differs in that it is the use of excerpts from another person’s work rather than the full piece, often without giving credit to the original author.
- Accidental Plagiarism
When students unintentionally paraphrase or misquote a source, it is known as accidental plagiarism.
- Mosaic Plagiarism
This type of plagiarism is deliberate, as opposed to unintentional. It entails copying portions of one or more writings, articles, or assignments to create a new piece of work. To evade plagiarism detectors, this is frequently done by paraphrasing some sentences. Although this type of plagiarism is more difficult to detect than others, it is still dishonest and has repercussions if it is found.
- Paraphrase Plagiarism
This type of plagiarism is most prevalent and involves rewriting sentences and changing words to express the same idea.
Although they are sometimes misused, paraphrasing tools can help readers understand an article or other piece of writing.
While some people use these tools, others manually rewrite existing articles that already exist and pass them off as their own. This type of intentional plagiarism carries consequences listed by different organizations.
What makes good plagiarism?
A good plagiarism checker should have the following features:
1. Accuracy and Thoroughness: It should accurately detect instances of plagiarism by comparing the submitted content against a comprehensive database of academic papers, articles, books, and online sources.
2. Wide Database Coverage: The checker should have access to a vast and diverse range of sources, including academic journals, books, websites, and student papers, to ensure thorough comparisons.
3. Advanced Algorithms: It should use sophisticated algorithms that can detect paraphrasing, synonym changes, and other subtle forms of plagiarism, not just direct copying.
4. User-Friendly Interface: The tool should be easy to use with a clear and intuitive interface, allowing users to upload documents and understand results easily.
5. Detailed Reports: It should provide comprehensive reports highlighting potential plagiarism, indicating sources, and offering a similarity percentage. Clear formatting and detailed explanations of detected issues are essential.
6. Real-Time Checking: The ability to perform checks quickly and provide real-time results is crucial, especially for students and educators working under tight deadlines.
7. Privacy and Security: It must ensure the confidentiality and security of the uploaded documents, safeguarding against unauthorized access or data breaches.
8. Support for Multiple Formats: The checker should accept various document formats (e.g., DOCX, PDF, TXT) to accommodate different user needs.
9. Multi-Language Support: It should be capable of checking for plagiarism in multiple languages, reflecting the global nature of academic and professional work.
10. Affordability: It should offer a good balance between cost and features, making it accessible to students, educators, and institutions without straining their budgets.
11. Integration Capabilities: The tool should integrate seamlessly with learning management systems (LMS), writing software, and other educational tools to streamline the plagiarism-checking process.
12. Customer Support: Reliable customer support is essential to help users troubleshoot issues and make the most of the tool’s features.
A good plagiarism checker should be capable of cross-checking any given document against an extensive database or repository of articles, books, journals, research manuscripts, and more to identify plagiarism. It should also provide a concise an d comprehensive report.
Paid Plagiarism Checkers
- Unicheck
| Pros | Cons |
| Many features | Excessive for some users. |
| Supports bulk uploading | |
| It works with many other apps |
With over 1,000 academic institutions using the app worldwide, Unicheck provides superior service by blending cutting-edge technology with smart design.
This tool ensures comprehensive checks for plagiarized content by accessing over 91 billion pages and library files. The application provides results in an easy-to-use interface, highlighting sources and categorizing copied text with colors. You will not be overwhelmed with information because every document has a plagiarism score that changes as you make changes.
Unicheck offers high-level security with authorized, encrypted accounts and guarantees 99.9% system uptime, making it available whenever you need it.
There is more to its adaptability. Multiple sources or articles can be managed with ease using a personal dashboard, and Unicheck seamlessly integrates with Chrome, Office 365, and Google Docs to enable plagiarism checks within those applications. The easily accessible API also makes integration with other services possible.
Unicheck is reasonably priced; the personal package, which scales according to the number of pages you need to check, starts at just $5. Businesses and educational institutions can also choose from all-inclusive packages.
- Grammarly
| Pros | Cons |
| Comprehensive plagiarism checker | There are not many features in the free version |
| Many language features | |
| User-friendly |
One of the most popular writing assistants in the world, Grammarly is renowned for its remarkable capacity to proofread and edit written content for grammar, readability, and tone. It can be accessed as a browser extension, an app, or a plug-in for most word-processing tools.
You can depend on Grammarly no matter where you write because it functions seamlessly in Slack and Discord, social media platforms, and email clients.
The platform also has an amazing plagiarism detector that searches through ProQuest’s database of over 16 billion academic papers and web pages to identify instances of copied text.
Should any phrases or language be found to be copied, you will be notified within your document.
Grammarly offers a free plagiarism checker, but we do not recommend using it because it only identifies instances of plagiarism without providing further information.
Rather, we advise signing up for Grammarly’s premium tiers, which offer features for clarity, engagement, tone, and plagiarism detection in addition to grammar, spelling, and punctuation checkers.
Instead, we recommend subscribing to Grammarly’s paid tiers, which include grammar, spelling, and punctuation tools, along with clarity, engagement, tone, and plagiarism detection features.
Grammarly is among the greatest language resources on the internet. The starting monthly price for Grammarly is about $11 / £10 / AU$16.
- Scribbr
| Pros | Cons |
| Huge content database | Not suitable for larger organizations |
| Supports external sources | |
| Citation checking |
As part of a larger toolkit that also includes an APA reference generator and an academic proofreading module, Scribbr provides a thorough plagiarism checker.
These products, which help with the creation of dissertations, essays, and thesis documents, are especially appealing to academics and students.
The plagiarism detector is excellent; it works in tandem with Turnitin to identify synonyms and precise word and phrase matches.
Scribbr compares writing to a massive database that includes 69 million publications and 91 billion web pages. It is perfect for verifying originality against sources that are not in Scribbr’s database because users can also upload previous assignments or referenced works for comparison.
In addition to checking for plagiarism, Scribbr provides professional editing services for theses, essays, grant proposals, and literary reviews, ensuring high-quality academic work in a variety of subject areas. Additionally, Scribbr has an APA citation generator and checker to make sure your references are reliable and accurate.
Depending on the length of the document, with a turnaround time of just ten minutes, Scribbr’s plagiarism checking service ranges in price from $20 / £14, / AU$27 to $40 / £32, / AU$63, with a ten-minute turnaround.
Scribbr is a well-designed tool that could be very helpful for students and academics, even though it lacks some dashboards and security features that big businesses require.
- Plagscan
| Pros | Cons |
| Intuitive, color-coded system | Can become expensive |
| Straightforward pricing | |
| Integrates with other apps |
A powerful plagiarism detection tool, PlagScan is mostly used in the academic sector, though it is also used in various other fields.
PlagScan is a robust plagiarism detection tool primarily focused on the academic sector, though it is also used in various other fields. It differs from other plagiarism tools in that its features are particularly tailored to meet the requirements of academic users.
There are multiple business plans and word count-based plans available for individuals, all at a reasonable price. Usually, prices range from $6 to $50 or more. Advanced features like API capabilities, support, comprehensive reporting, and integration with current tools are available in higher-level plans.
Advanced features like API capabilities, support, comprehensive reporting, and integration with current tools are available in higher-level plans.
Though it occasionally flags non-plagiarized content, PlagScan is incredibly effective at detecting possible plagiarism when compared to other tools. PlagScan admits that using human verification to validate its results is the only way to determine plagiarism with absolute certainty. It would take a lot longer to find these similarities without PlagScan, though. The tool also has simple-to-use color-coded highlights that indicate the kind of infraction present in the text.
Free
- Plagramme
| Pros | Cons |
| Includes free access | Not ideal for large enterprises |
| Affordable pricing options |
Plagramme has more features than a lot of other anti-plagiarism software. Not only does it search through billions of sources, but it also flags instances of plagiarism, possibly paraphrased passages, inadequate citations, and textual overlaps in your work. With its simple scoring system, you can determine a document’s risk of plagiarism quickly.
This multilingual tool can identify problems in multiple languages and offers an authenticity service wherein documents are manually reviewed and corrected by Plagramme’s editors. Although it is more expensive, this service is great for important documents that require perfection. A free plagiarism detector is also offered; it does a fast check without providing comprehensive reporting or full product database access.
You can use Plagramme’s full range of service portfolios by creating an account. To avoid the line, it costs a few dollars, and getting a thorough report costs a little more. Credits can be bought by users and used for any of Plagramme’s services.
Plagramme works well for individuals and small businesses, but its credit-based system and emphasis on individual documents might not be appropriate for large organizations.
- Quetext
| Pros | Cons |
| Advanced algorithms used | Other apps have more features |
| Scored and color-coded results | |
| Pricing is easy |
When scanning documents, Quetext’s plagiarism detection algorithms—which are powered by the DeepSearch system—make use of contextual analysis, deep learning, and word placement to produce more precise and insightful results.
This multipurpose tool can check web pages, blog posts, news articles, and academic papers for plagiarism. It is easy to use and highlights words or phrases that may have been plagiarized using a color-coded system that employs bolder shades for more significant issues. A final score is given to evaluate the content’s performance, and you can see exactly where the copied text originated with a side-by-side display.
Quetext is renowned for its straightforward pricing. You can check 100,000 words with the basic package; at double the price, you can check 250,000 words with the Plus package.
- PapersOwls
| Pros | Cons |
| Can check up to 10,000 characters in a single submission. | Reports cannot be downloaded |
| Live chat support is available 24/7 | |
| Check PDF and text documents | |
| Supports over 150 languages |
PapersOwl provides an intuitive, free plagiarism checker with an attractive user interface. It works extremely quickly: just paste the text, and the tool will compare it with a wide range of online content. Additionally, you can upload and review text documents. After it is finished, the tool shows the percentage of content that has been copied and highlights any overlaps that were found.
Although PapersOwl does not have a paid plan, they do offer a text enhancement service. For example, you can get editing services to make sure your paper is free of plagiarism.
- Check Plagiarism
| Pros | Cons |
| It doesn’t save your text in a database, so your content remains secure. | It allows you to compare two texts or documents for duplicate content. |
| Checks text documents in doc, docx, txt, and pdf formats | |
| Automated scoring, grammar check, and writing suggestions |
Advanced AI algorithms are used by Check Plagiarism to examine uploaded documents and copied text. It supports 12 languages and allows you to check up to 1,000 words at a time.
Any text that is copied from a particular URL can be excluded to make it appear as original content. Additionally, the vendor offers a free grammar checker and a summarizer tool.
Weekly, monthly, semi-annual, and annual plans are available for $7, $20, $100, and $135, respectively. More search queries and a higher word count can be checked simultaneously with a premium subscription. It runs without advertisements or captchas, twice as quickly and accurately as the free version.
- Paper Rater
| Pros | Cons |
| You don’t need to sign up, log in, or download the tool for checking text. | The text cannot be downloaded as a document but can only type it in or paste it |
| Automated scoring, grammar check, and writing suggestions | You can check up to 5 pages at a time and up to 10 times per month |
| Has an option for a printable report |
Paper Rater is an all-inclusive writing improvement tool. It finds spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes in addition to plagiarism. The tool then gives your text an automated score based on the review and offers helpful writing advice.
At Paper Rater, a premium account costs $11.21 a month, or $71.55 annually. It lets you upload text files, perform faster checks devoid of advertisements, and perform up to 25 checks per month on up to 20 pages at a time.
- Search Engine Reports
| Pros | Cons |
| You can rephrase plagiarized content by suggesting synonyms | Cluttered interface with numerous distracting animations and ads |
| Checks 1,000 words at a time | |
| Reports can be downloaded |
The Search Engine Reports plagiarism checker allows you to assess the originality of uploaded documents or copied text. The tool assesses the uniqueness of each sentence on an individual basis. The plagiarized text will be indicated in red. You can also choose to exclude up to five URLs from the check, which will prevent content from those sources from being flagged.
Paid subscriptions provide ad-free access, deeper searches, and priority support. They also make it possible for you to more accurately check a higher word count per search.
- Duplichecker
| Pros | Cons |
| Free | 1000 word limit per test |
| Detects plagiarism of articles, journals and books | Not precise report |
Duplichecker can be said to be the best free plagiarism checker available.
Though not perfect, the results of Duplichecker is quite surprising with regard to the tests of the same article, book, and journal.
Duplichecker does have a drawback, though: when certain terms were substituted with synonyms, it was unable to identify plagiarism.
Furthermore, even in cases where the content was practically copied word for word, Duplichecker reports frequently revealed substantially less than 100% plagiarism.
Duplichecker is free and has a 1,000-word limit per test.
- SmallSEOTools
| Pros | Cons |
| Free | 1000 word limit per test |
| Detects plagiarism of articles, books, and journals. |
There are a lot of similarities between Duplichecker and this plagiarism detector.
Similar to Duplichecker, it detected plagiarism in all three submissions, but it was unable to identify instances where synonyms were used in place of words.
It also has a 1,000 word limit per test and is totally free.
Wrap up
Plagiarism can significantly impact your profession, potentially leading to dismissal, especially in fields like education and journalism.
Depending on your needs and possibly your institution’s recommendation, you can use either paid or free tools.
For students preparing assignments, a free tool may suffice, but for more significant projects, investing in a premium tool is advisable.
Teachers aiming to publish articles or journals can choose between paid and free tools based on their institution’s recommendations.
Many educational institutions now use plagiarism detection tools and typically recommend them to instructors and students.
If your institution doesn’t currently use one, I recommend any of the listed paid tools. My institution uses Unicheck, and it has been a valuable asset.
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