how to identify plagiarism in an essay

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How to avoid plagiarism?

Proper citation style.

Avoid plagiarism by always listing the source and formatting it correctly when you are note-taking. Take care of the proper formatting and citation style when using content from outside sources.

Write on your own

Avoid borrowing and overusing large pieces of the content from outside sources, especially from Wikipedia. Write your own thoughts and use sources only to support your opinion (remember to cite it though!).

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Online Plagiarism Checker For Students

Writing an academic paper can be challenging when you’re not sure if it’s original enough to pass a plagiarism check. Of course, students take information from various sites before writing their own text. Sometimes, it just so happens that certain parts are very similar to your resources, making your professor think that you’ve just copied work from somewhere. That’s why it’s crucial for any modern college or university student to ensure that their work has 100% original content to maintain academic integrity.

Luckily, a free plagiarism checker online can solve this issue quickly and easily. Many cheap essay writing services use a plagiarism checker for research paper. However, students sometimes forget that they should too. But with so many options that pop up when you ask Google to “check my paper for plagiarism”, how do you choose the right one for detection? We’ve got the solution in the form of PapersOwl’s free plagiarism checker tool! Our simple tool makes it convenient to check any writing task without having to spend a dime. It works quickly and highly accurately, ensuring that you get the top grade you deserve. So, if you want to check plagiarism online before turning your task in, head over to our website and get started!

Accurate Check for Plagiarism with Percentage

Many students wishing to produce original content aren’t quite sure how to get an exact percentage of plagiarised text in their work. This percentage is important since many universities have a certain limit of non-unique words you can have in your essay for it to be considered okay. If your plagiarism search doesn’t give you the exact percentage, you can’t be sure if your assignment will go through or not.

When using a free plagiarism tool, it’s essential to have this data provided to you. Only when you have it can you decide which parts to change and which ones to chuck out to achieve your desired results. Plagiarized content is a big issue in modern educational institutions, so getting reliable and trustworthy results is vital. This is the most essential requirement when you check plagiarism.

PapersOwl’s plagiarism detection tool gives you all the information you need to fix plagiarized content. Whether you’ve fallen victim to accidental plagiarism or have tried to make your life easier by copying some text from different sources, you’ll get an accurate percentage with our plagiarism checker online. If you’re wondering how to check paper for plagiarism, it’s nothing complicated at all! Simply visit our site, paste your whole essay into the relevant text box or upload the text file, click on Check For Plagiarism, and you’ll get accurate plagiarism results in a matter of seconds. You’ll see the problematic parts with plagiarism detected highlighted, with links to where similar content exists. Our service with plagiarism detector will also give you the option to check my essay for plagiarism and then to hire a professional paper writer to fix your task quickly if you're busy with other things!

The Fastest Plagiarism Checker Online

Gaining insight into duplicate content only works if you get your results quickly. There are so many free plagiarism software online that promise to do the job for you. However, a lot of them are clunky, slow, and inaccurate. How can you produce original work without similarity detection you can trust?

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Plagiarism Checker Helps Boost Your Grade

A lot of students make the mistake of considering their papers automatically free from plagiarism. After all, they’ve written it themselves, so how could it be problematic? What they don’t realize is that it’s very easy to borrow some information mistakenly. Turning such a paper in can cause multiple problems, as your professor might think you haven’t done the work at all.

That is why you should always use a plagiarism scanner to test for plagiarized content in your college papers. Our online plagiarism checker for students is designed for this exact purpose. A simple, free plagiarism check could help you check plagiarism, fix any mistakes you see, and submit high-quality text that no one will question.

Our plagiarism detector has a lot going for it. It makes plagiarism detection easier than ever before. Unlike copying and pasting each passage individually into Google, simply upload the whole file into our plagiarism checker free for students, and you don’t have to do anything else. All the matches are highlighted so you know what to change.

The plagiarism test will give you a uniqueness percentage too. This will help you figure out where you stand and how much time you need to adjust anything if required. So, using our copyright checker online free to check your writing is essential. This way, you’ll submit the task only when you’re sure it meets the level of uniqueness required by your school. As a result, your grades will drastically improve when you check for plagiarism.

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Our professional online plagiarism checker work offers too many benefits to ignore. With our plagiarism detector, you can enjoy highly accurate results as a comprehensive report. The plagiarism checker for students is designed to help you achieve 100% uniqueness without hassle. Here are the key advantages you can enjoy when you check plagiarism free with our plagiarism detection tool:

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• If you already have a completed text, all you need is just to copy-paste the whole thing in the special box of the chosen plagiarism tool or website, choose suitable settings (if any), then press “check for plagiarism”. It is quite simple and takes just a few moments.
• Once you have pressed “check for plagiarism”, the system will analyze your text and compare it with different sources to find similarities. As a rule, the duration depends on the text’s length. A standard free online plagiarism checker with percentage can give you the result within five minutes or less.
• When the system finishes the work you will be transmitted to the reporting page – it contains the comprehensive report on your work, a percentage of its uniqueness, and a list of sources on which similarities were detected. Often, such tools also highlight the overlaps that were found.

As you can see, it is simple. However, for the best and reliable result you have to be careful. There are tons of programs and online tools that can be used but keep in mind that many of them work differently and not all are good for you. To be confident in the truthfulness of the received result, you need to select the best plagiarism checker because only a professional and high-quality software can detect all similarities and give you a reasoned assessment.

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Resources for Teachers: How to Detect Plagiarism

Plagiarism is unacceptable academic behavior. The best approach, of course, is to prevent plagiarism from occurring in the first place, but sometimes that is simply impossible. MIT’s Policies and Procedures spells out “Procedures for Dealing with Student Academic Dishonesty.” In those cases, it is important to be able to detect plagiarism.

Warning Signs

Unusual phrasings, noticeable unevenness of style (some very sophisticated sentences followed by some amateurish ones), concepts that seem too sophisticated for the level of the class, unclear or incorrect sources listed in the bibliography, a writing style or diction choice in a particular paper that seems inconsistent with that found in other samples of the student’s writing — these are some of the signals that you might be reading a plagiarized paper.

One technique to detect plagiarism is to enter an unusual phrase or sentence into a standard search engine (e.g., Google ) and see if a match is found. A second technique is holding a conference with the student writer and discussing the paper to determine the student’s familiarity with his/her own paper and its concepts.

Dwight Gardner’s “ Beg, Borrow, Or … ” from Salon.com reminds us that plagiarism occurs in the literary world as well.

Kim McMurty’s article “ e-cheating: Combating a 21st Century Challenge ” in The Journal (March 2002) offers some insights into this issue.

Detection Tools

The following sites offer tools and techniques for detecting plagiarism.

•  Plagiarism and Anti-Plagiarism (Source: Rutgers University)
•   Plagiarism.org (A service that requires payment but which gives a free trial)
•   SafeAssign
•  Glatt Plagiarism Services

Know the “Enemy”

Here are some Web sites that offer papers to students, either for free or for money. New sites appear weekly, so the following is a mere sampling. Seeing what these sites offer, however, can help us know what to look for and can help us develop strategies for making such plagiarism extremely difficult.

• Essay World
• FreeEssayNetwork
• Top 100 Essay Sites
• Adventures in Cheating

Free plagiarism checker by EasyBib

Check for plagiarism, grammar errors, and more.

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Avoid unintentional plagiarism. Check your work against billions of sources to ensure complete originality.

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Check for unintentional plagiarism

Easily check your paper for missing citations and accidental plagiarism with the EasyBib plagiarism checker. The EasyBib plagiarism checker:

• Scans your paper against billions of sources.
• Identifies text that may be flagged for plagiarism.
• Provides you with a plagiarism score.

You can submit your paper at any hour of the day and quickly receive a plagiarism report.

What is the EasyBib plagiarism checker? 

Most basic plagiarism checkers review your work and calculate a percentage, meaning how much of your writing is indicative of original work. But, the EasyBib plagiarism checker goes way beyond a simple percentage. Any text that could be categorized as potential plagiarism is highlighted, allowing you time to review each warning and determine how to adjust it or how to cite it correctly.

You’ll even see the sources against which your writing is compared and the actual word for word breakdown. If you determine that a warning is unnecessary, you can waive the plagiarism check suggestion.

Plagiarism is unethical because it doesn’t credit those who created the original work; it violates intellectual property and serves to benefit the perpetrator. It is a severe enough academic offense, that many faculty members use their own plagiarism checking tool for their students’ work. With the EasyBib Plagiarism checker, you can stay one step ahead of your professors and catch citation mistakes and accidental plagiarism before you submit your work for grading.

Why use a plagiarism checker? 

Imagine – it’s finals week and the final research paper of the semester is due in two days. You, being quite familiar with this high-stakes situation, hit the books, and pull together a ten-page, last-minute masterpiece using articles and materials from dozens of different sources.

However, in those late, coffee-fueled hours, are you fully confident that you correctly cited all the different sources you used? Are you sure you didn’t accidentally forget any? Are you confident that your teacher’s plagiarism tool will give your paper a 0% plagiarism score?

That’s where the EasyBib plagiarism checker comes in to save the day. One quick check can help you address all the above questions and put your mind at ease.

What exactly is plagiarism? 

Plagiarism has a number of possible definitions; it involves more than just copying someone else’s work. Improper citing, patchworking, and paraphrasing could all lead to plagiarism in one of your college assignments. Below are some common examples of accidental plagiarism that commonly occur.

Quoting or paraphrasing without citations

Not including in-text citations is another common type of accidental plagiarism. Quoting is taking verbatim text from a source. Paraphrasing is when you’re using another source to take the same idea but put it in your own words. In both cases, it’s important to always cite where those ideas are coming from. The EasyBib plagiarism checker can help alert you to when you need to accurately cite the sources you used.

Patchwork plagiarism

When writing a paper, you’re often sifting through multiple sources and tabs from different search engines. It’s easy to accidentally string together pieces of sentences and phrases into your own paragraphs. You may change a few words here and there, but it’s similar to the original text. Even though it’s accidental, it is still considered plagiarism. It’s important to clearly state when you’re using someone else’s words and work.

Improper citations

Depending on the class, professor, subject, or teacher, there are multiple correct citation styles and preferences. Some examples of common style guides that are followed for citations include MLA, APA, and Chicago style. When citing resources, it’s important to cite them accurately. Incorrect citations could make it impossible for a reader to track down a source and it’s considered plagiarism. There are EasyBib citation tools to help you do this.

Don’t fall victim to plagiarism pitfalls. Most of the time, you don’t even mean to commit plagiarism; rather, you’ve read so many sources from different search engines that it gets difficult to determine an original thought or well-stated fact versus someone else’s work. Or worse, you assume a statement is common knowledge, when in fact, it should be attributed to another author.

When in doubt, cite your source!

Time for a quick plagiarism quiz! 

Which of the following requires a citation?

• A chart or graph from another source
• A paraphrase of an original source
• Several sources’ ideas summarized into your own paragraph
• A direct quote
• All of the above

If you guessed option E than you’d be correct. Correct punctuation and citation of another individual’s ideas, quotes, and graphics are a pillar of good academic writing.

What if you copy your own previous writing?

Resubmitting your own original work for another class’s assignment is a form of self-plagiarism, so don’t cut corners in your writing. Draft an original piece for each class or ask your professor if you can incorporate your previous research.

What features are available with the EasyBib plagiarism checker? 

Along with providing warnings and sources for possible plagiarism, the EasyBib  plagiarism checker works alongside the other EasyBib tools, including a grammar checker  and a spell checker . You’ll receive personalized feedback on your thesis and writing structure too!

The  plagiarism checker compares your writing sample with billions of available sources online so that it detects plagiarism at every level. You’ll be notified of which phrases are too similar to current research and literature, prompting a possible rewrite or additional citation. You’ll also get feedback on your paper’s inconsistencies, such as changes in text, formatting, or style. These small details could suggest possible plagiarism within your assignment.

And speaking of citations, there are also  EasyBib citation tools  available. They help you quickly build your bibliography and avoid accidental plagiarism. Make sure you know which citation format your professor prefers!

Great! How do I start? 

Simply copy and paste or upload your essay into the checker at the top of this page. You’ll receive the first five grammar suggestions for free! To try the plagiarism checker for free, start your EasyBib Plus three-day free trial.* If you love the product and decide to opt for premium services, you’ll have access to unlimited writing suggestions and personalized feedback.

The EasyBib plagiarism checker is conveniently available 24 hours a day and seven days a week. You can cancel anytime.  Check your paper for free today!.

*See Terms and Conditions

Visit www.easybib.com for more information on helpful EasyBib writing and citing tools.

For informational guides and on writing and citing, visit the EasyBib guides homepage .

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How to Detect Plagiarism

Last Updated: March 1, 2024 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by César de León, M.Ed. . César de León is an Educational Leadership Consultant and currently serves as an Assistant Principal for the Austin Independent School District in Austin, TX. César specializes in education program development, curriculum improvement, student mentorship, social justice, equity leadership, and family and community engagement. He is passionate about eradicating inequities in schools for all children, especially those who have been historically underserved and marginalized. César holds a Bachelor’s degree in Education and Biology from Texas State University and a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from The University of Texas at Austin. There are 9 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 81,009 times.

If you’re a teacher, you’ve likely encountered plagiarism more than once. This can be really frustrating, even if the student doesn’t do it on purpose. When you’re grading, utilize online tools to check any papers that seem like they might have “borrowed” from a source without citing it. You can also use specific software to check all papers and keep an eye out for red flags as you read. It’s also a good idea to be proactive and educate students so that you can prevent future offenses.

Things You Should Know

• Copy and paste the text into a free online plagiarism tool to easily detect plagiarism.
• Keep an eye out for abrupt changes in style or voice, odd formatting changes, and papers that veer off-topic.
• Plagiarism is sometimes an honest mistake. Make sure you clearly define what is and isn't considered plagiarism for your students.

Using Online Tools

• This is a simple and free way to check for plagiarism. [1] X Research source
• If you find that it is a case of plagiarism, make sure to save the link to the site where you found the original source.

• Dupli Checker

• Some of the most popular services are Turnitin.com and EVE (Essay Verification Engine).

Reading Critically to Catch Plagiarism

• Try requiring a specific font type and size. That might make it even easier to notice if someone changes the format.

• If you require APA formatting and the student uses Chicago, for example, that is a sign that they might have copied the sources from another paper or site.

• For example, maybe you asked a question specifically about Reagan’s economic policies. If the essay starts with an introduction on that topic but then ends up discussing issues completely unrelated to economics, the student might have used a generic essay on President Reagan to copy.

• For example, this passage has distinctly different styles within it: “I really liked watching the movie. Director Ava Duvernay deftly weaves emotion and facts in her portrayal of this watershed event. All of the acting was cool!” The middle sentence doesn’t have the same tone or style as the other sentences.

• You could say, “You made a really sophisticated argument when you compared Shakespeare to more modern playwrights. What led you down that path?” If the student can't articulate answers about their paper, that is a red flag.

Preventing Plagiarism and Dealing with Offenders

• You can say something like, “Anything that is not general knowledge or your own idea needs a citation. Direct quotes and statistics must always have a citation.”
• If your school has a policy on plagiarism, include it in your syllabus. If necessary, you can write your own.

• You can also include a link to the citation guide in the guidelines for the paper.

• If you teach the same class every year, make sure to change up the paper topics each term. This will help cut down on students using papers that previous students wrote.

• If you aren’t sure what the policy is, ask a co-worker or your supervisor to provide you with that information.
• Meet with the student first if you think it was an innocent mistake. Many students plagiarize without even realizing it. Consider talking to the student first to see if they understand what they did wrong.

Expert Q&A

• Trust your gut. If you think something is off, it probably is. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• If you are worried that you accidentally plagiarized, you can check your work using the same tools as your teacher. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/9335819?hl=en
• ↑ https://www.grammarly.com/plagiarism-checker
• ↑ César de León, M.Ed.. Educational Leadership Consultant. Expert Interview. 11 November 2020.
• ↑ http://libguides.law.umich.edu/c.php?g=38132&p=242784
• ↑ https://www.library.kent.edu/files/Library_Live_II_Ways_to_detect_Plagiarism.pdf
• ↑ https://gsi.berkeley.edu/gsi-guide-contents/academic-misconduct-intro/plagiarism/detect-plagiarism/
• ↑ https://cmsw.mit.edu/writing-and-communication-center/resources/teachers/detect-plagiarism/
• ↑ https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/design/instructionalstrategies/writing/preventplagiarism.html
• ↑ https://www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/resources/preventing-plagiarism/

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Identifying Plagiarism and How to Avoid it

Identifying Plagiarism

what is Plagiarism?

Intentional Plagiarism

Inadvertent Plagiarism

Paraphrased Plagiarism

PLAGIARISM MOSAIC

Insufficient acknowledgment

Scholastic Dishonesty

The UTSA Student Code of Conduct (Section 203) defines plagiarism as:

“A form of academic dishonesty and intellectual theft that violates long-held and widely recognized principles of academic integrity including, but not limited to, the appropriation, buying, receiving as a gift, or obtaining by any means another’s work and the submission of said work as one’s own academic work offered for credit.”

Intentional Plagiarism is the deliberate act of representing the words, ideas, or data of another as one’s own without providing proper attribution to the author through quotation, reference, or footnote.

(UTSA Student Code of Conduct, Section 203)

Types of Intentional Plagiarism

APPROPRIATING IDEAS OR CONCEPTS

Occurs when a student paraphrases another author’s words, rearranges them, and then submits the reworded text as if it were original material.

CUT AND PASTE

Occurs when a student uses another author’s work (in its entirety or just a few words) and submits it as if those words were original material. The amount of work the student cuts and pastes does not matter.  It is still intentional plagiarism.

lack of documentation

Occurs when a student uses another author’s words, places them in quotes, but fails to provide proper documentation.

Paraphrasing Without Changing Enough Words

Source document:

How can we affect national policy – or even make intelligent decisions in our own lives – if we don’t grasp the underlining issues? As I write, Congress is dissolving its own Office of Technology Assessment – the only organization specifically tasked to provide advice to the House and Senate on science and technology. Its competence and integrity over the years have been exemplary. Of the 535 members of the U.S. Congress, rarely in the twentieth century have as many as one percent had any significant background in science. The last scientifically literate President may have been Thomas Jefferson (Sagan 7).

Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World. Ballantine Books, 1996.

Student Essay:

Many Americans are scientifically illiterate, which could prove to be disastrous for our nation. How can we affect national policy – or even make intelligent decisions in our own lives – if we don’t grasp the underlying issues? Scientific literacy affects us all, and we should be more vigilant in guarding against ignorance.

Why is this Intentional Plagiarism? Click to find out.

In this example, the author simply copied and pasted Carl Sagan’s exact words and presented them as if they were original material.

View Example

Appropriating Ideas or Concepts

Unfortunately, we can’t discuss science literacy without discussing our politicians. Recently, Congress decided to do away with its own Office of Technology Assessment, which was a group of people whose job was to provide assistance to representatives in the House and Senate in matters of science and technology.

In this example, the author took Sagan’s words, slightly paraphrased them, and then presented them as if they were original materials. There is no proper documentation.

Lack of Documentation

Sadly, many of our presidents have been scientifically illiterate, and Thomas Jefferson may have been “the last scientifically literate” President of the United States.

In this example, the author correctly places Sagan’s words in quotes but fails to provide documentation. This is still plagiarism.

Inadvertent Plagiarism involves the inappropriate, but not deliberate use of another’s words, ideas, or data without appropriate attribution, failure to follow established rules for documenting sources or from being insufficiently careful in research and writing. (UTSA Student Code of Conduct, section 203)

In many cases, unintentional plagiarism transpires when the author summarizes and/or paraphrases the source material inappropriately, documents a source incorrectly, or omits attribution entirely. Inadvertent plagiarism is by far the most common form of plagiarism, and instructors deal with cases of inadvertent plagiarism differently. Depending on the variables of the case and the severity of the violation, penalties for unintentional plagiarism may vary.

Types of Inadvertent Plagiarism

UNDOCUMENTED ILLUSTRATIONS OR CHARTS

Occurs when a student copies a picture, graph, or illustration, pastes it into his or her work, but fails to provide documentation.  Since the author omitted documentation, a reader might think the author created the objects, which is why it’s important to cite visuals created by another author.

MISSING OR INCORRECT DOCUMENTATION

Occurs when a student uses another person’s ideas or work but unintentionally fails to document the work or documents it improperly.

SUBMITTING WORK WITHOUT CITING REFERENCES

Occurs when a student provides in-text documentation but fails to attach a Works Cited or References page to the document. If sources were quoted, paraphrased, or summarized in a paper, they need to be properly cited in a works cited or references page.

Missing or Incorrect Documentation

Source Document:

The Monuments , an award-winning architectural element, welcomes everyone to the UTSA Main Campus, highlights the university’s presence in the community and shows that UTSA’s spirit burns brightly. The lighting for the Monuments is comprised of a full-spectrum LED display and can be set to display in a wide array of color combinations – including UTSA orange, blue and white (Chavez).

Chavez, Jesus. “UTSA’s Newest Tradition.” UTSA Today , University of Texas at San Antonio, 9 May 2015, www.utsa.edu/today/2015/05/monuments.html .

The Monuments is an award-winning new element that “welcomes everyone to the UTSA Main Campus.”

The student has referenced the original source with quotations but has failed to document the title or author of the source.

Paraphrased Plagiarism involves paraphrasing without acknowledging ideas taken from another. In this case, the reader might mistake these ideas for the writer’s.

Types of Paraphrased Plagiarism

Occurs when a student takes another author’s words and then paraphrases or rewords them, but fails to change enough of the original quotation to create an acceptable paraphrase.

P araphrasing without Documentation

Occurs when a student paraphrases and/or rewords another author’s words, but fails to provide the proper documentation.

Why is this Paraphrased Plagiarism? Click to find out.

Although the essay attempts to paraphrase the original source, the student has substituted phrases and words instead of basing his or her work on the concept and ideas of the article.  When paraphrasing, a writer needs to understand the content of the original source well enough to turn it into his or her own words.   If a writer is are struggling with paraphrasing, he or she should talk to his or her instructor or use some of the best practices illustrated at the Purdue Owl site .

Paraphrasing without Documentation

A brilliant orange, blue and white glow will now welcome everyone to the UTSA Main Campus.  The new feature showcases the heart of the campus within San Antonio.

The essay has paraphrased the original essay but failed to document the source.

Plagiarism Mosaic

UTSA Student Code of Conduct, Section 203

Plagiarism Mosaic involves the borrowing of words, ideas, or data from an original source and blending this original material with one’s own without acknowledging the source.

A new award-winning structure will greet all who come to UTSA and highlights the university’s presence in San Antonio.

Why is this Plagiarism Mosaic? Click to find out.

Although the student attempted to use his or her own words, there are still phrases and keywords used from the original source without any documentation.  A writer must make sure to either paraphrase in his or her own words or to use the original source as a quotation.

Insufficient Acknowledgment

Insufficient Acknowledgment involves the partial or incomplete attribution of words, ideas, or data from an original source.  Here, a student may partially cite an author by giving credit for some of the ideas or words used but using other parts of the work as his or her own.  This type of plagiarism may also include citations that are incomplete and useless to find the source.

The Monuments is an “award-winning architectural element” (Chavez).  They welcome everyone to the UTSA Main Campus and highlight the university’s presence in the community.

Why is this Insufficient Acknowledgment? Click to find out.

Although the student cited the author in the first sentence, he or she failed to quote, document, or paraphrase the second sentence.

When an instructor suspects a student of academic dishonesty, he or she will investigate the case to determine if a violation has occurred. If the instructor determines a violation has occurred, he or she will complete a faculty disposition of Scholastic Dishonesty form and meet with the alleged plagiarist. The student has the right to accept the punishment the instructor recommends or have Judicial Affairs investigate the case and potentially assign a penalty. Depending on the severity of the case, the punishment ranges from receiving reduced or no credit for an assignment or a course all the way up to expulsion from the university and potentially “revocation of degree, denial of degree, and/or withdrawal of diploma” (UTSA Student Code of Conduct, Section 301).

Tips to Avoid Plagiarism

Give yourself time - When you are working at the last minute, it is easy to leave out citations or make mistakes with your references.

Take careful notes and always include information about your sources.

Always use quotations around an author’s exact words.

Use a style manual or a citation resource like OWL to double-check your citations.

Unsure about your work? Check with an instructor, librarian , or the Writing Center , to answer your questions.

Designed and developed by UTSA Libraries Learning Technology Department at John Peace Library, University of Texas at San Antonio, 2019.

Free Plagiarism Checker by Quetext

Online plagiarism checker: how it works, enter text into plagiarism detector.

Our plagiarism detection tool, featuring DeepSearch™ Technology, provides a simple and effective method for checking plagiarism. Just copy and paste your content into the tool, then click the 'Check Plagiarism' button.

Check for plagiarism

Quetext’s online tool identifies any potentially plagiarized content throughout your document by running the text through three steps:

• 1. Contextual Analysis
• 2. Fuzzy Matching
• 3. Conditional Scoring

Evaluate plagiarism report

After evaluating the text against billions of internet sources, our plagiarism software will share your plagiarism results, including a score showing the percentage of text that is an exact or near-match to existing text online. (The higher the score, the more plagiarism found in your content!)

Resolve plagiarism risk and add citations

Our ColorGrade™ feature color-codes exact and near matches, letting you address plagiarism by modifying or citing the source. The "Cite Source" tool generates citations in MLA, APA, and Chicago formats for direct insertion into your document.

Plagiarism Checker Chrome Extension

Check the originality of webpage copy directly from your Google Chrome browser with our free plagiarism checker Chrome extension.

Benefits of Doing a Plagiarism Check

Whether producing original content or verifying that of others, there’s a lot to gain from using a plagiarism checker. An accurate, user-friendly plagiarism scanner provides real-time, automatic detection of duplicate content, facilitating the copy-checking process for teachers, students, content writers, and more. Results showing the exact percentage of plagiarized content allow users to see exactly how much text has been copied and where they need to re-word, thus helping to avoid unintentional plagiarism.

For Teachers

Our tool ensures academic integrity by verifying students’ work for originality, aiding educators in grading. From K-12 to higher education, it automates plagiarism checks, freeing teachers to prioritize work quality over originality scrutiny in academic and research papers.

For Students

The prevalence of academic plagiarism is increasing, often unintentionally. A reliable online plagiarism checker offers students peace of mind when submitting academic papers. It's easier to check for potential plagiarism before submission than to defend your writing later. Quetext ensures accurate results and helps students cite sources with its built-in citation generator.

For Copywriters

Plagiarism risk extends beyond academia to business and individual writing. Copied content is a concern for content writers tasked with creating original content on diverse topics. Our plagiarism checker swiftly prevents copyright infringement, ensuring bloggers and writers maintain integrity. Checking lengthy pieces takes minutes, safeguarding companies’ public content and writers’ reputations.

Quetext’s Online Tool Has It All:

• AI detector
• Expanded citation generator
• Individual or team plans
• Bulk file uploads
• Spelling & grammar checker
• 100,000 total words/month per user
• Downloadable originality reports
• Source exclusion

What is AI Plagiarism Detection?

As AI tools advance, creating content that mimics original work can now constitute plagiarism. This underscores the necessity for AI-driven detection tools. Our AI content detector uses sophisticated algorithms to scan and compare vast databases, ensuring accurate identification of plagiarized content. Employing an AI plagiarism checker like these is crucial to maintain integrity in academic and professional spheres, safeguarding against unintentional or deliberate plagiarism.

Plagiarism Checker FAQ

What is plagiarism.

Plagiarism is the act of representing someone else’s work as your own. In educational contexts, definitions vary by institution. It includes direct copying, improper paraphrasing, and self-plagiarism, where one reuses their own work without citation. Plagiarism violates academic integrity and journalistic ethics. In academic writing, producing original work and appropriately crediting sources prevents plagiarized content. Accidental plagiarism occurs when sources are unintentionally cited incorrectly, underscoring the importance of understanding citation practices. Maintaining originality and avoiding plagiarism not only uphold academic integrity but also contribute to creating original content that advances knowledge and scholarship.

What percentage of a paper can be plagiarized (or copied) and still be considered unique?

Generally speaking, similar or exact copies of another source should be kept under 15% for the total text of the article/paper/essay. As a best practice, citations should be used whenever using another original source word-for-word.

What’s the difference between deliberate and accidental plagiarism?

Deliberate plagiarism is purposely copying works from books, articles, webpages, or someone else’s paper and representing it as your original work. Alternatively, accidental plagiarism occurs in a few different ways:

• Incorrectly citing another person’s works
• Failing to paraphrase another person’s works - even when citing it correctly
• Reusing your own previous papers and inadvertently representing it as a new idea

A plagiarism checker works by comparing the submitted copy against known existing content. This sort of similarity checker flags instances of duplicate content, allowing the writer to modify those areas to avoid any claims of plagiarism.

What are the consequences of plagiarism?

The consequences of plagiarizing another person’s work vary by profession. For Students: Maintaining academic integrity is crucial. Students must ensure their work is not plagiarized. Consequences include failing grades, removal from classes, or expulsion. Even if allowed to stay, students may face mistrust and scrutiny. For Copywriters: Copywriters must produce original content. Plagiarized content can damage their reputation and make it hard to get assignments. Ensuring 100% originality is their responsibility. For Journalists: Journalists must uphold high standards of integrity. Plagiarized content erodes trust with readers and publishers, potentially ending careers. They must produce original, well-cited content.

Why is plagiarism bad?

There are several reasons why plagiarism is wrong, all centering around violating academic integrity, undermining originality, and eroding trust. It leads to legal consequences, tarnishes reputations, and stunts personal growth. Avoiding plagiarism preserves credibility, fosters creativity, and upholds ethical standards. Educational institutions and search engines penalize plagiarized content, impacting SEO rankings and visibility. Embracing originality ensures sustainable success and fosters a trustworthy reputation online.

Can AI-generated content be considered plagiarism-free?

AI-generated content, such as text produced by language models like GPT-3, GPT-4, and Gemini, can be considered plagiarism-free if properly used and cited. However, using AI writing tools like ChatGPT without adequate citation can lead to unintentional plagiarism. It's vital to use an AI content detector to ensure originality. High-quality tools that use advanced detection models, like Quetext’s AI Detector, can help identify AI-generated text, minimizing the risk of false positives and ensuring that submissions are plagiarism-free.

How does AI technology impact plagiarism detection?

AI-generated content and AI-generated text are now common, making AI content detection crucial. Detecting AI technology, including advanced algorithms and language models like ChatGPT-3 and GPT-4, has significantly improved plagiarism detection. Tools like Quetext’s AI detector tool utilize these advanced models to compare submitted text against vast databases, ensuring accurate detection of potential plagiarism and copy written by artificial intelligence or generative ai.

Fast and Reliable Results with Quetext

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Plagiarism in academic writing: how to identify and avoid it.

BY SCOTT RAGIN

In the academic world, plagiarism is considered as a serious offense because stealing the work of another writer is an unacceptable tactic. Today, falling into the plagiarism trap became very easy and even tempting because the Internet has all information that could possibly be needed for a research paper, essay, article, or review. Unfortunately, many students and even some scholars make this mistake every year because a lack of their effort to write original text is easily detected by sophisticated software packages at education institutions.

The punishment for plagiarism offense is quite serious and often results in destroyed academic reputation, zero grade, and even expulsion from the educational institution. These short- and long-term consequences can be a bad influence on your academic career, so considering plagiarism as an option to complete an assignment should really be out of question. Instead of using this option, try some of these great and proven strategies to identify unoriginal content and avoid it in the future.

Strategy 1: Use Anti-plagiarism software

Identifying plagiarism is easy these days. There are a lot of websites that have sophisticated software that detects it in the matter of minutes. This online software is very easy to use: just copy the text you need to check and click “check” button. When the check is completed, you will be provided with a plagiarism report with the percent of the original text and the plagiarized areas will be highlighted for you to change.

Strategy 2: Paraphrasing

This strategy falls into “avoiding” category. Imagine this: you have found the information that is perfect for using in your paper. Instead of copying it, read it to the end to really understand the essence of the text. Now, when you know what the content is about, you can put it into your own words, which will help to avoid having unoriginal text. It is generally advised not to copy more than three or four words from the text without having them paraphrased.

Strategy 3: Quoting

This means that you take a short chunk of text from the source (usually a part of the sentence that has some important information for your topic) and leave it without changes. In many cases, when you need to provide the original definition of the writer or state his or her point of view, it is allowed to have their words quoted. Just put the quotation marks at the beginning and at the end of the quote; for example:

Competitive advantage is defined as “the source of company’s competitiveness” (Johnson, 2016, p. 123).

However, you need to remember that most of the text needs to be paraphrased, so the use of quotes should be significantly limited. Also, citation styles have specific formatting requirements for quotes, so be sure to follow them as well.

Strategy 4: Citing

It is one of the most widely used strategies in the academic world. It is the way of referring to the works of other authors with the use of parenthetical citation. Essentially, citing is conveying the thoughts of others via your own words and giving the credit to them. In addition to academic papers, this method is used in business reports, government agencies’ publications, and other works. Here is the example of APA style citation:

The effectiveness of student motivation is measured by their academic performance (Johnson, 2016).

As you can see in this example, you need to follow the rules of formatting styles as well. Contact your instructor to know which citation style is used by your institution.

Strategy 5: Get help of professionals

If you are short on time to deliver an academic work due to personal or other reasons, consider using the help of professional writing services. They hire writers with relevant academic background in particular areas to deliver the best work for the customers and, more importantly, provide original texts with plagiarism reports to prove that the text was not plagiarized. Of course, it is better to develop your academic writing skills by yourself but there is no shame in using the services of professionals when you are short on time.

The Bottom Line

Plagiarism is unprofessional, illegal, and disregarding, so avoiding it at all cost is the best possible strategy for modern students. Professors often say that it is better to miss the deadline rather than submit a plagiarized assignment and they are totally right about that. Fortunately, there are a number of strategies you can utilize to avoid plagiarizing the text that is widely recognized in the academic community.

Use these strategies to make sure your academic career advances with every written assignment you make. Besides, following academic integrity rules will also contribute to your professional career because you will develop appropriate work ethics that appreciates originality and quality of work.

Scott Ragin is a qualified educator, author and scholar. He is experienced in classroom teaching, training teachers and leaders and advising academic researchers. Scott provides assignment help at Aussiewriter and covers different topics concerning higher education and  educational technology. Feel free to contact him at Facebook .

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