When creating scientific and educational materials, one of the most important criteria remains not only the novelty and relevance of the topic, but also the uniqueness of the text. Scientific texts should be useful to society. They should also be original, not copied from the internet. To check originality, there is software for plagiarism detection - a service with which a text data array checks articles before publication for the number of citations of other people's materials.
When a scientific work is published, it is important that the material is correctly formatted, structured and proofread. It’s also usually important that it’s an original study undertaken by the author of the paper. This also applies to student coursework, essays and other research papers. Each paper should be checked through a plagiarism checker before submission.
For the best plagiarism check, a program must meet several criteria:
High level of objectivity of the check.
Possibility of free trial testing.
Loading a large number of dictionaries and sources for checking.
A unique, proprietary verification algorithm that monitors lots of sources.
User-friendly functionality.
Adequate cost for monthly or annual subscription (if frequent checks are required).
The plagiarism checker that you use should be as convenient as possible for you in terms of its functionality, and also justify the investment in it if you buy a subscription. At the same time, it is equally important that it is updated on a regular basis, because otherwise there is a possibility that its verification functionality will become outdated and may irrelevant.
TOP 5 tools for checking plagiarism
Let's move on to consider the most popular plagiarism checker tools that are presented in the niche of education and science.
Plagiarism checker | Overall score |
4.8 | |
Grammarly.com | 3.6 |
CopyLeaks.com | 3.0 |
Smodin.io | 2.9 |
CopyScape.com | 3.5 |
It’s worth starting with the most popular plagiarism checker, PlagiarismCheck.org, which is academic, since it was developed to evaluate the quality and uniqueness of academic papers. It has one significant advantage compared to others - the ability to conveniently integrate into online services, including educational ones.
For a long time, this copied content checker has remained one of the leading checkers in the fields of science and education, and to this day is considered an example of a good plagiarism checker.
Pros:
Suitable for anyone
This is the best plagiarism checker aimed at students and teachers. But it may well be used by other users who work with text. New users have one free test. To continue using PlagiarismCheck after the first free test you will have to pay a fee.
Easy to use
The plagiarism check is standard. You copy your text into the input field or upload a text file, then click Proceed, and the system begins checking the document for uniqueness. All checked texts are saved in your account library along with the results. You can return to them at any time. The verification results can be downloaded in PDF format, printed or sent directly via email.
24/7 customer support
You can contact their support team if some problems occur.
Security of data
In general, PlagiarismCheck is recommended as a primary tool for checking the uniqueness of term papers or dissertations due to its reliable security policies.
Cons:
Paid subscription for more features
Personal and corporate rates available. A standard subscription allows you to check text that does not exceed five pages.
Grammarly.com
Grammarly.com is software for checking plagiarism and mistakes in texts.
Pros:
Popular service
It is a very popular service for correcting mistakes in texts and it’s a widely used plagiarism detector. It is aimed primarily at university students, but is also quite suitable for anyone else who works with texts - SMM specialists, marketers, copywriters, and so on. Grammarly is popular in the USA, Latin America, Spain, Belgium, Australia, and other countries.
Quick plagiarism identification
Cons:
High cost of subscription
To use the originality checker, you need to register (you can log in through your social media accounts) and buy the premium account for checking your text. The cost of subscription depends on the seats number (number of users) and it can be enhanced up to $150 per seat annually.
Doesn’t find all plagiarism
This similarity checker is a little-known tool to check plagiarism because the verification results can not be considered very accurate. Probably, you will have to use other tools to make sure that your paper is countred original.
Limit of 100,000 characters
One of the disadvantages of this plagiarism tool is the limited amount of text for check, which is 100,000 characters. Given these limitations, this service could only be useful for checking small texts, since it is not suitable for checking coursework or dissertations.
Uses the same color for showing plagiarism from different sources.
CopyLeaks.com
CopyLeaks.com is a plagiarism checker that identifies plagiarism using AI-powered analysis of texts.
Pros:
Specialized service
It is a fairly highly specialized plagiarism detection service. The system was developed for university students and staff and is primarily aimed at checking scientific work.
It uses different databases
This plagiarism tool can compare the text with other works in the university's home database, in the databases of third-party universities, and from internet sources.
Cons:
Is not suitable for all needs
Obviously, this plagiarism detection tool is not suitable for authors who write commercial texts for websites and web portals, SEO articles, and the like. It is there for you if you're working on a scientific publication.
Long wait for results
It takes this service quite a long time to check the text, especially compared to other tools presented in this post.
High cost of the service
The service is paid. You can purchase a monthly subscription and check up to 100 pages. One page is 250 words. The monthly subscription is $10.99.
No excluding function
It does not have the function of excluding title page, bibliography, and table of contents.
Smodin.io
Smodin.io is a plagiarism checker for Google Docs, which shows questionable check results.
Pros:
Ability to check texts in different languages
It is a fairly simple service that offers a plagiarism check in more than 190 languages. Using Smodin is extremely intuitive. You simply paste the text into the empty field and click Scan For Plagiarism. You can also upload a text file in three formats, or compare texts.
24/7 technical support.
Cons:
High cost of services
One of the disadvantages of Smodin is that the free check is available only for texts of 1000 characters and you have to pay for subsequent checks. Perhaps this feature is the reason for the relatively low popularity of this service.
The ability to bypass its algorithms
The service doesn’t have the ability to check text to detect popular methods of bypassing plagiarism checks.
Invalid check results.
Smodin is not as widespread as previous services. Its verification algorithm does not work well and the results are not consistent and reliable.
It is not secure and reliable
We should note that this service cannot guarantee security or reliability for their customers. Taking into account all of the cons, we conclude that Smodin is not a good plagiarism scanner. We do not recommend it!
CopyScape.com
CopyScape.com is a plagiarism checker that can’t boast a wide range of functions.
Pros:
It has a plagiarism checker for PDF (for paid subscription).
The plagiarism detector supports different text file formats including PDF, and provides comprehensive originality reports.
Analysis of web pages and identification of copying sources.
It is a very simple but useful service that offers a plagiarism check of entire pages of a website. The interface is extremely minimalistic. You only need to paste the URL of the page you are interested in and click Go.
A program starts to detect plagiarism. After a couple of seconds, you will see a list of search results that resembles Google results. It contains pages where matches to yours were found. You can click on each of the results - the corresponding page will open, on which parts of the text that the system has considered non-unique will be highlighted in color. The number of words on the page and the degree of similarity are also indicated here.
Cons:
Results are not always correct.
Note that the results are not always correct while using this plagiarism checker software. For example, when analyzing a text from one page of our site, we saw our site in the list (which is logical), the site of another company with similar services, and several completely irrelevant pages. It's probably worth paying attention only to the first results.
It checks the entire page
The disadvantage of this plagiarism checker with percentage is that the service checks the entire page, not individual text. That is, the check may affect menu items, footer, contact information and other page elements that do not really need to be taken into account.
It doesn’t have the library of files
A plagiarism detector doesn’t have a very useful feature – the library of your files. It isn't convenient when you don’t have your personal account with saved verification results.
It doesn’t work with cloud storage
A big disadvantage of originality checker is that it can’t work with cloud storage like Google Drive, Dropbox and OneDrive.
FAQ about Anti Plagiarism Tools
How to choose the right plagiarism checker?
There are many programs that check plagiarism and it is important to choose the right one, which will require a little comparative analysis. We do not recommend comparing the functionality of programs for general users but scientific anti-plagiarism programs, which have a more “meticulous” check.
By default, the programs are similar to each other, they have approximately the same interface and capabilities, but the difference in the basis for checking and additional functionality is striking. For example, PlagiarismCheck.org and CopyLeaks.com seem similar in functionality and have equally broad checking bases, but for scientific publications, it is better to use the first anti plagiarism checker, since it goes “deeper” into the text, detecting even the highest quality rewriting.
The online services PlagiarismCheck.org and CopyScape.com have in common only the ability to check on the Internet. At the same time, they have diametrically opposed capabilities: the first will be relevant for students and teachers who check plagiarism in papers, and the second is better for the average user.
Modern programs for detecting plagiarism continue to develop and improve. This makes it possible to detect more and more text manipulations and improve the quality of materials. And if you find the right checker, plagiarism will be defeated in your text!
What indicator of uniqueness is considered sufficient?
We consider it necessary to emphasize once again that analyzing the paper for originality is a necessary condition before submitting it.
There is the approximate range within which a paper should vary after checking using special services. The ideal is 90-100%, but it is equally important that the text is written in an original way, with minimal use of ideas from other sources. The same can be said about articles written by copywriters. This is necessary because the updated Google algorithms use machine learning and artificial intelligence in their work. This helps them find fragments that seem to be original, but are actually rewritten. Such pages will not occupy high positions in the search results ranking over time.
And it’s also useful to know that checking for uniqueness sometimes shows different results for different thematic niches. For example, the texts may contain a lot of terms or the niche may be very overloaded. Then it is permissible to reduce the uniqueness parameter to 85%.
What is the best plagiarism checker?
A checker should be chosen with caution. Due to different methods of detection, not all of them can find plagiarism entirely. Moreover, most of them are paid – that’s why it is important to make the right choice right away. PlagiarismCheck.org is among the most popular programs that check plagiarism. According to numerous reviews, it detects plagiarism very well in different types of texts.
How should I create a unique text?
Writing a unique text requires a creative approach and adherence to a certain sequence:
1. You should start by thoroughly studying the topic you are going to write about. The more deeply you understand the subject matter, the easier it will be to come up with new ideas. Describe your own experience or express your position.
2. Next, it is important to think through a clear structure. Otherwise, the reader will get confused and never finish reading your paper.
3. Try to develop your own style, hone it, and then you will definitely please your reader.
4. If you must use information from other sources, provide links to it. This will not only build your credibility as an author, but will also indicate that you respect copyrights.
And finally, after the paper is ready, you should check the uniqueness of the text using the plagiarism tool.
Why is it important to use the best plagiarism checker?
The uniqueness is one of the key factors in academic papers. If your paper is not unique, you will not get a good grade. That’s why it is important to find good programs that check plagiarism. The worst thing a student can do is copy other people’s texts and paste them in their papers. Also, a bad thing is to “collect” one text from several ones written by other people.
In this case, the uniqueness will be critically low, a teacher will definitely determine this, and the consequences for the student will be disastrous. And here the question arises, “how to check the text for uniqueness?” Fortunately, this task is not difficult and can be solved with the help of the best plagiarism checker. PlagiarismCheck.org is a good platform on which you can independently check any text and get a comprehensive report.
What to do after using programs that check plagiarism?
As you may have likely already understood from our post, there are special services whose main task is to check text for uniqueness and express it as a percentage. We are talking about the originality of this or that material. For example, one hundred percent means that the content is not a copy or plagiarism of other texts and is a new work. If plagiarism detection software finds matches, then uniqueness decreases.
We can offer some pragmatic advice on how to deal with situations when uniqueness is low and a paper is needed for tomorrow. You can search and collect interesting ideas from various sites. The process of studying information on a topic will definitely lead you to something new. In some narrow fields (for example, in medicine, electronics, law and others where a lot of terms are used), the similarity checker will show a low result. It is difficult to achieve high uniqueness in such texts.
In such cases, some parts of the paper can be replaced with images, tables or infographics to more clearly explain certain processes. Remember that the uniqueness of the text does not always come down to the use of synonyms. We are talking about an original approach in writing and fresh ideas.
Disclaimer: The above is a contributor post, the views expressed are those of the contributor and do not represent the stand and views of Outlook Editorial.
