plagiarism english essay

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A publication of the harvard college writing program.

Harvard Guide to Using Sources 

• The Honor Code
• What Constitutes Plagiarism?

In academic writing, it is considered plagiarism to draw any idea or any language from someone else without adequately crediting that source in your paper. It doesn't matter whether the source is a published author, another student, a website without clear authorship, a website that sells academic papers, or any other person: Taking credit for anyone else's work is stealing, and it is unacceptable in all academic situations, whether you do it intentionally or by accident.

The ease with which you can find information of all kinds online means that you need to be extra vigilant about keeping track of where you are getting information and ideas and about giving proper credit to the authors of the sources you use. If you cut and paste from an electronic document into your notes and forget to clearly label the document in your notes, or if you draw information from a series of websites without taking careful notes, you may end up taking credit for ideas that aren't yours, whether you mean to or not.

It's important to remember that every website is a document with an author, and therefore every website must be cited properly in your paper. For example, while it may seem obvious to you that an idea drawn from Professor Steven Pinker's book The Language Instinct should only appear in your paper if you include a clear citation, it might be less clear that information you glean about language acquisition from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy website warrants a similar citation. Even though the authorship of this encyclopedia entry is less obvious than it might be if it were a print article (you need to scroll down the page to see the author's name, and if you don't do so you might mistakenly think an author isn't listed), you are still responsible for citing this material correctly. Similarly, if you consult a website that has no clear authorship, you are still responsible for citing the website as a source for your paper. The kind of source you use, or the absence of an author linked to that source, does not change the fact that you always need to cite your sources (see Evaluating Web Sources ).

Verbatim Plagiarism

If you copy language word for word from another source and use that language in your paper, you are plagiarizing verbatim . Even if you write down your own ideas in your own words and place them around text that you've drawn directly from a source, you must give credit to the author of the source material, either by placing the source material in quotation marks and providing a clear citation, or by paraphrasing the source material and providing a clear citation.

The passage below comes from Ellora Derenoncourt’s article, “Can You Move to Opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration.”

Here is the article citation in APA style:

Derenoncourt, E. (2022). Can you move to opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration. The American Economic Review , 112(2), 369–408. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20200002

Source material

Why did urban Black populations in the North increase so dramatically between 1940 and 1970? After a period of reduced mobility during the Great Depression, Black out-migration from the South resumed at an accelerated pace after 1940. Wartime jobs in the defense industry and in naval shipyards led to substantial Black migration to California and other Pacific states for the first time since the Migration began. Migration continued apace to midwestern cities in the 1950s and1960s, as the booming automobile industry attracted millions more Black southerners to the North, particularly to cities like Detroit or Cleveland. Of the six million Black migrants who left the South during the Great Migration, four million of them migrated between 1940 and 1970 alone.

Plagiarized version

While this student has written her own sentence introducing the topic, she has copied the italicized sentences directly from the source material. She has left out two sentences from Derenoncourt’s paragraph, but has reproduced the rest verbatim:

But things changed mid-century. After a period of reduced mobility during the Great Depression, Black out-migration from the South resumed at an accelerated pace after 1940. Wartime jobs in the defense industry and in naval shipyards led to substantial Black migration to California and other Pacific states for the first time since the Migration began. Migration continued apace to midwestern cities in the 1950s and1960s, as the booming automobile industry attracted millions more Black southerners to the North, particularly to cities like Detroit or Cleveland.

Acceptable version #1: Paraphrase with citation

In this version the student has paraphrased Derenoncourt’s passage, making it clear that these ideas come from a source by introducing the section with a clear signal phrase ("as Derenoncourt explains…") and citing the publication date, as APA style requires.

But things changed mid-century. In fact, as Derenoncourt (2022) explains, the wartime increase in jobs in both defense and naval shipyards marked the first time during the Great Migration that Black southerners went to California and other west coast states. After the war, the increase in jobs in the car industry led to Black southerners choosing cities in the midwest, including Detroit and Cleveland.

Acceptable version #2 : Direct quotation with citation or direct quotation and paraphrase with citation

If you quote directly from an author and cite the quoted material, you are giving credit to the author. But you should keep in mind that quoting long passages of text is only the best option if the particular language used by the author is important to your paper. Social scientists and STEM scholars rarely quote in their writing, paraphrasing their sources instead. If you are writing in the humanities, you should make sure that you only quote directly when you think it is important for your readers to see the original language.

In the example below, the student quotes part of the passage and paraphrases the rest.

But things changed mid-century. In fact, as Derenoncourt (2022) explains, “after a period of reduced mobility during the Great Depression, Black out-migration from the South resumed at an accelerated pace after 1940” (p. 379). Derenoncourt notes that after the war, the increase in jobs in the car industry led to Black southerners choosing cities in the midwest, including Detroit and Cleveland.

Mosaic Plagiarism

If you copy bits and pieces from a source (or several sources), changing a few words here and there without either adequately paraphrasing or quoting directly, the result is mosaic plagiarism . Even if you don't intend to copy the source, you may end up with this type of plagiarism as a result of careless note-taking and confusion over where your source's ideas end and your own ideas begin. You may think that you've paraphrased sufficiently or quoted relevant passages, but if you haven't taken careful notes along the way, or if you've cut and pasted from your sources, you can lose track of the boundaries between your own ideas and those of your sources. It's not enough to have good intentions and to cite some of the material you use. You are responsible for making clear distinctions between your ideas and the ideas of the scholars who have informed your work. If you keep track of the ideas that come from your sources and have a clear understanding of how your own ideas differ from those ideas, and you follow the correct citation style, you will avoid mosaic plagiarism.

Indeed, of the more than 3500 hours of instruction during medical school, an average of less than 60 hours are devoted to all of bioethics, health law and health economics combined . Most of the instruction is during the preclinical courses, leaving very little instructional time when students are experiencing bioethical or legal challenges during their hands-on, clinical training. More than 60 percent of the instructors in bioethics, health law, and health economics have not published since 1990 on the topic they are teaching.

--Persad, G.C., Elder, L., Sedig,L., Flores, L., & Emanuel, E. (2008). The current state of medical school education in bioethics, health law, and health economics. Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics 36 , 89-94.

Students can absorb the educational messages in medical dramas when they view them for entertainment. In fact, even though they were not created specifically for education, these programs can be seen as an entertainment-education tool [43, 44]. In entertainment-education shows, viewers are exposed to educational content in entertainment contexts, using visual language that is easy to understand and triggers emotional engagement [45]. The enhanced emotional engagement and cognitive development [5] and moral imagination make students more sensitive to training [22].

--Cambra-Badii, I., Moyano, E., Ortega, I., Josep-E Baños, & Sentí, M. (2021). TV medical dramas: Health sciences students’ viewing habits and potential for teaching issues related to bioethics and professionalism. BMC Medical Education, 21 , 1-11. doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-021-02947-7

Paragraph #1.

All of the ideas in this paragraph after the first sentence are drawn directly from Persad. But because the student has placed the citation mid-paragraph, the final two sentences wrongly appear to be the student’s own idea:

In order to advocate for the use of medical television shows in the medical education system, it is also important to look at the current bioethical curriculum. In the more than 3500 hours of training that students undergo in medical school, only about 60 hours are focused on bioethics, health law, and health economics (Persad et al, 2008). It is also problematic that students receive this training before they actually have spent time treating patients in the clinical setting. Most of these hours are taught by instructors without current publications in the field.

Paragraph #2.

All of the italicized ideas in this paragraph are either paraphrased or taken verbatim from Cambra-Badii, et al., but the student does not cite the source at all. As a result, readers will assume that the student has come up with these ideas himself:

Students can absorb the educational messages in medical dramas when they view them for entertainment. It doesn’t matter if the shows were designed for medical students; they can still be a tool for education. In these hybrid entertainment-education shows, viewers are exposed to educational content that triggers an emotional reaction. By allowing for this emotional, cognitive, and moral engagement, the shows make students more sensitive to training . There may be further applications to this type of education: the role of entertainment as a way of encouraging students to consider ethical situations could be extended to other professions, including law or even education.

The student has come up with the final idea in the paragraph (that this type of ethical training could apply to other professions), but because nothing in the paragraph is cited, it reads as if it is part of a whole paragraph of his own ideas, rather than the point that he is building to after using the ideas from the article without crediting the authors.

Acceptable version

In the first paragraph, the student uses signal phrases in nearly every sentence to reference the authors (“According to Persad et al.,” “As the researchers argue,” “They also note”), which makes it clear throughout the paragraph that all of the paragraph’s information has been drawn from Persad et al. The student also uses a clear APA in-text citation to point the reader to the original article. In the second paragraph, the student paraphrases and cites the source’s ideas and creates a clear boundary behind those ideas and his own, which appear in the final paragraph.

In order to advocate for the use of medical television shows in the medical education system, it is also important to look at the current bioethical curriculum. According to Persad et al. (2008), only about one percent of teaching time throughout the four years of medical school is spent on ethics. As the researchers argue, this presents a problem because the students are being taught about ethical issues before they have a chance to experience those issues themselves. They also note that more than sixty percent of instructors teaching bioethics to medical students have no recent publications in the subject.

The research suggests that medical dramas may be a promising source for discussions of medical ethics. Cambra-Badii et al. (2021) explain that even when watched for entertainment, medical shows can help viewers engage emotionally with the characters and may prime them to be more receptive to training in medical ethics. There may be further applications to this type of education: the role of entertainment as a way of encouraging students to consider ethical situations could be extended to other professions, including law or even education.

Inadequate Paraphrase

When you paraphrase, your task is to distill the source's ideas in your own words. It's not enough to change a few words here and there and leave the rest; instead, you must completely restate the ideas in the passage in your own words. If your own language is too close to the original, then you are plagiarizing, even if you do provide a citation.

In order to make sure that you are using your own words, it's a good idea to put away the source material while you write your paraphrase of it. This way, you will force yourself to distill the point you think the author is making and articulate it in a new way. Once you have done this, you should look back at the original and make sure that you have represented the source’s ideas accurately and that you have not used the same words or sentence structure. If you do want to use some of the author's words for emphasis or clarity, you must put those words in quotation marks and provide a citation.

The passage below comes from Michael Sandel’s article, “The Case Against Perfection.” Here’s the article citation in MLA style:

Sandel, Michael. “The Case Against Perfection.” The Atlantic , April 2004, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2004/04/the-case-against-pe... .

Though there is much to be said for this argument, I do not think the main problem with enhancement and genetic engineering is that they undermine effort and erode human agency. The deeper danger is that they represent a kind of hyperagency—a Promethean aspiration to remake nature, including human nature, to serve our purposes and satisfy our desires. The problem is not the drift to mechanism but the drive to mastery. And what the drive to mastery misses and may even destroy is an appreciation of the gifted character of human powers and achievements.

The version below is an inadequate paraphrase because the student has only cut or replaced a few words: “I do not think the main problem” became “the main problem is not”; “deeper danger” became “bigger problem”; “aspiration” became “desire”; “the gifted character of human powers and achievements” became “the gifts that make our achievements possible.”

The main problem with enhancement and genetic engineering is not that they undermine effort and erode human agency. The bigger problem is that they represent a kind of hyperagency—a Promethean desire to remake nature, including human nature, to serve our purposes and satisfy our desires. The problem is not the drift to mechanism but the drive to mastery. And what the drive to mastery misses and may even destroy is an appreciation of the gifts that make our achievements possible (Sandel).

Acceptable version #1: Adequate paraphrase with citation

In this version, the student communicates Sandel’s ideas but does not borrow language from Sandel. Because the student uses Sandel’s name in the first sentence and has consulted an online version of the article without page numbers, there is no need for a parenthetical citation.

Michael Sandel disagrees with the argument that genetic engineering is a problem because it replaces the need for humans to work hard and make their own choices. Instead, he argues that we should be more concerned that the decision to use genetic enhancement is motivated by a desire to take control of nature and bend it to our will instead of appreciating its gifts.

Acceptable version #2: Direct quotation with citation

In this version, the student uses Sandel’s words in quotation marks and provides a clear MLA in-text citation. In cases where you are going to talk about the exact language that an author uses, it is acceptable to quote longer passages of text. If you are not going to discuss the exact language, you should paraphrase rather than quoting extensively.

The author argues that “the main problem with enhancement and genetic engineering is not that they undermine effort and erode human agency,” but, rather that “they represent a kind of hyperagency—a Promethean desire to remake nature, including human nature, to serve our purposes and satisfy our desires. The problem is not the drift to mechanism but the drive to mastery. And what the drive to mastery misses and may even destroy is an appreciation of the gifts that make our achievements possible” (Sandel).

Uncited Paraphrase

When you use your own language to describe someone else's idea, that idea still belongs to the author of the original material. Therefore, it's not enough to paraphrase the source material responsibly; you also need to cite the source, even if you have changed the wording significantly. As with quoting, when you paraphrase you are offering your reader a glimpse of someone else's work on your chosen topic, and you should also provide enough information for your reader to trace that work back to its original form. The rule of thumb here is simple: Whenever you use ideas that you did not think up yourself, you need to give credit to the source in which you found them, whether you quote directly from that material or provide a responsible paraphrase.

The passage below comes from C. Thi Nguyen’s article, “Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles.”

Here’s the citation for the article, in APA style:

Nguyen, C. (2020). Echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Episteme, 17 (2), 141-161. doi:10.1017/epi.2018.32

Epistemic bubbles can easily form accidentally. But the most plausible explanation for the particular features of echo chambers is something more malicious. Echo chambers are excellent tools to maintain, reinforce, and expand power through epistemic control. Thus, it is likely (though not necessary) that echo chambers are set up intentionally, or at least maintained, for this functionality (Nguyen, 2020).

The student who wrote the paraphrase below has drawn these ideas directly from Nguyen’s article but has not credited the author. Although she paraphrased adequately, she is still responsible for citing Nguyen as the source of this information.

Echo chambers and epistemic bubbles have different origins. While epistemic bubbles can be created organically, it’s more likely that echo chambers will be formed by those who wish to keep or even grow their control over the information that people hear and understand.

In this version, the student eliminates any possible ambiguity about the source of the ideas in the paragraph. By using a signal phrase to name the author whenever the source of the ideas could be unclear, the student clearly attributes these ideas to Nguyen.

According to Nguyen (2020), echo chambers and epistemic bubbles have different origins. Nguyen argues that while epistemic bubbles can be created organically, it’s more likely that echo chambers will be formed by those who wish to keep or even grow their control over the information that people hear and understand.

Uncited Quotation

When you put source material in quotation marks in your essay, you are telling your reader that you have drawn that material from somewhere else. But it's not enough to indicate that the material in quotation marks is not the product of your own thinking or experimentation: You must also credit the author of that material and provide a trail for your reader to follow back to the original document. This way, your reader will know who did the original work and will also be able to go back and consult that work if they are interested in learning more about the topic. Citations should always go directly after quotations.

The passage below comes from Deirdre Mask’s nonfiction book, The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power.

Here is the MLA citation for the book:

Mask, Deirdre. The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2021.

In New York, even addresses are for sale. The city allows a developer, for the bargain price of $11,000 (as of 2019), to apply to change the street address to something more attractive.

It’s not enough for the student to indicate that these words come from a source; the source must be cited:

After all, “in New York, even addresses are for sale. The city allows a developer, for the bargain price of $11,000 (as of 2019), to apply to change the street address to something more attractive.”

Here, the student has cited the source of the quotation using an MLA in-text citation:

After all, “in New York, even addresses are for sale. The city allows a developer, for the bargain price of $11,000 (as of 2019), to apply to change the street address to something more attractive” (Mask 229).

Using Material from Another Student's Work

In some courses you will be allowed or encouraged to form study groups, to work together in class generating ideas, or to collaborate on your thinking in other ways. Even in those cases, it's imperative that you understand whether all of your writing must be done independently, or whether group authorship is permitted. Most often, even in courses that allow some collaborative discussion, the writing or calculations that you do must be your own. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't collect feedback on your writing from a classmate or a writing tutor; rather, it means that the argument you make (and the ideas you rely on to make it) should either be your own or you should give credit to the source of those ideas.

So what does this mean for the ideas that emerge from class discussion or peer review exercises? Unlike the ideas that your professor offers in lecture (you should always cite these), ideas that come up in the course of class discussion or peer review are collaborative, and often not just the product of one individual's thinking. If, however, you see a clear moment in discussion when a particular student comes up with an idea, you should cite that student. In any case, when your work is informed by class discussions, it's courteous and collegial to include a discursive footnote in your paper that lets your readers know about that discussion. So, for example, if you were writing a paper about the narrator in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and you came up with your idea during a discussion in class, you might place a footnote in your paper that states the following: "I am indebted to the members of my Expos 20 section for sparking my thoughts about the role of the narrator as Greek Chorus in Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried ."

It is important to note that collaboration policies can vary by course, even within the same department, and you are responsible for familiarizing yourself with each course's expectation about collaboration. Collaboration policies are often stated in the syllabus, but if you are not sure whether it is appropriate to collaborate on work for any course, you should always consult your instructor.

• The Exception: Common Knowledge
• Other Scenarios to Avoid
• Why Does it Matter if You Plagiarize?
• How to Avoid Plagiarism
• Harvard University Plagiarism Policy

PDFs for This Section

• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Online Library and Citation Tools

Information about what plagiarism is, and how you can avoid it.

The University defines plagiarism as follows:

“Presenting work or ideas from another source as your own, with or without consent of the original author, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgement. All published and unpublished material, whether in manuscript, printed or electronic form, is covered under this definition, as is the use of material generated wholly or in part through use of artificial intelligence (save when use of AI for assessment has received prior authorisation e.g. as a reasonable adjustment for a student’s disability). Plagiarism can also include re-using your own work without citation. Under the regulations for examinations, intentional or reckless plagiarism is a disciplinary offence.”

The necessity to acknowledge others’ work or ideas applies not only to text, but also to other media, such as computer code, illustrations, graphs etc. It applies equally to published text and data drawn from books and journals, and to unpublished text and data, whether from lectures, theses or other students’ essays. You must also attribute text, data, or other resources downloaded from websites.

Please note that artificial intelligence (AI) can only be used within assessments where specific prior authorisation has been given, or when technology that uses AI has been agreed as reasonable adjustment for a student’s disability (such as voice recognition software for transcriptions, or spelling and grammar checkers).

The best way of avoiding plagiarism is to learn and employ the principles of good academic practice from the beginning of your university career. Avoiding plagiarism is not simply a matter of making sure your references are all correct, or changing enough words so the examiner will not notice your paraphrase; it is about deploying your academic skills to make your work as good as it can be.

Students will benefit from taking an  online course  which has been developed to provide a useful overview of the issues surrounding plagiarism and practical ways to avoid it.

Forms of plagiarism

Verbatim (word for word) quotation without clear acknowledgement Quotations must always be identified as such by the use of either quotation marks or indentation, and with full referencing of the sources cited. It must always be apparent to the reader which parts are your own independent work and where you have drawn on ideas and language from another source.

Cutting and pasting from the Internet without clear acknowledgement Information derived from the Internet must be adequately referenced and included in the bibliography. It is important to evaluate carefully all material found on the Internet, as it is less likely to have been through the same process of scholarly peer review as published sources.

Paraphrasing Paraphrasing the work of others by altering a few words and changing their order, or by closely following the structure of their argument, is plagiarism if you do not give due acknowledgement to the author whose work you are using.

A passing reference to the original author in your own text may not be enough; you must ensure that you do not create the misleading impression that the paraphrased wording or the sequence of ideas are entirely your own. It is better to write a brief summary of the author’s overall argument in your own words, indicating that you are doing so, than to paraphrase particular sections of his or her writing. This will ensure you have a genuine grasp of the argument and will avoid the difficulty of paraphrasing without plagiarising. You must also properly attribute all material you derive from lectures.

Collusion This can involve unauthorised collaboration between students, failure to attribute assistance received, or failure to follow precisely regulations on group work projects. It is your responsibility to ensure that you are entirely clear about the extent of collaboration permitted, and which parts of the work must be your own.

Inaccurate citation It is important to cite correctly, according to the conventions of your discipline. As well as listing your sources (i.e. in a bibliography), you must indicate, using a footnote or an in-text reference, where a quoted passage comes from. Additionally, you should not include anything in your references or bibliography that you have not actually consulted. If you cannot gain access to a primary source you must make it clear in your citation that your knowledge of the work has been derived from a secondary text (for example, Bradshaw, D. Title of Book, discussed in Wilson, E., Title of Book (London, 2004), p. 189).

Failure to acknowledge assistance You must clearly acknowledge all assistance which has contributed to the production of your work, such as advice from fellow students, laboratory technicians, and other external sources. This need not apply to the assistance provided by your tutor or supervisor, or to ordinary proofreading, but it is necessary to acknowledge other guidance which leads to substantive changes of content or approach.

Use of material written by professional agencies or other persons You should neither make use of professional agencies in the production of your work nor submit material which has been written for you even with the consent of the person who has written it. It is vital to your intellectual training and development that you should undertake the research process unaided. Under Statute XI on University Discipline, all members of the University are prohibited from providing material that could be submitted in an examination by students at this University or elsewhere.

Auto-plagiarism You must not submit work for assessment that you have already submitted (partially or in full), either for your current course or for another qualification of this, or any other, university, unless this is specifically provided for in the special regulations for your course. Where earlier work by you is citable, ie. it has already been published, you must reference it clearly. Identical pieces of work submitted concurrently will also be considered to be auto-plagiarism.

Why does plagiarism matter?

Plagiarism is a breach of academic integrity. It is a principle of intellectual honesty that all members of the academic community should acknowledge their debt to the originators of the ideas, words, and data which form the basis for their own work. Passing off another’s work as your own is not only poor scholarship, but also means that you have failed to complete the learning process. Plagiarism is unethical and can have serious consequences for your future career; it also undermines the standards of your institution and of the degrees it issues.

Why should you avoid plagiarism?

There are many reasons to avoid plagiarism. You have come to university to learn to know and speak your own mind, not merely to reproduce the opinions of others - at least not without attribution. At first it may seem very difficult to develop your own views, and you will probably find yourself paraphrasing the writings of others as you attempt to understand and assimilate their arguments. However it is important that you learn to develop your own voice. You are not necessarily expected to become an original thinker, but you are expected to be an independent one - by learning to assess critically the work of others, weigh up differing arguments and draw your own conclusions. Students who plagiarise undermine the ethos of academic scholarship while avoiding an essential part of the learning process.

You should avoid plagiarism because you aspire to produce work of the highest quality. Once you have grasped the principles of source use and citation, you should find it relatively straightforward to steer clear of plagiarism. Moreover, you will reap the additional benefits of improvements to both the lucidity and quality of your writing. It is important to appreciate that mastery of the techniques of academic writing is not merely a practical skill, but one that lends both credibility and authority to your work, and demonstrates your commitment to the principle of intellectual honesty in scholarship.

What happens if you are thought to have plagiarised?

The University regards plagiarism in examinations as a serious matter. Cases will be investigated and penalties may range from deduction of marks to expulsion from the University, depending on the seriousness of the occurrence. Even if plagiarism is inadvertent, it can result in a penalty. The forms of plagiarism listed above are all potentially disciplinary offences in the context of formal assessment requirements.

The regulations regarding conduct in examinations apply equally to the ‘submission and assessment of a thesis, dissertation, essay, or other coursework not undertaken in formal examination conditions but which counts towards or constitutes the work for a degree or other academic award’. Additionally, this includes the transfer and confirmation of status exercises undertaken by graduate students. Cases of suspected plagiarism in assessed work are investigated under the disciplinary regulations concerning conduct in examinations. Intentional plagiarism in this context means that you understood that you were breaching the regulations and did so intending to gain advantage in the examination. Reckless, in this context, means that you understood or could be expected to have understood (even if you did not specifically consider it) that your work might breach the regulations, but you took no action to avoid doing so. Intentional or reckless plagiarism may incur severe penalties, including failure of your degree or expulsion from the university.

If plagiarism is suspected in a piece of work submitted for assessment in an examination, the matter will be referred to the Proctors. They will thoroughly investigate the claim and call the student concerned for interview. If at this point there is no evidence of a breach of the regulations, no further disciplinary action will be taken although there may still be an academic penalty. However, if it is concluded that a breach of the regulations may have occurred, the Proctors will refer the case to the Student Disciplinary Panel.

If you are suspected of plagiarism your College Secretary/Academic Administrator and subject tutor will support you through the process and arrange for a member of Congregation to accompany you to all hearings. They will be able to advise you what to expect during the investigation and how best to make your case. The OUSU Student Advice Service can also provide useful information and support. 

Does this mean that I shouldn’t use the work of other authors?

On the contrary, it is vital that you situate your writing within the intellectual debates of your discipline. Academic essays almost always involve the use and discussion of material written by others, and, with due acknowledgement and proper referencing, this is clearly distinguishable from plagiarism. The knowledge in your discipline has developed cumulatively as a result of years of research, innovation and debate. You need to give credit to the authors of the ideas and observations you cite. Not only does this accord recognition to their work, it also helps you to strengthen your argument by making clear the basis on which you make it. Moreover, good citation practice gives your reader the opportunity to follow up your references, or check the validity of your interpretation.

Does every statement in my essay have to be backed up with references?

You may feel that including the citation for every point you make will interrupt the flow of your essay and make it look very unoriginal. At least initially, this may sometimes be inevitable. However, by employing good citation practice from the start, you will learn to avoid errors such as close paraphrasing or inadequately referenced quotation. It is important to understand the reasons behind the need for transparency of source use.

All academic texts, even student essays, are multi-voiced, which means they are filled with references to other texts. Rather than attempting to synthesise these voices into one narrative account, you should make it clear whose interpretation or argument you are employing at any one time - whose ‘voice’ is speaking.

If you are substantially indebted to a particular argument in the formulation of your own, you should make this clear both in footnotes and in the body of your text according to the agreed conventions of the discipline, before going on to describe how your own views develop or diverge from this influence.

On the other hand, it is not necessary to give references for facts that are common knowledge in your discipline. If you are unsure as to whether something is considered to be common knowledge or not, it is safer to cite it anyway and seek clarification. You do need to document facts that are not generally known and ideas that are interpretations of facts. 

Does this only matter in exams?

Although plagiarism in weekly essays does not constitute a University disciplinary offence, it may well lead to College disciplinary measures. Persistent academic under-performance can even result in your being sent down from the University. Although tutorial essays traditionally do not require the full scholarly apparatus of footnotes and referencing, it is still necessary to acknowledge your sources and demonstrate the development of your argument, usually by an in-text reference. Many tutors will ask that you do employ a formal citation style early on, and you will find that this is good preparation for later project and dissertation work. In any case, your work will benefit considerably if you adopt good scholarly habits from the start, together with the techniques of critical thinking and writing described above.

As junior members of the academic community, students need to learn how to read academic literature and how to write in a style appropriate to their discipline. This does not mean that you must become masters of jargon and obfuscation; however the process is akin to learning a new language. It is necessary not only to learn new terminology, but the practical study skills and other techniques which will help you to learn effectively.

Developing these skills throughout your time at university will not only help you to produce better coursework, dissertations, projects and exam papers, but will lay the intellectual foundations for your future career. Even if you have no intention of becoming an academic, being able to analyse evidence, exercise critical judgement, and write clearly and persuasively are skills that will serve you for life, and which any employer will value.

Borrowing essays from other students to adapt and submit as your own is plagiarism, and will develop none of these necessary skills, holding back your academic development. Students who lend essays for this purpose are doing their peers no favours.

Unintentional plagiarism

Not all cases of plagiarism arise from a deliberate intention to cheat. Sometimes students may omit to take down citation details when taking notes, or they may be genuinely ignorant of referencing conventions. However, these excuses offer no sure protection against a charge of plagiarism. Even in cases where the plagiarism is found to have been neither intentional nor reckless, there may still be an academic penalty for poor practice.

It is your responsibility to find out the prevailing referencing conventions in your discipline, to take adequate notes, and to avoid close paraphrasing. If you are offered induction sessions on plagiarism and study skills, you should attend. Together with the advice contained in your subject handbook, these will help you learn how to avoid common errors. If you are undertaking a project or dissertation you should ensure that you have information on plagiarism and collusion. If ever in doubt about referencing, paraphrasing or plagiarism, you have only to ask your tutor.

Examples of plagiarism

There are some helpful examples of plagiarism-by-paraphrase and you will also find extensive advice on the referencing and library skills pages.

The following examples demonstrate some of the common pitfalls to avoid. These examples use the referencing system prescribed by the History Faculty but should be of use to students of all disciplines.

Source text

From a class perspective this put them [highwaymen] in an ambivalent position. In aspiring to that proud, if temporary, status of ‘Gentleman of the Road’, they did not question the inegalitarian hierarchy of their society. Yet their boldness of act and deed, in putting them outside the law as rebellious fugitives, revivified the ‘animal spirits’ of capitalism and became an essential part of the oppositional culture of working-class London, a serious obstacle to the formation of a tractable, obedient labour force. Therefore, it was not enough to hang them – the values they espoused or represented had to be challenged.

(Linebaugh, P., The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1991), p. 213. [You should give the reference in full the first time you use it in a footnote; thereafter it is acceptable to use an abbreviated version, e.g. Linebaugh, The London Hanged, p. 213.]

Plagiarised

• Although they did not question the inegalitarian hierarchy of their society, highwaymen became an essential part of the oppositional culture of working-class London, posing a serious threat to the formation of a biddable labour force. (This is a patchwork of phrases copied verbatim from the source, with just a few words changed here and there. There is no reference to the original author and no indication that these words are not the writer’s own.)
• Although they did not question the inegalitarian hierarchy of their society, highwaymen exercised a powerful attraction for the working classes. Some historians believe that this hindered the development of a submissive workforce. (This is a mixture of verbatim copying and acceptable paraphrase. Although only one phrase has been copied from the source, this would still count as plagiarism. The idea expressed in the first sentence has not been attributed at all, and the reference to ‘some historians’ in the second is insufficient. The writer should use clear referencing to acknowledge all ideas taken from other people’s work.)
• Although they did not question the inegalitarian hierarchy of their society, highwaymen ‘became an essential part of the oppositional culture of working-class London [and] a serious obstacle to the formation of a tractable, obedient labour force’.1 (This contains a mixture of attributed and unattributed quotation, which suggests to the reader that the first line is original to this writer. All quoted material must be enclosed in quotation marks and adequately referenced.)
• Highwaymen’s bold deeds ‘revivified the “animal spirits” of capitalism’ and made them an essential part of the oppositional culture of working-class London.1 Peter Linebaugh argues that they posed a major obstacle to the formation of an obedient labour force. (Although the most striking phrase has been placed within quotation marks and correctly referenced, and the original author is referred to in the text, there has been a great deal of unacknowledged borrowing. This should have been put into the writer’s own words instead.)
• By aspiring to the title of ‘Gentleman of the Road’, highwaymen did not challenge the unfair taxonomy of their society. Yet their daring exploits made them into outlaws and inspired the antagonistic culture of labouring London, forming a grave impediment to the development of a submissive workforce. Ultimately, hanging them was insufficient – the ideals they personified had to be discredited.1 (This may seem acceptable on a superficial level, but by imitating exactly the structure of the original passage and using synonyms for almost every word, the writer has paraphrased too closely. The reference to the original author does not make it clear how extensive the borrowing has been. Instead, the writer should try to express the argument in his or her own words, rather than relying on a ‘translation’ of the original.)

Non-plagiarised

• Peter Linebaugh argues that although highwaymen posed no overt challenge to social orthodoxy – they aspired to be known as ‘Gentlemen of the Road’ – they were often seen as anti-hero role models by the unruly working classes. He concludes that they were executed not only for their criminal acts, but in order to stamp out the threat of insubordinacy.1 (This paraphrase of the passage is acceptable as the wording and structure demonstrate the reader’s interpretation of the passage and do not follow the original too closely. The source of the ideas under discussion has been properly attributed in both textual and footnote references.)
• Peter Linebaugh argues that highwaymen represented a powerful challenge to the mores of capitalist society and inspired the rebelliousness of London’s working class.1 (This is a brief summary of the argument with appropriate attribution.) 1 Linebaugh, P., The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (London, 1991), p. 213.

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Frequently asked questions

What is plagiarism.

Plagiarism means presenting someone else’s work as your own without giving proper credit to the original author. In academic writing, plagiarism involves using words, ideas, or information from a source without including a citation .

Plagiarism can have serious consequences , even when it’s done accidentally. To avoid plagiarism, it’s important to keep track of your sources and cite them correctly.

Frequently asked questions: Plagiarism

If you are reusing content or data you used in a previous assignment, make sure to cite yourself. You can cite yourself the same way you would cite any other source: simply follow the directions for the citation style you are using.

Keep in mind that reusing prior content can be considered self-plagiarism , so make sure you ask your instructor or consult your university’s handbook prior to doing so.

Most online plagiarism checkers only have access to public databases, whose software doesn’t allow you to compare two documents for plagiarism.

However, in addition to our Plagiarism Checker , Scribbr also offers an Self-Plagiarism Checker . This is an add-on tool that lets you compare your paper with unpublished or private documents. This way you can rest assured that you haven’t unintentionally plagiarised or self-plagiarised .

Compare two sources for plagiarism

Common knowledge does not need to be cited. However, you should be extra careful when deciding what counts as common knowledge.

Common knowledge encompasses information that the average educated reader would accept as true without needing the extra validation of a source or citation.

Common knowledge should be widely known, undisputed, and easily verified. When in doubt, always cite your sources.

Academic dishonesty can be intentional or unintentional, ranging from something as simple as claiming to have read something you didn’t to copying your neighbour’s answers on an exam.

You can commit academic dishonesty with the best of intentions, such as helping a friend cheat on a paper. Severe academic dishonesty can include buying a pre-written essay or the answers to a multiple-choice test, or falsifying a medical emergency to avoid taking a final exam.

Consequences of academic dishonesty depend on the severity of the offence and your institution’s policy. They can range from a warning for a first offence to a failing grade in a course to expulsion from your university.

For those in certain fields, such as nursing, engineering, or lab sciences, not learning fundamentals properly can directly impact the health and safety of others. For those working in academia or research, academic dishonesty impacts your professional reputation, leading others to doubt your future work.

Academic dishonesty refers to deceitful or misleading behavior in an academic setting. Academic dishonesty can occur intentionally or unintentionally, and it varies in severity.

It can encompass paying for a pre-written essay, cheating on an exam, or committing plagiarism . It can also include helping others cheat, copying a friend’s homework answers, or even pretending to be sick to miss an exam.

Academic dishonesty doesn’t just occur in a classroom setting, but also in research and other academic-adjacent fields.

Academic integrity means being honest, ethical, and thorough in your academic work. To maintain academic integrity, you should avoid misleading your readers about any part of your research and refrain from offences like plagiarism and contract cheating, which are examples of academic misconduct.

Self-plagiarism means recycling work that you’ve previously published or submitted as an assignment. It’s considered academic dishonesty to present something as brand new when you’ve already gotten credit and perhaps feedback for it in the past.

If you want to refer to ideas or data from previous work, be sure to cite yourself.

Plagiarism has serious consequences and can be illegal in certain scenarios.

While most of the time plagiarism in an undergraduate setting is not illegal, plagiarism or self-plagiarism in a professional academic setting can lead to legal action, including copyright infringement and fraud. Many scholarly journals do not allow you to submit the same work to more than one journal, and if you do not credit a coauthor, you could be legally defrauding them.

Even if you aren’t breaking the law, plagiarism can seriously impact your academic career. While the exact consequences of plagiarism vary by institution and severity, common consequences include a lower grade, automatically failing a course, academic suspension or probation, and even expulsion.

Most institutions have an internal database of previously submitted student assignments. Turnitin can check for self-plagiarism by comparing your paper against this database. If you’ve reused parts of an assignment you already submitted, it will flag any similarities as potential plagiarism.

Online plagiarism checkers don’t have access to your institution’s database, so they can’t detect self-plagiarism of unpublished work. If you’re worried about accidentally self-plagiarising, you can use Scribbr’s Self-Plagiarism Checker to upload your unpublished documents and check them for similarities.

The consequences of plagiarism vary depending on the type of plagiarism and the context in which it occurs. For example, submitting a whole paper by someone else will have the most severe consequences, while accidental citation errors are considered less serious.

If you’re a student, then you might fail the course, be suspended or expelled, or be obligated to attend a workshop on plagiarism. It depends on whether it’s your first offence or you’ve done it before.

As an academic or professional, plagiarising seriously damages your reputation. You might also lose your research funding or your job, and you could even face legal consequences for copyright infringement.

Yes, reusing your own work without citation is considered self-plagiarism . This can range from resubmitting an entire assignment to reusing passages or data from something you’ve handed in previously.

Self-plagiarism often has the same consequences as other types of plagiarism . If you want to reuse content you wrote in the past, make sure to check your university’s policy or consult your professor.

Patchwork plagiarism , also called mosaic plagiarism, means copying phrases, passages, or ideas from various existing sources and combining them to create a new text. This includes slightly rephrasing some of the content, while keeping many of the same words and the same structure as the original.

While this type of plagiarism is more insidious than simply copying and pasting directly from a source, plagiarism checkers like Turnitin’s can still easily detect it.

To avoid plagiarism in any form, remember to reference your sources .

Verbatim plagiarism means copying text from a source and pasting it directly into your own document without giving proper credit.

If the structure and the majority of the words are the same as in the original source, then you are committing verbatim plagiarism. This is the case even if you delete a few words or replace them with synonyms.

If you want to use an author’s exact words, you need to quote the original source by putting the copied text in quotation marks and including an   in-text citation .

Global plagiarism means taking an entire work written by someone else and passing it off as your own. This can include getting someone else to write an essay or assignment for you, or submitting a text you found online as your own work.

Global plagiarism is one of the most serious types of plagiarism because it involves deliberately and directly lying about the authorship of a work. It can have severe consequences for students and professionals alike.

Some examples of plagiarism include:

• Copying and pasting a Wikipedia article into the body of an assignment
• Quoting a source without including a citation
• Not paraphrasing a source properly (e.g. maintaining wording too close to the original)
• Forgetting to cite the source of an idea

The most surefire way to   avoid plagiarism is to always cite your sources . When in doubt, cite!

Plagiarism can be detected by your professor or readers if the tone, formatting, or style of your text is different in different parts of your paper, or if they’re familiar with the plagiarised source.

Many universities also use   plagiarism detection software like Turnitin’s, which compares your text to a large database of other sources, flagging any similarities that come up.

It can be easier than you think to commit plagiarism by accident. Consider using a   plagiarism checker prior to submitting your essay to ensure you haven’t missed any citations.

To avoid plagiarism when summarising an article or other source, follow these two rules:

• Write the summary entirely in your own words by   paraphrasing the author’s ideas.
• Reference the source with an in-text citation and a full reference so your reader can easily find the original text.

The accuracy depends on the plagiarism checker you use. Per our in-depth research , Scribbr is the most accurate plagiarism checker. Many free plagiarism checkers fail to detect all plagiarism or falsely flag text as plagiarism.

Plagiarism checkers work by using advanced database software to scan for matches between your text and existing texts. Their accuracy is determined by two factors: the algorithm (which recognises the plagiarism) and the size of the database (with which your document is compared).

Accidental plagiarism is one of the most common examples of plagiarism . Perhaps you forgot to cite a source, or paraphrased something a bit too closely. Maybe you can’t remember where you got an idea from, and aren’t totally sure if it’s original or not.

These all count as plagiarism, even though you didn’t do it on purpose. When in doubt, make sure you’re citing your sources . Also consider running your work through a plagiarism checker tool prior to submission, which work by using advanced database software to scan for matches between your text and existing texts.

Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker takes less than 10 minutes and can help you turn in your paper with confidence.

Paraphrasing without crediting the original author is a form of plagiarism , because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly reference the source . This means including an in-text referencing and a full reference , formatted according to your required citation style (e.g., Harvard , Vancouver ).

As well as referencing your source, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

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Academic Integrity at MIT

A handbook for students, search form, what is plagiarism.

During your academic career at MIT, you will write original papers and give oral presentations that require research in libraries and laboratories and accessing electronic resources. It is important to understand that standards for reusing other people’s creative output vary from discipline to discipline and culture to culture. For example, in the United States our copyright law does not protect ideas or facts, but does protect the particular, original expression of an idea in words or images when they are expressed in a tangible form.

In some cultures, the concept of “owning” words that are arranged in a particular sequence may seem strange. Students from these cultures may have been encouraged to repeat the words of others and incorporate them into their own writing without quoting or otherwise indicating that they came from another source. Other cultures accept the practice of copying phrases or sentences into a paper without using quotation marks as long as the writer shows where they came from. These practices are not acceptable in North American academic culture.

Creative expression of ideas through words, images, and other media is the lifeblood of this academic culture. For this reason, we expect that our original expressions should not be used by others without attribution and acknowledgment.

Plagiarism occurs when you use another’s words, ideas, assertions, data, or figures and do not acknowledge that you have done so.

If you use the words, ideas, or phrasing of another person or from published material, you must

• Use quotation marks around the words and cite the source, or
• Paraphrase or summarize acceptably and cite the source.

If you use charts, graphs, data sets, or numerical information obtained from another person or from published material, you must also cite the source.

You must always acknowledge your sources by citing them . In this way, you have the right to use another’s creative output by giving that person credit for the work s/he has done.

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What is plagiarism.

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" Plagiarism: presenting others' work without adequate acknowledgement of its source, as though it were one’s own. Plagiarism is a form of fraud. We all stand on the shoulders of others, and we must give credit to the creators of the works that we incorporate into products that we call our own.  

Some examples of plagiarism:

Rackham Academic and Professional Integrity Policy

Keep in mind that writing instructors can often spot passages that have been copied because they have a different style and rhetoric than the student's. Also. more and more graders have access to software like "Turnitin" that can identify content that is copied from other sources. 

Student Voices

Matt Cline, Flickr

Great tips from real international students at UM:

Q: What are some tips to avoid plagiarism?

"Understand the content and write it down using your own words (still need to put the article in Reference List)"

"Cite all figures, tables and images that are not produced by yourself"

"Not directly copy anything from the paper. If needed, rewrite in my own way. When citing papers, give enough acknowledgement"

"Paraphrase without looking at the original paper"

"Do enough citation"

"Just try not to do it.  I jot down my idea first and if I don't have the idea or don't know how to express it, I'll find some articles and try to recap or comment with my own words."

Q: Which online writing resources do you find useful?

"Google Scholar and well-written papers in my field"

Q: Which citation management programs do you use?

"I use Mendeley and Zotero"

"The Online Writing Lab at Purdue https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/"

How to Avoid Plagiarism

The key to avoiding plagiarism is give credit where credit is due. Some ways to not plagiarize include:

• Take good notes as you read. Note the author and page number of where you read ideas and/or facts.
• Create a good system of organizing your research notes. Make time to provide citations in your paper.
• Make sure to use in-text citations to give authors credit for their ideas.
• Not sure if something is common knowledge and doesn't need a citation? Ask your professor, GSI, or a librarian.
• Make sure you know how to recognize plagiarism with these tools:
• VAIL Tutor - Virtual Academic Integrity Laboratory (Tutorial and Quiz)
• Plagiarism test - How to Recognize Plagiarism from Indiana University
• Pen and Paper Plagiarism Knowledge Test - from The Center for Research on Learning & Teaching at the University of Michigan

Different Forms of Plagiarism

Plagiarism Activities 1   

1  Model taken from Rebecca Moore Howard, "Plagiarism, Authorships, and the Academic Death Penalty," College English 57 (Nov. 1995), 788-806. 2  Ibid., 799. 3  Diana Hacker, The Bedford Handbook, (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1998), 572.

----------------------------------------------------------

Is it Counted as Plagiarism if I didn't realize I was Plagiarizing?

Plagiarism:    Intentionally or  unintentionally  using someone else's ideas or writing in part or whole in your own paper without proper attribution.

Accidental Plagiarism:    When a writer attempts or intends to write in his/her own words but -- out of ignorance, sloppiness, or carelessness -- fails to distinguish quote from paraphrase or fails to cite and document properly. 

Patch-writing: Students often use patch-writing, (pasting the student's own words into an author's sentence frame), as a fall-back technique when they are stuck at some point in their writing. As students become more experienced in writing they rely on this technique less and less.

Most common plagiarism problems, mistakes, and misconceptions

"I didn't know I had to cite that, too!" Some students think they only need to cite direct quotes and statistics. While this is true, writers also need to cite unique ideas and unique phrasing belonging to someone else. Summaries and paraphrases of books, essays, and other sources of information also need to be fully cited. "But I included a bibliography . . ." A bibliography is not enough! Careful documentation of your sources at the level of the sentence is also extremely important because it is at the level of the sentence that you distinguish your ideas and words from someone else's. Copy-cat paraphrasing This is when a student attempts to summarize or paraphrase an idea or some research made by someone else, but adheres too closely to the other writer's phrasing and sentence structure. Even if there is a footnote or citation attached to the copy-cat sentence, it is still plagiarism if another writer's words are not enclosed in quotation marks. "I copied and pasted from several different websites, and after I wrote the paper I forgot which words were mine and which were from other people, so I didn't know where to put the quotation marks. Then I forgot to write down the URLs and I couldn't find any of the websites again." This is an all-too-common situation of sloppy research and note-taking methods with serious consequences.

This material is from Tufts University's  Preventing Plagiarism: Different Forms of Plagiarism page, except the definition of patch-writing which is from Judy Dyer, lecturer at the English Language Insitute. 

Useful Documents

• Note Taking Template
• Some Notes on Plagiarism This section from the book "Academic Writing for Graduate Students" by John M. Swales and Christine B. Feak, has an interesting discussion about plagiarism that is culturally framed.

Click on the links provided to download a note taking template as well as an interesting discussion about plagiarism that is culturally framed. 

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Plagiarism Overview 

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Plagiarism  is  using  someone else’s ideas or words without giving them proper credit.  Plagiarism can range from unintentional (forgetting to include a source in a bibliography) to intentional (buying a paper online, using another writer’s ideas as your own to make your work sound smarter). Beginning writers and expert writers   alike can all plagiarize.  Understand that plagiarism is a serious charge in academia, but also in professional setting s . 

If you are...

• a student — consequences can include failing grades on assignments or classes, academic probation, and even expulsion.
• a researcher — plagiarism can cause a loss of credibility, legal consequences, and other professional consequences.
• an employee in a corporate or similar setting — you can receive a reprimand or lose your job.

It is important to recognize that standards and conventions for citing sources vary from the classroom to scholarly publishing to the professional sphere, sometimes very widely, but in all  situations  we must attribute other people’s words and ideas to their appropriate source.

Please note:  This resource, which does not reflect any official university policy, is designed to help you develop strategies for knowing how to avoid accidental plagiarism. For instructors seeking a key statement on definitions and avoidance on plagiarism, see  Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices .  

In addition, there is a one page handout available that provides an overview of plagiarism with answers to common questions asked about how to avoid it.

Intellectual Challenges in American Academic Writing

There are some intellectual challenges that all students are faced with when writing. Sometimes these challenges can almost seem like contradictions, particularly when addressing them within a single paper.   

For example, American teachers often instruct students to:  

• Develop a topic based on what has already been said and written   BUT write something new and original.  
• Rely on experts’ and authorities’ opinions BUT build upon and/or disagree with those opinions.
• Give credit to previous researchers BUT make your own significant contribution.  
• Improve your English to fit into a discourse community by building upon what you hear and read BUT use your own words and your own voices.  

This may sound confusing, however, something simple to keep in mind when it comes to research is: You are not reinventing the wheel, you are simply contributing in a significant way. For beginners, this can be a challenge, but once you start to see that there is a pattern that is unique to you, you will find that plagiarism is not needed. Remember — your professor or your supervisor want your ideas to build on what is already established or familiar and NOT to simply repurpose someone else’s ideas and calling it your own.   

Why is understanding this so important? Plagiarism is not a victimless crime. Someone, including yourself, will get hurt.   

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Unintentional plagiarism, grammar mistakes, and uncited sources  can turn what you thought was a good paper into a poor one. When you’re writing a paper the last thing you want is for your message to get lost due to incorrect punctuation or confusing sentence structure. You know that the great ideas in your head would make for a standout paper, if only you could get them written clearly on the page. If this struggle sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

Great ideas may be an essential part of high-quality writing, but they’re not the only component. Excellent papers and essays clearly express strong ideas with good grammar, proper punctuation, spot-on spelling, and thorough, careful citations. While this may sound like a lot, your teachers and professors are grading you on your skills as both a writer and a researcher, which means your assignments will require an ethical and attentive approach. Luckily, there is no shortage of available tools to help you along your way.

You could use a plagiarism checker free, though, these tools often lack grammatical support. Given the high stakes and rigorous requirements, the aid of a plagiarism checker without the needed support of a grammar checker could mean the difference between an “A” paper and a “C” or even “D” paper.

Thankfully, the EasyBib Plus plagiarism tool provides all-in-one support to cover all your bases. Our premium essay checker is convenient, easy to use, and includes access to a grammar and spell checker, plus a plagiarism checker. With a single scan, you’ll receive personalized feedback to help identify potentially missing citations and help improve your sentence structure, punctuation, grammar, and more.

Not sure if that noun is spelled correctly, or if the preposition at the end of your sentence is grammatically correct? The EasyBib Plus plagiarism tool is your one-stop shop to help check plagiarism, get grammatical suggestions, correct spelling and punctuation errors, and help create polished papers you can be proud to turn in. And, we haven’t told you the best part yet: you can try our tool free and scan your work for grammar suggestions right now!

Access all the tools today!

A Grammar Check for Peace of Mind

You know that grammar plays a significant role in your assignments. Not only does it factor into your overall grade, but without clear and precise language, your ideas can lose their impact or might even be misunderstood entirely. Still, with so many different parts of speech and rules to learn and apply, it’s not uncommon to get them mixed up and find yourself questioning your knowledge now and again:

Can you use an adverb to modify a noun? (No. You need an adjective for that.)

Well, can you use it to modify a pronoun ? (Still no.)

What do they modify, then? (Almost everything else. Fun, right?)

Ugh. (That was an interjection .)

Does this have to be so difficult? (Nope!)

Scanning your paper with the EasyBib Plus writing tool delivers more than the basic punctuation and spell check functions that come standard in word processing programs. You’ll receive immediate, targeted feedback that can help improve the sentence structure and style of your writing. Not only can this help ensure that you don’t lose points off your grade for grammatical errors such as mismatched verb tense, but it can also help to clarify your meaning and strengthen your arguments by eliminating confusing punctuation and run-on sentences that confuse readers.

Reviewing your work to correct errors and refine the flow of your writing is a critical part of the revision process for novices and novelists alike. Even the most conscientious of wordsmiths might make mistakes, such as using a conjunctive adverb in place of a coordinating conjunction or pairing a plural determiner with an uncountable word. They likely appreciate a subscription-based or free grammar check as much as a beginning writer. That’s why the EasyBib Plus writing tool is designed for all writers, from students who are still learning the fundamentals to published professionals who get paid by the word.

The EasyBib Plus writing tool provides quick, targeted feedback that you can use to help improve your writing immediately. Also, our free resource library is available 24/7, just like the rest of our tools, to help you brush up on the areas that challenge you the most (Conjunctive what? Uncountable who?) That means you can continue to sharpen your skills and improve your writing over time, which will help make finishing your next project easier.

Ready to give your paper a boost? Sign up for EasyBib Plus or scan a paper right now for a free spell check—it’s easy!Just upload or copy and paste your paper to the online grammar check tool and, in a matter of seconds, you’ll be able to receive up to 5 feedback cards so you can begin polishing your draft.

To learn more about proofreading tools, you can find more info here. Or, for more tips on grammar, punctuation, and style, check out this useful reference .

Why is Grammar So Important, Anyway?

Why is grammar important? As long as others know what you mean, does it really matter if you use proper grammar? These are age-old questions, but the answers remain unchanged. Grammar is important for many reasons:

Communication:  Communication is about more than merely listening and talking. We communicate in myriad ways: with our voices, our mannerisms, our facial expressions, our actions, and frequently, our written words. Written communication is just as important as all the other ways we broadcast our thoughts and feelings. Unlike our other communication methods, though, written communication leaves a record. While most of us relax our style when talking to or texting friends, the fact remains that more formal venues require a more formal tone. Proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation are a necessary element of professional and academic writing, so running your work through a spelling and grammar check before you submit it is an absolute must.

Clarity:  Expressing your thoughts, ideas, and opinions is an uphill battle when you communicate them with less-than-stellar punctuation, spelling, and grammar. A missing or misplaced comma, for example, can entirely change your meaning:

• Call me Ishmael = My name is Ishmael.
• Call me, Ishmael = I want Ishmael to call me.

Spelling errors can result in similarly muddled meaning:

• Her shoes perfectly complemented her dress. = Her shoes and dress go well together.
• Her shoes perfectly complimented her dress. = Her shoes can both speak and engage in flattery.

Grammar deficiencies such as a dangling modifier yield similarly confusing results:

• I saw the girl’s purple backpack in the library. = The purple backpack belonging to the girl is in the library; I saw it.
• I saw the purple girl’s backpack in the library. = You know the girl who mysteriously turned purple? I saw her backpack in the library. This week has not been easy on her.

Credibility: Establishing your credibility is critical whether you’re writing for school or business. Proving that you can reliably communicate using proper grammar is essential to establishing and maintaining the trust of your teachers, professors, readers, customers, and colleagues.

To learn even more about the importance of English grammar in writing, check here .

What Happens After I Upload My Paper?

Once you upload a paper, the EasyBib Plus grammar checker scans your text and highlights grammar issues within your document so you can see it in context. For users running a grammar check and spell check using the grammar check free tool, up to the first 5 issues are shown. For subscription subscribers, all of the areas that require your review will be highlighted once the scan is complete.

No matter which version of the tool you’re using, your feedback will include detailed explanations so you can understand why the text was flagged. Other highlighted areas will include examples of how the issues can be fixed. Some will include a detailed explanation as to why the issue was flagged. This personalized feedback allows you to make an educated decision about whether to edit your text or dismiss the suggestion, so you’re always in control of your final draft.

Subscription users also have the plagiarism checker at their disposal when scanning their papers for style and grammar suggestions. Just as with our other writing tools, when you use the tool to check plagiarism, changes are never made without your review, so you are always in the driver’s seat. You can review each highlighted area as well as the sources of matching text and will always be given a choice to either accept or ignore both citation and grammar suggestions.

Whether you are a student or a professional, the EasyBib Plus tools are powerful allies that can help you improve your paper, establish credibility as a writer, and maintain an ethical writing process.

Try our checker free for 3 days to see what you think*. Trust us; you’ll wonder how you got along so far without it!

*See Terms and Conditions

Check for Unintentional Plagiarism

Persistent use of the best grammar checker and spell checker you can find will help to shape up the style and substance of your composition. However, to ensure the integrity of your work and root out unintentional instances of academic dishonesty, you’ll also need to incorporate a subscription-based or free plagiarism checker for students.

The ability to scan your paper and check plagiarism and grammar before submitting your work is an invaluable tool for students. It’s so valuable, in fact, that students are not the only ones who consistently use this type of software.

Many teachers and professors use a service to ensure that student papers are original and include properly formatted and sourced citations for all reference materials. For some, this may be a consistent element of their grading process, while others may utilize one only when they feel there is a reason to do so.

What Exactly Does a Plagiarism Checker Do?

If you’ve used an online plagiarism checker before, you may be familiar with the process that these tools employ. For those who have never used one, it can be helpful to understand how these tools work and what you should expect as a result of using one.

The most basic free tools will scan your paper and provide you with a percentage that indicates how much of your work is original. This feature can be useful to a point, as some instructors and institutions set a percentage for the amount of similar text that is considered acceptable. This policy does not mean that they are lenient about academic dishonesty but, instead, that they recognize that similar or even matching word choice is not always an indicator of copying.

However, some schools do not tolerate any form of incremental plagiarism, period. In these institutions, “check paper for plagiarism” is likely a standard action when grading all papers.

With a free plagiarism checker, the percentage of word-for-word plagiarism in your text may be the only feedback you receive. Moreover, some of these providers may wade in unethical waters, and offer essay writing services in conjunction with their checking services. This is why many students and teachers prefer subscription-based checkers that focus on integrity, such as the EasyBib writing tools.

With our premium tools, you get more than just supporting proof that your paper is original and in your own words. Your writing is scanned for potentially matching text and areas that needs your attention is highlighted. We’ll provide you with the source of the matching text so you can review it and decide how to proceed. If you agree that a citation is needed, our citation tools and resources will provide you with the information you need to help format and insert the new sources in your text as well as your works cited page.

How Does the EasyBib Plus Online Plagiarism Checker Work?

The EasyBib Plus writing tool provides an all-in-one spell check, grammar review, and plagiarism checker that not only helps you with the paper you’re writing now but enables you to gain new knowledge and improve your writing for the future, too.

Our essay checker searches online for phrases, sentences, or passages that are similar to those in your paper. If it returns matching text, this may indicate that you have passages that are missing citations.

Just as with many checkers, our tool will tell you how many instances of matching text it finds in your paper. Our plagiarism tool is designed to do more than most free tools, however.

When a portion of your paper is flagged for review, we provide you with the source that it matches. As with our online spell check tool, you have the power to review each area and choose how to proceed. If you decide to cite the flagged text, you can review the suggested source and access our citation tools to help create a proper citation and start building a bibliography for your paper. Or, you may determine that no citation is needed, in which case it’s simple to dismiss the suggestion and continue to the next section.

If you’re unsure about how to proceed, our library of resources can help you learn more and make an educated decision. In this way, you gain more than just the ability to correct your work; over time, you can learn how to avoid plagiarism altogether.

Reasons Your Teacher May Run Your Paper Through a Plagiarism Detector

As stated previously, your teachers and professors grade papers with a fixed process that includes “check paper for plagiarism” as a standard, across-the-board action. Others may check for plagiarism only when they feel there is cause to do so. There are a few red flags that may stand out to them while reviewing a paper that would lead to their running a plagiarism check, including:

Style/Voice:  Most teachers are familiar with the style and voice that you use in your writing. While most will hope that the feedback they provide when grading your work will help you to improve problem areas over time, a paper or essay that has a dramatically different style or voice than the work you’ve previously submitted can be a red flag.

Inconsistency:  Changes in the font, font size, formality, formatting, and more may indicate that portions of a paper have been copied and pasted. If these inconsistent passages are not presented as quotations or don’t include citations, this may further indicate to your teacher that there’s plagiarism in the paper.

Old References:  Part of a well-researched paper is verifying the legitimacy and relevance of your sources. While some older references may be acceptable depending on the topic, if all of your sources are outdated, it may lead your teacher to believe that you’ve recycled your own work or someone else’s.

Looking for a checker to try? With EasyBib Plus you get unlimited checks to give you peace of mind when turning in your papers!

What is Plagiarism?

If you’re looking for a free online plagiarism checker , you’re already aware that it’s not something you want to be found in your papers. However, you may still be wondering: what does plagiarism mean? It’s a reasonable question and one that merits exploring. After all, some of the actions and circumstances that fall within the plagiarism definition come as a surprise to those who only learn that they’ve committed them after it’s too late.

So what is plagiarism? To define plagiarism in the most basic sense, you might say that it is taking someone else’s ideas and words and passing them off as your own.

If your goal is avoiding plagiarism entirely, you’ll need to go beyond the basics to thoroughly define plagiarism, recognize it, and keep clear of it. Some examples of plagiarism that students find surprising include forgotten citations, poor paraphrasing, and re-submitting your own work in whole or in part for more than one assignment. This useful article provides more help in recognizing and understanding the different forms that academic dishonesty can take.

Of course, using your own words and ideas does not count as plagiarism, nor does using common knowledge . Basically, common knowledge is information that is well known by the average person. Examples of common knowledge:

• there are 12 months in a year
• the freezing point of Celsius is zero degrees
• Socrates was a Greek philosopher

So should you only include your original thoughts and common knowledge in your papers? Of course not! Research-based assignments are meant to demonstrate your skills as a researcher, after all, as well as your ability to build upon the work of others to formulate new ideas. To avoid accidentally committing an act that falls within the plagiarism definition when you’re using another person’s words or ideas, though, you need to give them proper credit. This means you’ll need to clearly identify direct quotations or properly paraphrase them when including them in your paper.

Regardless of your approach, you’ll also need to cite your sources according to the style your professor specifies. Generally, you will use MLA format for the arts and humanities and APA format for the sciences, but it’s always best to check with your instructor when you’re unsure.

If you know what style to use but still aren’t sure how to create your citations, don’t fret! Our library of resources includes free guides to help you learn about various styles so you can properly structure and place them. And our premium tools not only help you check grammar, spelling, and originality in your papers, but subscribers also enjoy access to our citation creation tools!

What are the Different Types of Plagiarism?

In addition to the question “what is plagiarism,” you may also be wondering, “why do students plagiarize?” While some students do intentionally plagiarize because they believe they can pass off someone else’s work as their own to avoid spending time on their assignments, many others do so accidentally. They may not understand how broad the plagiarism definition is or they haven’t learned how to research and cite their sources properly. That is why it is vital to recognize plagiarism in all of its forms if you wish to ensure the integrity of your work.

Examples of plagiarism & How to prevent it

Direct plagiarism:

Intentionally copying another person’s work without including a citation that gives credit to the source. When most students are asked to identify potential plagiarism examples and behaviors, this direct and deliberate act is what they think of first.

• Prevention: If you use an idea or quote from another source, cite it in the text. Make it clear that it was not your own words. 

Incremental plagiarism:

Copying parts of another person’s work, such as phrases, sentences, or paragraphs without crediting the source. When deciding which tools to use to check a paper for plagiarism , instructors often seek out those that will identify incremental forms as well as instances of direct copying and similar phrasing.

• Prevention : Decide to either directly quote the phrases or sentences you want to use, or write a good paraphrase. In both cases, be sure to add a citation. Using a plagiarism checker could also help you identify problematic passages.

Self-plagiarism:

Academic self-plagiarism occurs when a student submits the same paper or parts of a paper for more than one assignment. When your instructors are grading your papers, they’re assessing your research and writing skills in the present. When you submit work that you completed in the past, they are both unable to evaluate your current skills and unaware that you haven’t completed the assignment.

• Prevention: Write a new paper for each assignment you’re assigned. If you feel strongly that your past work could enhance your new paper, speak to your instructor and ask for permission first.

Misleading citations:

Including a citation for a quote or idea that misrepresents the source material. This can occur if a student does not understand the reference they are citing; if a student includes a citation for a disreputable source; or the source material simply does not align with the idea or argument that the student has attributed to it.

• Prevention: Carefully review your assignment to understand it. As you research, take the time to evaluate each source notes . Remember, it’s better to have quality citations over an abundance of citations.

Invented sources:

If a reference in a student’s bibliography is found not to exist, it is considered an invented source. This may occur if a student couldn’t find a reputable source to back their argument, or if they needed to include additional references to meet the requirements of the assignment and chose to take an unethical shortcut rather than completing the required amount of research. No matter the reason, this behavior ultimately hurts them in the long run. Not only will they fail to gain the experience they need to conduct research in the future properly, but they’ll also experience significant consequences if they’re caught.

• Prevention: Set aside time to do proper research so you can find enough sources. Start creating a list of sources as you’re researching and take good notes. This will help you keep track of your sources so none are forgotten. If you do end up forgetting where a quote came from, a paper checker could help you pinpoint the original source. 

Patchwriting/Spinning:

Patchwriting is often confused with paraphrasing, but there’s a significant difference. When you paraphrase, you demonstrate that you understand the topic well enough to restate it in your own words. When you patchwrite or spin, it is more akin to a word-swapping game; there’s no need to understand the subject, merely to have access to a thesaurus so you can substitute enough synonyms to mask the source material. This can be intentional, but it may also be a result of having a poor understanding of how to paraphrase.

• Prevention: Using your own words, write down the key points of the phrase or idea, and put them together in a sentence. Be sure to include a citation as well. 

A good way to test if you’re patchwriting or paraphrasing is to remove your sources from view. If you can write about what you’ve read without looking at the source material, you likely understand it well enough to paraphrase it. If you have to review the source material with each new sentence or consult a thesaurus while writing about it (except when you’re adding direct quotations), you may be spinning your sources instead of paraphrasing them.

Academic Integrity Policies and Statements

If you’re still uncertain about what counts as plagiarism, look for your school’s/ organization’s policies on academic integrity and plagiarism. The policies of academic institutions usually cover what is considered plagiarism, the consequences of committing it, and how to avoid it. One great example is Purdue University’s Academic Integrity statement .

What are the Consequences of Plagiarism?

No matter the setting, plagiarism is not taken lightly, and the consequences can be significant. For a good reason, too! Whether in an academic or professional setting, the plagiarism consequences reflect the seriousness of the act, which is ultimately a form of theft that hurts everyone involved.

Just as with the theft of a tangible object, there can be legal punishments for plagiarism. It is, after all, a form of copyright infringement in many instances. A quick search for plagiarism articles will reveal that professional instances of intellectual theft have resulted in civil lawsuits and can even be criminally prosecuted under rare circumstances. In addition to the possible legal consequences, professionals may lose their jobs or have to start over in a new field after their acts of fraud are uncovered.

As a student, you’re likely to wonder what happens if you plagiarize in college or high school. While there will almost always be consequences for this behavior, there is no one-size-fits-all plagiarism sentence. Depending on the circumstances, academic dishonesty could result in outcomes such as:

• You might get a zero for the assignment in which the infringement occurred.
• You may receive a failing grade for the class. If it is a required course, this could leave you without enough credits to move on to the next level until you can repeat it and, in some instances, postpone graduation.
• You may be expelled from your school or university.

The academic dishonesty may be noted on your transcript, which can lead to you not getting into your preferred college, graduate school, or Ph.D. program in the future.

Nobody wants to be known as a fraud or to have a reputation for dishonesty follow them through their career. And, given the consequences that can extend beyond just their reputation, it’s no wonder that professional and academic writers who wish to avoid them take the time to understand the complete definition of plagiarism and run their work through a plagiarism checker before sending it out into the world.

Even the vigilant can fall prey to inferior tools, unfortunately. Before selecting a plagiarism checker, you should understand how they work and what they can (and cannot) detect.

How We Check for Plagiarism

When exploring how to check for plagiarism, most students and professionals conclude that including a checking tool in their revision process is not only helpful but necessary. When you consider the Herculean task of checking each line of your paper against the text of each of your resources, the benefits of a checker are clear. Moreover, this manual approach would only alert you to matching text in the sources you’re aware of, after all, and leaves the sources you haven’t reviewed untouched.

But, hang on. Why would sources you haven’t reviewed factor into your review? The answer to this lies in the plagiarism definition you learned above. What is plagiarism? It’s presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, intentionally or otherwise. It is not uncommon to uncover an idea while you’re researching a topic and later misremember it as your own. This might even occur years after you originally came across it.

You might wonder: how can plagiarism be avoided if you have to account for the source of every thought you include in your work? A few exceptions minimize the scope of this. Common knowledge about your topic does not need to be supported by a citation, nor does knowledge that you gained through your personal experience. Using a subscription-based or free plagiarism checker will help you locate any passages that may fall into these categories so you can review them and decide for yourself whether a citation is needed.

EasyBib Plus writing tools provide easy, convenient, and reliable support to help you find potentially missed citations and can help you improve your paper into a high-quality paper with integrity. Simply upload your paper, select the checker, then sit back and relax as the site scans your document. In mere moments, we’ll search the web for passages of similar text and highlight duplicate content for your review.

Regardless of the tools you use to help you revise and polish your work, it’s ultimately your responsibility to ensure that you’re writing and submitting ethical work. That’s why our tools go beyond the basics and require your participation. The tool never automatically makes changes to your paper, but only flags sections that may need your attention and provides you with the matching source so you can to make an educated decision.

If you find that a citation is needed, our citation tools can help you create properly formatted citations and develop a complete bibliography. And, if you review the passage and determine that the match is coincidental, you can dismiss the alert and move on to the next.

Seamless Citation Creation

Professional writers and students alike can find creating citations incredibly confusing. Nevertheless, they are an integral part of a well-written and researched paper and a requirement in almost all academic settings. But, have you ever wondered why they are so important? Citations really do have a purpose—other than driving us crazy— that make it necessary always to cite our sources.

We cite our sources for a few important reasons:

We need to give credit where credit is due. When you use a quote from someone else’s work, you need to give credit for using their words and ideas. Research is often based on the works and ideas of others. However, to include the words and ideas of another without giving them proper credit is to plagiarize, even if the act was unintentional.

In addition, showing that you’ve done proper research by including in text & parenthetical citations and a comprehensive list of sources to back up your arguments gives your work a layer of credibility that can help you earn the trust of your reader or teacher.

Readers can find the sources you used.  When you’re writing high school or undergraduate papers, your only readers may be your instructors and peers. However, including citations at every level of writing helps to ensure that anyone who reads your work can access your sources to check their accuracy, learn more about your topic, and further their own research.

Sources can take your research and learning to the next level, too. When you are conducting research on a topic, checking the works cited or annotated bibliographies prepared by your sources can lead you down new avenues in your research to further develop your ideas and help you write your papers.

Correctly utilizing citations gives strength to your thoughts and opinions. Understanding the value of citations does not, unfortunately, make them any easier to create. We know how confusing it can be, but don’t throw in the towel on learning how to cite websites in MLA , create your APA citation website references, or format your works cited —this is where we come in!

While a free online plagiarism detector may tell you how much of your work is unoriginal and may even identify the passages that meet their plagiarize definition, a premium EasyBib Plus plagiarism checker account also gives you access to our powerful citation resources and generator so you can:

Scan your papers with the plagiarism tool to check for plagiarism-free work before you submit.

Review flagged passages to determine if they meet the plagiarism definition and create unlimited citations in APA format and MLA format for anything fitting the plagiarism meaning. Need more styles ? Check out our regular citation generator for thousands of choices and free resources to help you learn how to create an APA parenthetical citation , APA book citation , APA works cited , and so much more!

Build a full bibliography for your paper right along with your parenthetical or in-text citations, which can save you hours of work along the way compared to manually creating and formatting them.

How Else Do We Help You Improve Your Paper?

The EasyBib Plus plagiarism detector helps you check your content or paper for text that may be missing a citation—which may fall within the definition of plagiarism—to help ensure you don’t accidentally plagiarize. It also includes grammar check and spelling check tools to help identify errors and suggest grammatical tweaks that could help to elevate the level of your writing.

Running a plagiarism check couldn’t be easier! Just upload your paper to the online proofreader, and in a few moments we’ll have your writing and citing suggestions. And, there’s no need to worry about your paper after it’s been scanned.

Run a Grammar and Spell Check for Free!

There’s no denying that your schoolwork can be challenging at times, and your assignments can lead to some late nights even when you’ve started them early. The last thing you want is to submit assignments that don’t reflect your best effort, but it can occasionally be quite the juggling act to get everything done on time.

Why not let our plagiarism checker free up space on your calendar by helping you revise your papers quickly and efficiently? The EasyBib Plus paper checker is your one-stop shop to check for plagiarism, create citations, spot spelling mistakes, and receive feedback on your grammar and style.

When you proofread and do a manual spelling check on work that you’ve written, you’re more likely to overlook mistakes. This is even more likely if you’re pressed for time or trying to complete several different assignments at once. There are tricks to help minimize this, such as reading your work aloud to identify poor grammar or reading each sentence backward to find spelling errors. When time is of the essence, though, these solutions aren’t the most convenient or useful options. That’s why many students seek the assistance of online tools that will run a grammar and plagiarism check on their work.

Are you asking yourself, “ How do I check my grammar online ?” We’ve got the perfect checker for you! Our advanced tools help you find and correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. Our targeted feedback and free writing and citing resources help you learn as you go to improve your writing over time.

The best part? You can use our grammar and writing tools any time of the day, any day of the year for! Looking to try it? Just upload or copy and paste your text into our online proofreader for a free grammar check with up to 5 suggestions, or sign up for EasyBib Plus today! EasyBib Plus gives you use of the plagiarism checker and unlimited access to suggestions that can help improve your spelling, sentence structure, punctuation, writing style, and grammar.

Published February 3, 2019. Updated April 9, 2020.

Written and edited by Michele Kirschenbaum and Melissa DeVrieze Meyer . Michele is a school library media specialist and the in-house librarian at EasyBib. You can find her here on Twitter. Melissa is a professional writer and editor based in New Jersey. She writes for academic brands and independent publishers about writing, grammar, and literature, and creates study and curriculum materials for ESL learners. You can find her on Twitter .

Visit our EasyBib Twitter feed to discover more citing tips, fun grammar facts, and the latest product updates.

What Is Plagiarism?

Defining Plagiarism and Techniques to Avoid It

• An Introduction to Punctuation

Olivia Valdes was the Associate Editorial Director for ThoughtCo. She worked with Dotdash Meredith from 2017 to 2021.

• B.A., American Studies, Yale University

Plagiarism is the practice of taking credit for someone else's words or ideas. It's an act of intellectual dishonesty. In colleges and universities, it violates honor codes and can cause irreparable damage to a person's reputation. It also comes with serious consequences ; a plagiarized assignment may lead to a failing grade, a suspension, or an expulsion.

Clearly, the issue is not to be taken lightly. However, if you act with academic integrity, it's also nothing to fear. The best way to avoid plagiarism is to understand the concept itself.  

Types of Plagiarism 

Some forms of plagiarism are obvious. Copying someone else's essay word for word and submitting it as your own? Plagiarism, of course. Turning in an essay you bought from a paper mill is too. The issue is not always so blatant, however. In addition to overt acts of academic dishonesty, other, more complex forms of plagiarism exist, and they lead to similar consequences nonetheless.

• Direct plagiarism  is the act of copying another person's work word for word. Inserting a paragraph from a book or article into your essay without including attribution or quotation marks, for example, is direct plagiarism. Paying someone to write an essay for you and submitting it as your own work is also direct plagiarism. If you commit direct plagiarism, you're likely to be caught thanks to software and tools such as  Turnitin .
• Paraphrased plagiarism  involves making a few (often cosmetic) changes to someone else’s work, then passing it off as your own. Unless a specific idea is common knowledge , you cannot include it in your paper without providing a citation—even if you do not include any direct quotes. 
• "Mosaic" plagiarism  is a combination of direct and paraphrased plagiarism. This type involves tossing various words, phrases, and sentences (some word for word, some paraphrased) into your essay without providing quotation marks or attributions.  
• Accidental plagiarism  occurs when citations are missing, sources are cited incorrectly, or an author shares an idea without a citation that isn't as common of knowledge as they thought. Accidental plagiarism is often the result of a disorganized research process and a last-minute time crunch. Ultimately, if you fail to cite your sources appropriately, you've committed plagiarism—even if you had every intention of giving credit.

How to Avoid Plagiarism 

Not everyone who plagiarizes starts out with the goal of stealing someone else's work. Sometimes, plagiarism is simply the result of poor planning and a few bad, panicked decisions. Don't fall victim to the plagiarism trap. Follow these tips to produce successful, original academic writing .

Begin the research process as early as possible ,   preferably as soon as you receive a new assignment. Read each source carefully. Take breaks between reading sessions to absorb the information. Explain each source's key ideas out loud, without referencing the original text. Then, write down each source’s main arguments in your own words. This process will ensure you have plenty of time to both absorb your sources' ideas and formulate your own.

Write a thorough outline.  After you’ve spent time researching and brainstorming, write a detailed  outline  of your paper. Focus on pinpointing your own original argument. As you outline, imagine yourself in conversation with your sources. Instead of restating your source's ideas, examine them and consider how they relate to your own.

Paraphrase “blind.”  If you plan to explain an author’s ideas in your paper, write the explanation without looking at the original text. If you find this process tricky, try writing out the ideas in a conversational tone, as though you’re explaining the idea to a friend. Then  rewrite the information in a more appropriate tone for your paper. 

Keep track of your sources.  Make a list of every source you read, even the ones you don’t expect to refer to in your paper. As you write, create a running bibliography using a free bibliography generator tool. Anytime you quote or paraphrase an author’s ideas in your draft, include the source information right next to the relevant sentence. If you’re writing a long paper, consider using a free citation organization tool such as  Zotero or EndNote .

Use an online plagiarism checker.  Although online tools are not foolproof, it’s a good idea to run your paper through a plagiarism checker before submitting it. You may discover that you’ve unintentionally composed a sentence that closely resembles something written by one of your sources or failed to include a citation for one of your direct quotes. Free resources such as  Quetext  compare your work to millions of documents and search for close matches. Your professor probably uses these tools, and you should too.

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• What to Do If You're Charged With College Plagiarism
• How to Avoid Plagiarism in Journalism
• Here's How to Use Attribution to Avoid Plagiarism in Your News Stories
• Definition and Examples of Direct Quotations
• Imitation in Rhetoric and Composition
• A Guide to Using Quotations in Essays
• MLA Style Parenthetical Citations
• APA In-Text Citations
• Documentation in Reports and Research Papers

And how to avoid it - a guide for ESL learners

Do you plagiarize?

Plagiarism is an illegal form of copying. It means taking another person's work (without asking) and calling it your own. Plagiarism can be accidental or intentional. Copying an entire essay or story and calling it your own is plagiarism. Copying one sentence word-for-word without "quotations" is also plagiarism. Whether you hand it in to a teacher, or post it in your blog, plagiarism is against the law in most nations.

Examples of plagiarism

• copying and pasting from the Internet and posting somewhere else without proper citation
• putting your name on another person's essay or project
• copying exact wording from another person's text
• using another person's photo, diagram, sounds, or ideas without proper citation
• presenting research in your own words without providing your references
• purchasing another person's text and using it as your own
• presenting ideas in the same format and order as your research source
• having a teacher, native speaker, or higher level student edit your paper to perfection

Why do English learners copy?

Here are some common excuses English learners use:

• I didn't know how to put it in my own words.
• It's not illegal in my country.
• I thought the Internet was a public domain.
• I don't understand the rules of copyright.
• I wanted to get a better mark.
• I wanted to impress my teacher.
• I didn't understand the assignment.
• I have a small vocabulary.
• I didn't have time to do the work.
• My parents want me to get better marks.

There are two main reasons why plagiarism is taken so seriously in the academic world:

• Authors and artists work very hard to create original work. They deserve the credit.
• Teachers want to know that students understand their research. Copying requires almost no effort.

International plagiarism

Most countries have copyright laws. In places like North America, plagiarism is taken very seriously. Students learn about plagiarism at an early age, and teachers in high schools and universities rarely accept any excuses for copying.

In some countries, the idea of "intellectual property" is not valued. Students from poor countries (or places where the government has a lot of control) may not understand the idea of an author owning his words or a photographer owning his photo.

There is no excuse for international students to plagiarize in a foreign country, however. It is important to understand and respect the copyright rules of the author or artist's country.

Reasons not to plagiarize

Even though most ESL or EFL teachers will not accept any of the excuses above, many students are tempted to plagiarize. Teachers are trained to recognize plagiarism. Most importantly, they know the level of their students. Learners who intentionally plagiarize will likely get caught.

Here are more reasons not to plagiarize:

• It is unfair to the true author.
• You will not learn anything.
• You will get a bad reputation with teachers and other learners.
• You could get kicked out of school.
• You will lower your chances of getting into schools.
• You could lose the cost of tuition.
• You might be asked to rewrite all previous assignments.
• Teachers don't want to be the police.
• You will lose important references for future jobs.
• You could get fined.
• You could lose your job.
• You risk being sued or taken to court by the publisher or artist.

Copying from the Internet

Text on the Internet is no different than text in a book or newspaper. Anything that another person writes, including email, is copyright protected. Internet plagiarism often involves copying text or images from websites, blogs, forums and social media sites.

Copying from the Internet is very easy to do. It is also easy for teachers to catch. Teachers who suspect plagiarism can check the Internet for exact wording by doing a simple search.

The World Wide Web is a growing international community. It loses its reputation when copyright rules are broken.

Getting caught for plagiarizing

The punishment for plagiarizing can be very severe. Some teachers will give you a second chance if your form of copying was unintentional. Many teachers have a strict policy and will not accept any excuses.

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Plagiarism Checker

Check-Plagiarism offers a reliable plagiarism checker that is widely used to detect plagiarism.  

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How to use Plagiarism Checker free?

To check plagiarism of your content by using our plagiarism detector online, follow the below instructions:

Type or paste your text into the input box.

Or, upload documents by clicking the upload icon (upload). You can upload a file of 1000 words (you can increase the limit to 20,000 words per search by getting pro membership).

Exclude the URL (if any) from the “Show Advanced” option. This URL will be ignored while checking for plagiarism; any text copied from the excluded URL will be marked as unique content.

Click on the  Check Plagiarism  button. We have added recaptcha security to avoid robots.

All done? No extra steps are needed. Our similarity checker will scan the given content against millions of online resources and generate an accurate plagiarism report with percentages. With Deep-Search technology,  free plagiarism checker  can also detect instances of plagiarism accurately.

Why AI Plagiarism Checker Over Traditional One?

The  AI plagiarism checker  utilizes advanced technologies to ensure the accurate detection of plagiarism from any kind of text. The traditional plagiarism detectors are only able to locate the phrases and sentences that have been copied word-to-word. On the other hand, the AI plagiarism checker has been designed to check plagiarism from content that has been tweaked using synonyms. In addition, the free plagiarism checker also possesses the ability to hunt instances of accidental plagiarism, as they are equally destructive to your credibility.

Features Offered By Plagiarism Detector

Check-Plagiarism offers a wide range of features to make the plagiarism detection process super-easy for its users. Some of its prominent features include the following:

Exclusive Database Access

The free online plagiarism checker by check-plagiarism provides you with access to an exclusive database that can detect plagiarism efficiently. It cross-checks your document against the data contained on billions of web pages which ensures 100% accurate analysis and detection of plagiarism.

Fast & Accurate

Our plagiarism checker scans your text against billions of web pages & online resources. You can check up to 1,000 words at once. (For premium users, the word limit is increased to 20,000).  Upgrade to pro in just $7    

Content Duplication Highlight

To make it convenient for you to evaluate plagiarism in your work, this duplication checker highlights them in red. You can easily evaluate duplicate text due to this feature and get rid of it without facing any hassle.

100% Safe & Secure

All files and documents checked with our free plagiarism checker online are 100% safe & secure. Your data is completely secure on our servers. No user/search engine/crawler can access your data in any capacity.    

Multiple files support

You can check copied content in up to five documents at once (supported formats: doc, docx, txt, and pdf). Scanning multiple papers will not decrease the speed of the similarity checker. You can also  compare documents for plagiarism  between them.

Easy to Use UI

Our online plagiarism checker has a very easy-to-use interface. It provides a simple process to check for content similarities. You can generate a detailed report with percentages.    

Exclude or Include any URL for Duplication

If you want to check plagiarism in your published content, you can simply copy the URL of the web page and conduct a duplication test. Moreover, this originality checker also provides you with the option to exclude any URL for duplication analysis, which will help you omit a specific source from this entire process.

Content Comparison

The AI plagiarism checker offers an advanced feature that compares files to find plagiarism in their content. If you are having doubts about the assignments submitted by learners, you can upload their documents to this tool and figure out if they have replicated content from one another.

Enhanced Reporting with the percentage

Our plagiarism detector scans your text with online resources and provides a complete report with percentages. It helps you to check which sentences of your content are unique and which are plagiarized.  

Sentence based checking

Our tool scans every single sentence and compares it with all online resources to detect plagiarism. It uses advanced AI algorithms to detect paraphrased plagiarism.

Reports Sharing

This plagiarism checker online offers you detailed plagiarism reports that can be easily shared wherever you want. It gives you the report in PDF format that you can share through email, WhatsApp, or any other supportive medium.

  Relevant Tools

• Paraphrasing Tool
• Article Rewriter
• Word Count & Character Count
• Citation Generator
• Plagiarism Comparison Search
• Grammar Checker
• Text Summarizer

Free Plagiarism Checker Online Users

Our online plagiarism checker is widely used and loved by thousands of students, teachers, and content writers. We provide super-fast plagiarism detection solutions for colleges, universities, and all other educational institutes.

Students use it to check their papers, assignments and thesis for plagiarism. It is important for students to check their papers for plagiarism because plagiarism is considered a form of academic dishonesty. This means that if a student submits a paper that includes plagiarized material, they could face serious consequences, such as failing the assignment or the entire course or even being expelled from school.

Teachers use our free plagiarism checker to ensure that their students are submitting original work. Our tool can help teachers quickly identify plagiarism in student work so they can take appropriate action.

By using our plagiarism detector, teachers can

Ensure academic integrity: By checking for plagiarism, teachers can ensure that their students are submitting original work and not cheating.

Promote original thinking: teachers can encourage their students to think critically and independently to develop their own ideas.

Prevent grade inflation: If plagiarized work is undetected, it can lead to grade inflation that can damage the integrity of the institution. It is also important to maintain the reputation of the institution. Check-Plagiarism also provides matched sources, so it helps to cite sources in your document. Use our  citation generator  to create APA, MLA, and Chicago formats.

W​riters use this plagiarism detector:

To ensure originality:

Our originality checker helps writers to ensure that their work is original and not copied from other sources.

To identify and correct mistakes:

Writers can identify and correct any unintentional mistakes, such as failing to properly cite a source.

To improve credibility:

Authors can establish their credibility as trustworthy sources of information by making sure their work is original and properly cited.

Webmasters use this originality checker to make sure their content is plagiarism-free because

• Plagiarized content can damage the reputation and credibility of a website.
• It's also important because Google has clear policies on plagiarized content and penalizes websites that contain copied content.
• It can lead to legal problems If the original content is protected by copyright.

Educational institutes

Colleges and universities can integrate our tool using  Plagiarism APIs .

Law firms can use this tool to protect their clients' documents.

Check more details about  how to avoid plagiarism .

Frequently Asked Questions?

  what is considered plagiarism.

"According to Oxford: “Plagiarism is presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, with or without their consent, by incorporating it into your work without full acknowledgment.”

It involves:

1. Copying and pasting someone else's text

2. Paraphrasing someone else's work without proper attribution

3. Using someone else's ideas without giving them credit

4. Using someone else's images, videos, or other media without permission

5. Submitting someone else's work, such as a paper or project, as your own

  Is it plagiarism if you copy and paste but cite the source?

Presenting someone’s idea as your own is considered plagiarism if not properly cited. If you copy and paste but cite the source with proper formatting, then it's not plagiarism.

  Is the usage of plagiarism detector Illegal?

Educational institutions highly recommend plagiarism detector to prevent copying of others’ work. Even research work is not considered authoritative without a plagiarism report. So, using plagiarism-checking tools is legal and necessary.

  What are the consequences of plagiarism?

Plagiarism involves serious consequences as it is a crime.

Its Academic consequences range to:

• Failing the assignment
• Failing the course
• Institute Suspension
• Expulsion from institution

Its Legal consequences cost you:

• Intellectual Damages
• Criminal Charges
• Loss of your employment

Its Personal consequences can affect you with:

• Loss of credibility
• Damage of Reputation
• Damage to professional relationships
• Slowing down your career, especially in Education

  What Platforms Does the Plagiarism Checker Online Support?

The plagiarism checker is supported by all kinds of platforms, including desktops, laptops, and mobile devices. Since it’s a web-based utility, you can access and use it from any device’s browser by just connecting to a stable internet connection.

  Is there a Word Limit for Checking Plagiarism?

Yes! There is a limit of 1000 words for checking plagiarism. However, if your document contains more words, then you can divide it into parts and conduct multiple checks, as there is no limit to the number of times you can check for plagiarism with this online tool.

  Does The Online Plagiarism Checker Support Multiple Languages?

Yes! The plagiarism checker supports multiple languages, including English, Indonesian, French, Dutch, Russian, German, and Swedish.

  How Secure is the Plagiarism Detector in Terms of Data Privacy?

The plagiarism detector is 100% safe and secure in terms of data privacy. The advanced encryption technology employed in the development of this originality checker ensures that users’ data is handled with the utmost confidentiality. As soon as the text is processed and results are delivered, it automatically gets removed from the databases of this tool.

  Can the Plagiarism Checker Detect Paraphrased Content?

Yes! This advanced AI plagiarism checker is smart enough to detect content that has been paraphrased from another source. Its AI-based technology allows it to detect patterns and language similarities to figure out whether a piece of text is 100% unique or rephrased from existing content.

  Can the Plagiarism Checker Detect Similarities in Multiple Documents?

Yes! The plagiarism checker is capable of detecting similarities in multiple documents. You can simply upload the documents you wish to compare and let this tool compare and let you know how much of the content is similar in them.

We Cover Multiple Platforms

Our plagiarism-checking process supports one of the most popular platforms, WordPress. You can check for plagiarism/duplication of your content directly from your WordPress admin panel. Just download our plagiarism checker free plugin and start using it. Check Plagiarism also supports educational institutions through our APIs. Universities, colleges, and other educational institutes & Organisations can integrate our APIs to detect plagiarized content on their own end. Our plagiarism tool works accurately on other platforms as well.    

A WordPress plugin is available to check plagiarism directly from the admin panel.

Configure your plagiarism software with our APIs, to check directly from your server.

How it Works

Content is first parsed into sentences, and then every sentence is checked for plagiarism. If any duplication is found against that sentence, it will be marked in red and if that text is unique, it will be shown in green.

Comparing your content

All results are displayed in real time. You can compare your content with any of the matched URLs with just one click. You can also use this plagiarism tool directly on the plagiarism comparison tool page.    

Happy Customers

Our free plagiarism checker is loved by 400,000+ customers worldwide. We have positive feedback from customers of all categories. Look at those reviews below.

Our Customers Feedback

We have 70,000+ happy clients including Masters, Students, Teachers and publishers around the world. A Positive previous record is enough for new users to understand that we have the most accurate plagiarism detector.

This free online plagiarism detector is amazing; it checked my content in seconds with very accurate results. According to me it's the best plagiarism detection software.

I am a student and I use this tool regularly to check plagiarism for my papers. Best plagiarism checker for students.

I used their APIs to configure my college website so that students can check plagiarism free for their papers directly from the college website.

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Plagiarism Checker by Quetext

Free plagiarism checker: how it works, enter text into plagiarism detection tool.

We make it simple. Just copy and paste all content from your document into our plagiarism checker and hit the ‘Check Plagiarism’ button to get started.

Evaluate text for plagiarism

Our plagiarism detection tool uses DeepSearch™ Technology to identify any content throughout your document that might be plagiarized. We identify plagiarized content by running the text through three steps:

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

Accurate plagiarism results

After evaluating the text against billions of internet sources, you will be provided with a plagiarism score showing the percentage of text that is an exact or near-match to existing text online.

Resolve plagiarism risk and use citations

Our ColorGrade™ feedback feature highlights exact matches vs. near-exact or “fuzzy” matches with corresponding colors. From there, you can resolve plagiarism issues by deleting or altering the at-risk copy. Or, you can use our handy “Cite Source” feature to generate citations in MLA, APA, and Chicago formats and insert the citations directly into your document.

Plagiarism Checker Benefits

Whether producing original content or verifying that of others, there’s a lot to gain from using a plagiarism checker. Accurate, automatic detection of duplicate content facilitates the copy-checking process for teachers, students, content writers, and more. Results showing the exact percentage of plagiarized content allows users to see exactly how much text has been copied and where they need to re-word.

For Teachers

Before homework can be graded for quality, it must first be confirmed as original. Our easy-to-use tool arms teachers with a simple, effective way to verify and grade students’ work. Educators at all levels can benefit from ensuring academic integrity through a comprehensive plagiarism check. From K-12, all the way through higher education, teachers are faced with the task of verifying the originality of the work of dozens, if not hundreds, of students each year. Automating this process frees teachers up to focus on the quality of work, rather than be bogged down by its originality.

For Students

While the prevalence of academic plagiarism is on the rise, much of it is arguably unintentional. A simple, yet accurate and comprehensive, plagiarism checker offers students peace of mind when submitting written content for grading. It is much easier to do a quick check for potential plagiarism before submission rather than convince a teacher after the fact that your academic integrity is not in question. And Quetext even takes checking for plagiarism a step further, helping students identify and cite the source itself with our built-in citation generator.

For Copywriters

Plagiarism risk is not restricted to academia. Anyone tasked with writing for an individual or business has an ethical and legal responsibility to produce original content. On top of that, content writers are often tasked with producing content on topics outside of their wheelhouse, leaving them reliant on the work of others for their research. Our plagiarism checker gives content writers a quick and easy method to prevent copyright infringement. Checking even lengthy pieces of writing takes only a few minutes, keeping companies’ public content in check and writers’ integrity intact.

Types of Plagiarism

It’s important to understand that plagiarism expands far beyond just copying someone else’s work word-for-word. There are several different types of plagiarism that should be avoided.

Self-Plagiarism

Many believe that, as long as they produced the work at some point in the past, they can include it in future pieces. However, even if you were the original author, that original work must be cited in order to not be flagged as plagiarism. Treat your past self as a totally separate author; be sure to include all relevant citations and quotations, the same as you would for any other source.

Patchwork Plagiarism

Patchwork plagiarism is the act of piecing together a "patchwork" of existing content to form something new. Assembling unoriginal content in this manner often involves some paraphrasing, with only slight changes. This type of plagiarism can be tricky and can certainly occur unintentionally, especially in academia. Since academic writing is largely based on the research of others, a well-meaning student can inadvertently end up plagiarizing.

Mosaic Plagiarism

Mosaic plagiarism is synonymous with patchwork plagiarism. It describes the process of loosely rearranging or restating another's work without issuing proper credit. It can occur accidentally or intentionally. For authors, mosaic plagiarism endangers their academic integrity or reputation as a writer. For those checking content originality, such as teachers, mosaic plagiarism can easily appear to be original content, which can make mosaic plagiarism especially difficult to detect manually.

Accidental Plagiarism

Plagiarism doesn’t have to be intentional to still be considered plagiarism — even in early academia, where students are just learning how to properly cite others’ work. While there may be no ill intent from the student, most schools have policies explicitly treating accidental plagiarism the same as intentional plagiarism. Students are expected to know how to properly issue credit to other authors. Similarly, content writers risk damage to their reputation if they produce plagiarized content, regardless of intent.

Plagiarism Checker FAQ

What is plagiarism.

Plagiarism is representing someone else’s work as your own. In educational contexts, there are differing definitions of plagiarism depending on the institution. Plagiarism is considered a violation of academic integrity and a breach of journalistic ethics.

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 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

What are the consequences of plagiarism?

The consequences for plagiarizing another person’s works vary. But broadly speaking, the types of consequences can be grouped by person and profession.

Plagiarism consequences for students

Maintaining academic integrity is a top priority for every educational institution. As already mentioned, ignorance of how to properly cite sources is not an excuse for plagiarism. It is the student’s responsibility to ensure they are submitting work that has not been plagiarized.

Failure to do so can result in disciplinary action, including an automatic failed grade, removal from a class, or expulsion from a school or university. Students who are allowed to continue at their institution following an act of plagiarism may encounter mistrust and additional scrutiny from teachers and instructors.

Plagiarism consequences for copywriters

Copywriters stake their reputation (and by extension, that of their client or company) on their writing. All copywriters must produce completely original content for their clients.

The consequences for plagiarism here are clear: Copywriters who plagiarize the content of others will quickly find it difficult to obtain paying assignments. Similar to academic situations, it is the copywriter’s own responsibility to ensure that their content is 100% original.

Plagiarism consequences for journalists

Journalists are held to exceptionally high standards of integrity in their writing. A journalist who produces plagiarized content jeopardizes the trust of their readers and publishers. Plagiarism can instantly reduce a journalist’s career by a large margin. The ethical and legal standards issued to journalists are clear: Produce original, well-cited content or find another field.

Fast and Reliable Results with Quetext

Plagiarism Checker

• Paraphrasing
• Essay Generator
• Image To Text

Prepostseo's plagiarism checker detects duplicate or copied content from your documents and shows the percentage of plagiarism along with the source.

• Deep Search
• Accurate Reports
• Check Upto 25,000 words

• Check Upto 25,000 Words

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Table of Contents

Plagiarism Checker Free

Prepostseo plagiarism checker is a reliable and accurate online tool that allows users like students, writers, and bloggers to check plagiarism for free. It provides quick results and comes with many useful features.

The words Limit For Our Tool is Explained Below:

What is Plagiarism?

As  Wikipedia says ,

“. ..plagiarism is the representation of another author's language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one's own original work. ..”

According to Merriam-Webster ,

"...t o steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own: use (another's production) without crediting the source... "

Here is our own take on explaining plagiarism.

“Plagiarism is the act of taking someone’s content and utilizing it without giving them the due credit.”

Contrary to what many people think, plagiarism has nothing to do with permission. It doesn’t matter if any content is taken from a source without the permission of the author or not. As long as the borrowed content is properly cited and the author/source is accredited, it will not be said to be plagiarized.

It is a different matter altogether if the source or author in question has expressly prohibited the use of their content even with citations/credits. In such cases, using the content would not be proper in any capacity.

Plagiarism is an unethical act and it has many consequences. That is why it is necessary to check plagiarism in all types of content before finalizing it.

How Does Our Plagiarism Checker Work?

Our online plagiarism checker works by matching the provided input text against existing content from online sources. It then generates a plagiarism report according to the percentage of unique and plagiarized text in the content.

Prepostseo’s plagiarism tool checks for plagiarized content across online sources by using different search engines.

It is also capable of detecting paraphrased content along with exactly matching text. It identifies all types of plagiarism, i.e., incremental, patchwork, and accidental plagiarism.

How to Check Plagiarism For Free?

Follow the steps below to find plagiarized content using our online plagiarism checker.

• Copy your text and paste it into the given input box.

• If you want to exclude a specific URL, click on the Exclude URL button and paste the URL in the input box.
• You can exclude quoted text from the plagiarism check by clicking on the Exclude Quotes checkbox.
• Hit the Check Plagiarism button to start plagiarism detection. 

Understanding the Results

Our plagiarism scanner provides the plagiarism report in a lot of detail. To help you understand the results better, we’re going to discuss some of the main elements in detail.

Percentage of plagiarized content It shows the exact percentage of plagiarism found in the content. If there is any paraphrased plagiarism in the text, it will get included in the overall percentage. Percentage of unique content The results also show the exact percentage of unique content in the given text. Both the percentages are shown at the top of the results.

Matched sources By clicking on the Matched Sources tab, you can easily see all URLs and documents from where plagiarism is found. You can also see the matched URLsby clicking on any of the red-underlined sentences/phrases.

Key Features of Our Plagiarism Checking Tool

Some of the key features of our plagiarism toolare given below:

01. Upload File to Check Plagiarism

You can upload files from local storage to check for plagiarism. Our tool supports various file types such as .doc, .docx, .pdf, .txt, etc.

02. Exclude Specific URL

Our plagiarism checker allows you to exclude specific websites and webpages from being detected. This can be useful if you want to ignore your own website from being scanned when checking for plagiarism.

03. Exclude Quotes

The ‘Exclude Quotes’ option is available to stop the tool from checking quoted content for plagiarism. It helps to get a more accurate plagiarism percentage.

04. Word Count and Clear Field Option

The words of the content are calculated in real-time to confirm how much text you are checking. If you want to clear the field for a fresh start, you can click on the Delete icon to erase the input.

05. Downloadable Plagiarism Reports

You can download the plagiarism reports in HTML and PDF format. Click on the Download Report button to get the full report with percentage.

06. Provides an Option to Make the Content Unique

After checking for plagiarism, you click on the Make it unique button.

This will open our paraphrasing tool that you can use to paraphrase your content to eliminate plagiarism.

07. Provides an Option to Rewrite the Plagiarized Content

Our sentence rewriter rephrases plagiarized content to make it unique. Click on the plagiarized sentence, then click on the ‘Rewrite’ button to make content unique and free from plagiarism.

08. Citation Generator

Create citations for your text quickly and easily using the in-built citation generator. To use, simply click on the plagiarized sentence and then select the ‘Cite it’ option to open the citation generator .

09. Multiple Language Support

Our tool is available in multiple languages. You can check for plagiarism in various languages including French, Dutch, Spanish and many more.

10. Chrome Extension

Our free plagiarism checker offers a Google Chrome extension. You can use the extension to check plagiarism in any content on a website without opening the actual tool itself.

11. Plagiarism Checker API

You can integrate our plagiarism API  with your website or online platform for smooth and seamless plagiarism detection.

12. WordPress Plugin

This plagiarism check is also available as a  WordPress plugin . You can set it up with your WordPress website to check for plagiarism easily.

13. Mobile Apps

You can download our mobile app on your phone and check plagiarism anywhere. we offer:

• Android App

14. Desktop Application

Our plagiarism checking tool is also available as a desktop application. You can use it as a:

Windows Application

MAC Application

Prepostseo plagiarism Detector can be used by

Students can use this online plagiarism checker to find out if their assignments have any plagiarism in them. For students, plagiarism can lead to many different problems and consequences. They can face trouble from their teachers and institutes.

Our tool helps them to ensure the uniqueness of their write-ups. In a lot of cases, institutes have certain tolerance limits for plagiarism. Some institutes put it at 10% whereas others put it at 15%. Students can use our tool to make sure the plagiarism in their write-ups is less than the set limit.Moreover, students can also use our Essay writer to create 100% unique and immersive essays in no time.

Teachers can use this tool to check if their students are submitting the original work or just copying it from the internet. Students can often get inclined to take content from the Internet - and they can also do some mix and matching from multiple sources to avoid detection. Teachers can use our online tools to easily find out if the submitted work is unique or copied.

Researchers

Researchers, like other academic writers and professionals, have to write various types of papers. Unlike other types of creative writing, research writing is based on utilizing the research material and then creating the write-up. Due to this, plagiarism can often occur.

By using our free online plagiarism checker, researchers can ensure that the content they create is unique and original. This can help them avoid getting in trouble due to plagiarism.  

Content writers & bloggers

Content uniqueness is highly important for content writers and bloggers. When creating content for clients, writers have to ensure that their work is free of plagiarism. If their content is plagiarized, it can put their career in jeopardy. The same goes for bloggers. If bloggers publish plagiarized content on their websites, it can get their SERP rankings lowered. In severe cases, it can even get their sites delisted.

Both writers and bloggers can run a simple plagiarism check on their content before finalizing it using our online tool.

How effective is our plagiarism detection software?

Our online plagiarism detector is one of the most accurate and reliable tools available on the internet. Due to its AI functionality, it can even find paraphrased sentences in your text other than the exact matches.

How should plagiarism be avoided?

You can avoid plagiarism by simply rewriting the duplicated sentences in your work. You can also cite the source or put the particular sentence in quotation marks. However, you can do this after you find out which parts of your work are plagiarized using an online plagiarism checker.

Which plagiarism checker is used by universities?

Different educational institutes use various tools to check plagiarism. Some of them use Turnitin while others can use Copyscape.

Which plagiarism checker is the best in 2024?

The plagiarism detection tool by Prepostseo is one of the best tools available in 2024. It provides accurate results and it also has a lot of useful features.

How can I check a pdf for plagiarism?

You can check your PDF for plagiarism using the PDF plagiarism checker by Prepostseo.

• Click on the ‘Upload’ button and select a PDF from your local storage.
• Solve the reCAPTCHA and hit the Check Plagiarism button
• Get the plagiarism report with the percentage.

How to Detect AI Plagiarism: ChatGPT Checkers to Try and Avoid

In the last two years, ChatGPT has turned the academic and business worlds upside down with its ability to generate coherent, well-written copy about pretty much any subject on earth in a matter of seconds.

The chatbot’s remarkable abilities have seen students of all educational levels turn to the chatbot – as well as the best ChatGPT alternatives,  namely Bard – to write complex essays that would otherwise take hours to finish.

Their release kickstarted an ongoing global conversation about a new phenomenon, often referred to as “ChatGPT plagiarism”. This guide covers the tools businesses and educational institutions are using to detect ChatGPT plagiarism, the dangers of cheating with ChatGPT – and whether using ChatGPT even counts as plagiarism at all.

How to Detect ChatGPT Plagiarism

• Most Popular AI and ChatGPT Plagiarism Checkers
• Do AI & ChatGPT Plagiarism Checkers Actually Work?

OpenAI’s AI Text Classifier: A Case Study

• Is Using ChatGPT or Bard Actually Plagiarism?

The Dangers of Cheating With ChatGPT

• Does ChatGPT Plagiarize?
• Does Bard Plagiarize?

Do Other AI Tools Plagiarize?

• Should I Use ChatGPT for My Essays or Work?

To detect ChatGPT plagiarism, you need an AI content checker. AI content checkers scan bodies of text to determine whether they’ve been produced by a chatbot such as ChatGPT or Bard, or by a human. However, as we’ll cover later on, many of these tools are far from reliable.

It’s slightly harder to detect plagiarism when it comes to code, something ChatGPT can also generate capably. There’s not quite the same ecosystem of AI detection tools for code as there is for content. In 2024, this has grown even vaster,

However, if you’re in a university environment, for example, and you’re submitting code well beyond your technical level, your professor or lecturer may have some very reasonable suspicions that you’ve asked ChatGPT to help you out.

The Most Popular AI and ChatGPT Plagiarism Checker Tools Reviewed

Since ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022, lots of companies and educational institutions have produced AI content checkers, which claim to be able to distinguish between artificially generated content and content created by humans. Now, a lot of companies are using Google’s chatbot Bard too, which uses a different language model.

However, the purported accuracy of even the most reputable AI content detection tools is fiercely disputed and court cases between students falsely accused of using AI content and education have already materialized.

The bottom line is this: No tool in this space is 100% accurate, but some are much better than others.

GPTZero is a popular, free AI content detection tool that claims that it’s “the most accurate AI detector across use-cases, verified by multiple independent sources”.

However, Back in April, a history student at UC Davis proved that GPTZero – an AI content detection tool being used by his professor – was incorrect when it labeled his essay as AI-generated .

We tested GPTZero by asking ChatGPT to write a short story. GPTZero, unfortunately, was not able to tell that the content was written by an AI tool:

Duplichecker

Duplichecker is one of the first AI content detection services that will appear if you simply search for the term on Google. It claims to be 100% accurate at detecting AI content when presented with text, and is completely free to use.

However, as you can see from the result below, Duplichecker was not only unable to identify this text was written by ChatGPT, but it actually concluded that it was 100% human-generated – even though none of it was.

Writer is an AI content detection that, to be fair to it, doesn’t claim to be 100% accurate, and advises you treat its judgments as an indication. It’s a good thing too, because the free version of Writer told us that the text below is 100% human-generated – but it’s actually just the first half of a story we asked ChatGPT to generate.

Funnily enough, when we pasted in the introduction of a recently-written Tech.co article that had no AI-generated content included, it came back as only 69% human-generated.

Writer’s has paid plans, but judging by the performance of its free tool, we wouldn’t recommend them. The Team plan costs $18 per user, per month for up to five users. There’s also an enterprise plan with custom pricing options.

Originality.ai

Originality.ai is certainly one of the more accurate AI content detection tools currently available, according to our research and testing.

The company has conducted an extensive study into AI content detection tools, feeding 600 artificially generated and 600 human-generated blocks of text to its own content detection system, as well as other popular tools that claim to fulfill a similar purpose.

As you can see from the results below, Originality.ai outperformed all of the tools included in the test:

The only downside to Originality.ai is that there isn’t a free plan, and you can’t even test it out for free as you can with the other apps included in this article. it costs $20 for 2,000 credits, which will let you check 200,000 words.

Copyleaks AI Content Detector

Copyleaks is a free-to-use AI content detector that claims to be able to distinguish between human-generated and AI-generated copy with 99.12% accuracy.

Copyleaks will also tell you if specific aspects of a document or passage are written by AI, even if other parts of it seem to be written by a human.

Copyleaks says it’s capable of detecting AI-generated content created by “ChatGPT, GPT-4, GPT-3, Jasper, and others”.

CopyLeaks Costs $8.33 per month for 1,200 credits (250 words of copy per credit). It’s used, the company says, by over 1,000 institutions and 300 enterprises across more than 100 countries.

In a test carried out by TechCrunch in February 2023, however, Copyleaks incorrectly classified various types of AI-generated copy, including a news article, encyclopedia entry, and a cover letter as human-generated. Furthermore, Originality.ai’s study referenced above only found it to be accurate in 14.50% of cases – a far cry from the 99.12% accuracy claim CopyLeaks makes.

However, when we tested it, it did seem to be able to pick up that the text we entered was generated by ChatGPT. This happened in both our 2023 and 2024 tests:

During testing, Copyleaks was also able to correctly recognize human-generated text on several occasions. Despite the poor showings on other tests, it looks to be a better and more trusted option than some of the other tools featured in this article.

Turnitin Originality AI Detector

Turnitin is a US-based plagiarism detection company that is deployed by a variety of universities to scan their students’ work. Turnitin is designed to detect all kinds of plagiarism, but revealed in April that it’s been investing in an AI-focused team for some time now as it launched its AI content detection capabilities.

Turnitin their tool can detect “97 percent of ChatGPT and GPT3 authored writing, with a very low less than 1/100 false positive rate”.

However, the company also says that content if it flags a piece of content as AI-generated, this should be treated as an “indication, not an accusation”. They also provide an extensive explanation of how they deal with false positives, and warn about taking AI outputs with a pinch of salt.

The true accuracy of Turnitin’s AI detector was disputed by the Washington Post last year, as well as other sources. You’ll have to contact the company directly if you want to purchase the software or need more information on how it works, the website says – but it’s only really suitable for academic purposes.

Does AI Content Detection Actually Work?

As Turnitin knows, no AI content detection tool is 100% reliable – our tests prove that pretty resoundingly. Duplichecker – a top result on Google that claims to be “100% accurate” on its landing page – fell at the first hurdle.

However, the other tools we’ve discussed today actually claim to be 100% accurate, and very few claim to be free of false positives. Others, like GPTZero, post disclaimers about taking their results as gospel.

A number of university students accused of using artificial intelligence to produce essays have already been forced to prove that their work was original.

In Texas, in March of last year, a professor falsely failed an entire class of students after wrongfully accusing them of using ChatGPT to write essays. There is also a collection of reports – and studies like the one conducted by Originality.ai – that suggest that even the most capable plagiarism checkers aren’t nearly as accurate as they claim.

Even Turnitin’s AI content detector isn’t foolproof. In the recent, relatively small test conducted by the Washington Post we discussed earlier, its accuracy fell far short of the 98% they claim to be able to produce.

Originality.ai, on the other hand, is certainly one of the more robust ones available – and even its detection technology isn’t right every single time.  However, having tested a variety of these tools, it seems to be the exception to quite a broad rule.

Besides, if false positives exist in any capacity, then there will always be room for students to claim their work is original and has simply been misidentified.

OpenAI, owners of ChatGPT, used to have its own plagiarism checker. We know this, because we used it ourselves when originally writing this article. However, back in July 2023, the company withdrew the tool , stating that it wasn’t accurate enough.

That aligns with our own experience when we tested it. When we showed it a short story, written by its own ChatGPT tool, the checker didn’t pick up on the fact that it was AI-generated.

As of July 20, 2023, the AI classifier is no longer available due to its low rate of accuracy. We are working to incorporate feedback and are currently researching more effective provenance techniques for text, and have made a commitment to develop and deploy mechanisms that enable users to understand if audio or visual content is AI-generated. – OpenAI blogpost

You can see our original example of the checker missing the fact that text was AI written, below:

Is Using ChatGPT or Bard Plagiarism?

It’s debatable whether ChatGPT is in fact plagiarism at all. Oxford Languages defines plagiarism as “the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.”

ChatGPT is not a person, and it’s not simply reproducing the work and ideas of other people when it generates an answer. So, by the dictionary definition, it’s not outright plagiarism.

Even if it was doing that, if you were honest about where it came from (i.e. ChatGPT), arguably, that wouldn’t be plagiarism anyway.

However, some schools and universities have far-reaching plagiarism rules and consider using chatbots to write essays as such. One student at Furman University failed his philosophy degree in December 2022 after using ChatGPT to write his essay. In 2023 case, a professor at Northern Michigan University reported catching two students using the chatbot to write essays for their class.

Using ChatGPT to generate essays and then passing this off as your own work is perhaps better described as “cheating” and is definitely “dishonest”.

The whole point of writing an essay is to show you’re capable of producing original thoughts, understanding relevant concepts, carefully considering conflicting arguments, presenting information clearly, and citing your sources.

There’s very little difference between using ChatGPT in this way and paying another student to write your essay for you – which is, of course, cheating.

With regard to Google’s Bard, the answer is a little more complicated. The same line of logic used above applies to Bard as it does to ChatGPT, but Bard has been marred by accusations of plagiarism and incorrectly citing things it pulls from the internet in a way ChatGPT hasn’t. So, using Bard might lead to you inadvertently plagiarizing other sources ( more on this below ).

Christopher Howell, an Adjunct Assistant Professor at Elon University, asked a group of students back in 2023 to use ChatGPT for a critical assignment and then grade the essays it produced for them.

He reported in a lengthy Twitter thread (the first part of which is pictured below) that all 63 students who participated found some form of “hallucination” – including fake quotes, and fake and misinterpreted sources – in their assignments.

Does ChatGPT Plagiarize in Its Responses?

No – ChatGPT isn’t pulling information from other sources and simply jamming it together, sentence by sentence. This is a misunderstanding of how Generative Pre-trained Transformers work.

ChatGPT – or more accurately the GPT language model – is trained on a huge dataset of documents, website material, and other text.

It uses algorithms to find linguistic sequences and patterns within its datasets. Paragraphs, sentences, and words can then be generated based on what the language model has learned about language from sequences in these datasets.

This is why if you ask ChatGPT the same question at the same time from two different devices, its answers are usually extremely similar – but there will still be variation, and sometimes, it offers up completely different answers.

Does Bard Plagiarize in Its Responses?

ChatGPT’s biggest rival, Google’s Bard has had significantly more issues with plagiarizing content since its launch than its more popular counterpart. Technology website Tom’s Hardware found that Bard had plagiarized one of its articles, and then proceeded to apologize when one of its staff called it out.

In May 2023, PlagiarismCheck told Yahoo News that they generated 35 pieces of text with Bard, and found it plagiarized above 5% in 25 of them by simply paraphrasing existing content already published on the internet.

One big difference between Bard and ChatGPT that can perhaps explain this is that Bard can search the internet for responses, which is why it tends to deal better with questions relating to events after 2021, which ChatGPT struggles with. However, this seems to also mean it pulls data from sources in a less original way and cites its sources more often.

These examples may have been blips, but it’s good to know the risks if you’re using Bard for important work.

Unfortunately, yes – and some companies have already embarrassed themselves by using AI tools that have plagiarized content. For example, CNET – one of the world’s biggest technology sites – was found to be using an AI tool to generate articles, and wasn’t transparent about it at all.  Around half of the articles that CNET published using AI were found to have some incorrect information included.

To make matters worse, Futurism, which launched an investigation into CNET’s AI plagiarism, said that “The bot’s misbehavior ranges from verbatim copying to moderate edits to significant rephrasings, all without properly crediting the original”.

AI tools that don’t generate unique, original content – be it art or text – have the potential to plagiarize content that’s already been published on the internet. It’s important to understand exactly how the language model your AI tool is using works and also have tight oversight over the content it’s producing, or you could end up in the same position as CNET.

Should You Use ChatGPT for Essays or Work?

Using chatgpt for essays.

The fact that ChatGPT doesn’t simply pull answers from other sources and mash sentences together means businesses have been able to use ChatGPT   for a variety of different tasks without worrying about copyright issues.

But its internal mechanics also mean it often hallucinates and makes mistakes. It’s far, far from perfect – and although it’s tempting to get ChatGPT to write your essay for university or college, we’d advise against it.

Every educational institution’s specific submission guidelines will be slightly different, of course, but it’s vastly likely that it is already considered “cheating” or plagiarism” at your university or school. Plus, regardless of how accurate they are, educational institutions are using AI content detectors, which will improve over time.

Using ChatGPT at Work

Of course, lots of people are using ChatGPT at work already – it’s proving useful in a wide range of industries, and helping workers in all sorts of roles save valuable time on day-to-day tasks.

However, if you are using ChatGPT at work, we’d advise being open with your manager or supervisor about it – especially if you’re using it for important activities like writing reports for external stakeholders. It’s one of the more immediate ethical considerations relating to AI that businesses need to answer.

We’d also strongly advise both heavily editing and closely reviewing all of the work you’re using ChatGPT, Bard, or any other AI tool to generate. It’s unwise to put sensitive personal or company information into any chatbot – we know ChatGPT saves and uses user data , but there isn’t much public information about where these chats are stored or OpenAI’s security infrastructure.

Using Other AI Tools for Essays or Work

Of course, Bard and ChatGPT aren’t the only AI chatbots out there – like Claude , for example. However, we’d be hesitant to throw our support behind any smaller AI tools that aren’t backed by powerful language models. They won’t be as well-resourced, and you’re unlikely to find them as useful if you do experiment with using them for work.

The same rules still apply, however – be open with your manager and get sign-off on using them, don’t input any sensitive company data, and always review the answers you’re given.

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ChatGPT Is Making Universities Rethink Plagiarism

In late December of his sophomore year, Rutgers University student Kai Cobbs came to a conclusion he never thought possible:  Artificial intelligence might just be dumber than humans. 

After listening to his peers rave about the generative AI tool  ChatGPT , Cobbs decided to toy around with the chatbot while writing an essay on the history of capitalism. Best known for its ability to generate long-form written content in response to user input prompts, Cobbs expected the tool to produce a nuanced and thoughtful response to his specific research directions. Instead, his screen produced a generic, poorly written paper he’d never dare to claim as his own. 

“The quality of writing was appalling. The phrasing was awkward and it lacked complexity,” Cobbs says. “I just logically can’t imagine a student using writing that was generated through ChatGPT for a paper or anything when the content is just plain bad.” 

Not everyone shares Cobbs’ disdain. Ever since OpenAI launched the chatbot in November,  educators have been struggling with how to handle a new wave of student work produced with the help of artificial intelligence. While some public school systems, like New York City’s, have banned the use of ChatGPT on school devices and networks to curb cheating, universities have been reluctant to follow suit. In higher education, the introduction of generative AI has raised thorny questions about the definition of plagiarism and academic integrity on campuses where new digital research tools come into play all the time. 

Make no mistake, the birth of ChatGPT does not mark the emergence of concerns relating to the improper use of the internet in academia. When  Wikipedia launched in 2001 , universities nationwide were  scrambling to decipher their own research philosophies and understandings of honest academic work, expanding policy boundaries to match pace with technological innovation. Now, the stakes are a little more complex, as schools figure out how to treat bot-produced work rather than weird attributional logistics. The world of higher education is playing a familiar game of catch-up, adjusting their rules, expectations, and perceptions as other professions adjust, too. The only difference now is that the internet can think for itself. 

According to ChatGPT, the definition of plagiarism is the act of using someone else’s work or ideas without giving proper credit to the original author. But when the work is generated by some thing rather than some one , this definition is tricky to apply. As Emily Hipchen, a board member of Brown University’s Academic Code Committee, puts it, the use of generative AI by students leads to a critical point of contention. “If [plagiarism] is stealing from a person,” she says, “then I don’t know that we have a person who is being stolen from.”

Hipchen is not alone in her speculation. Alice Dailey, chair of the Academic Integrity Program at Villanova University, is also grappling with the idea of classifying an algorithm as a person, specifically if the algorithm involves text generation.

By Dmitri Alperovitch

By Caroline Haskins

By Mark Harris

By Louryn Strampe

Dailey believes that eventually professors and students are going to need to understand that digital tools that generate text, rather than just collect facts, are going to need to fall under the umbrella of things that can be plagiarized from. 

Although Dailey acknowledges that this technological growth incites new concerns in the world of academia, she doesn’t find it to be a realm entirely unexplored. “I think we’ve been in a version of this territory for a while already,” Dailey says. “Students who commit plagiarism often borrow material from a ‘somewhere’—a website, for example, that doesn’t have clear authorial attribution. I suspect the definition of plagiarism will expand to include things that produce.” 

Eventually, Dailey believes, a student who uses text from ChatGPT will be seen as no different than one that copies and pastes chunks of text from Wikipedia without attribution. 

Students’ views on ChatGPT are another issue entirely. There are those, like Cobbs, who can’t imagine putting their name on anything bot-generated, but there are others who see it as just another tool, like spellcheck or even a calculator. For Brown University sophomore Jacob Gelman, ChatGPT exists merely as a convenient research assistant and nothing more.

“Calling the use of ChatGPT to pull reliable sources from the internet ‘cheating’ is absurd. It’s like saying using the internet to conduct research is unethical,” Gelman says. “To me, ChatGPT is the research equivalent of [typing assistant] Grammarly. I use it out of practicality and that’s really all.” Cobbs expressed similar sentiment, comparing the AI bot to “an online encyclopedia.”

But while students like Gelman use the bot to speed up research, others take advantage of the high-capacity prompt input feature to generate completed works for submission. It might seem obvious what qualifies as cheating here, but different schools across the country offer contrasting takes.

According to Carlee Warfield, chair of Bryn Mawr College’s Student Honor Board, the school considers any use of these AI platforms as plagiarism. The tool’s popularization just calls for greater focus in evaluating the intent behind students’ violations. Warfield explains that students who turn in essays entirely produced by AI are categorically different from those who borrow from online tools without knowledge of standard citations. Because the ChatGPT phenomenon is still new, students’ confusion surrounding the ethics is understandable. And it's unclear what policies will remain in place once the dust settles—at any school.

In the midst of fundamental change in both the academic and technological spheres, universities are forced to reconsider their definitions of academic integrity to reasonably reflect the circumstances of society. The only problem is, society shows no stagnance. 

“Villanova’s current academic integrity code will be updated to include language that prohibits the use of these tools to generate text that then students represent as text they generated independently,” Dailey explained. “But I think it’s an evolving thing. And what it can do and what we will then need in order to keep an eye on will also be kind of a moving target.”

In addition to increasingly complex questions about whether ChatGPT is a research tool or a plagiarism engine, there’s also the possibility that it can be  used for learning. In other educational settings, teachers see it as a way to show students the shortcomings of AI. Some instructors are already  modifying how they teach by giving students assignments bots couldn’t complete, like those that require personal details or anecdotes. There’s also the matter of detecting AI use in students’ work, which is a  burgeoning cottage industry all its own. 

Ultimately, Dailey says, schools may need rules that reflect a range of variables.

“My guess is that there will be the development of some broad blanket policies that essentially say, unless you have permission from a professor to use AI tools, using them will be considered a violation of the academic integrity code,” Dailey says. “That then gives faculty broad latitude to use it in their teaching or in their assignments, as long as they are stipulating explicitly that they are allowing it.”

As for ChatGTP, the program agrees. “Advances in fields such as artificial intelligence are expected to drive significant innovation in the coming years,” it says, when asked how schools can combat academic dishonesty. “Schools should constantly review and update their academic honor codes as technology evolves to ensure they are addressing the current ways in which technology is being used in academic settings.”

But, a bot would say that. 

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Frequently asked questions

What is plagiarism.

Plagiarism means presenting someone else’s work as your own without giving proper credit to the original author. In academic writing, plagiarism involves using words, ideas, or information from a source without including a citation .

Plagiarism can have serious consequences , even when it’s done accidentally. To avoid plagiarism, it’s important to keep track of your sources and cite them correctly.

Frequently asked questions: Plagiarism

Academic integrity means being honest, ethical, and thorough in your academic work. To maintain academic integrity, you should avoid misleading your readers about any part of your research and refrain from offenses like plagiarism and contract cheating, which are examples of academic misconduct.

Plagiarism is a form of theft, since it involves taking the words and ideas of others and passing them off as your own. As such, it’s academically dishonest and can have serious consequences .

Plagiarism also hinders the learning process, obscuring the sources of your ideas and usually resulting in bad writing. Even if you could get away with it, plagiarism harms your own learning.

Most online plagiarism checkers only have access to public databases, whose software doesn’t allow you to compare two documents for plagiarism.

However, in addition to our Plagiarism Checker , Scribbr also offers an Self-Plagiarism Checker . This is an add-on tool that lets you compare your paper with unpublished or private documents. This way you can rest assured that you haven’t unintentionally plagiarized or self-plagiarized .

Compare two sources for plagiarism

Most institutions have an internal database of previously submitted student papers. Turnitin can check for self-plagiarism by comparing your paper against this database. If you’ve reused parts of an assignment you already submitted, it will flag any similarities as potential plagiarism.

Online plagiarism checkers don’t have access to your institution’s database, so they can’t detect self-plagiarism of unpublished work. If you’re worried about accidentally self-plagiarizing, you can use Scribbr’s Self-Plagiarism Checker to upload your unpublished documents and check them for similarities.

Yes, reusing your own work without acknowledgment is considered self-plagiarism . This can range from re-submitting an entire assignment to reusing passages or data from something you’ve turned in previously without citing them.

Self-plagiarism often has the same consequences as other types of plagiarism . If you want to reuse content you wrote in the past, make sure to check your university’s policy or consult your professor.

If you are reusing content or data you used in a previous assignment, make sure to cite yourself. You can cite yourself just as you would cite any other source: simply follow the directions for that source type in the citation style you are using.

Keep in mind that reusing your previous work can be considered self-plagiarism , so make sure you ask your professor or consult your university’s handbook before doing so.

Common knowledge does not need to be cited. However, you should be extra careful when deciding what counts as common knowledge.

Common knowledge encompasses information that the average educated reader would accept as true without needing the extra validation of a source or citation.

Common knowledge should be widely known, undisputed and easily verified. When in doubt, always cite your sources.

Plagiarism has serious consequences , and can indeed be illegal in certain scenarios.

While most of the time plagiarism in an undergraduate setting is not illegal, plagiarism or self-plagiarism in a professional academic setting can lead to legal action, including copyright infringement and fraud. Many scholarly journals do not allow you to submit the same work to more than one journal, and if you do not credit a co-author, you could be legally defrauding them.

Even if you aren’t breaking the law, plagiarism can seriously impact your academic career. While the exact consequences of plagiarism vary by institution and severity, common consequences include: a lower grade, automatically failing a course, academic suspension or probation, or even expulsion.

Accidental plagiarism is one of the most common examples of plagiarism . Perhaps you forgot to cite a source, or paraphrased something a bit too closely. Maybe you can’t remember where you got an idea from, and aren’t totally sure if it’s original or not.

These all count as plagiarism, even though you didn’t do it on purpose. When in doubt, make sure you’re citing your sources . Also consider running your work through a plagiarism checker tool prior to submission, which work by using advanced database software to scan for matches between your text and existing texts.

Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker takes less than 10 minutes and can help you turn in your paper with confidence.

Self-plagiarism means recycling work that you’ve previously published or submitted as an assignment. It’s considered academic dishonesty to present something as brand new when you’ve already gotten credit and perhaps feedback for it in the past.

If you want to refer to ideas or data from previous work, be sure to cite yourself.

If you’re concerned that you may have self-plagiarized, Scribbr’s Self-Plagiarism Checker can help you turn in your paper with confidence. It compares your work to unpublished or private documents that you upload, so you can rest assured that you haven’t unintentionally plagiarized.

Incremental plagiarism means inserting quotes, passages, or excerpts from other works into your assignment without properly citing the original source.

Even if the vast majority of the text is yours, including any content that isn’t without citing it is plagiarism.

Consider using a plagiarism checker yourself before submitting your work. Plagiarism checkers work by scanning your document, comparing it to a database of webpages and publications, and highlighting passages that appear similar to other texts.

Patchwork plagiarism (aka mosaic plagiarism) means copying phrases, passages, or ideas from various existing sources and combining them to create a new text. While this type of plagiarism is more insidious than simply copy-pasting directly from a source, plagiarism checkers like Turnitin’s can still easily detect it.

To avoid plagiarism in any form, remember to cite your sources . Also consider running your work through a plagiarism checker tool prior to submission, which work by using advanced database software to scan for matches between your text and existing texts.

Verbatim plagiarism means copying text from a source and pasting it directly into your own document without giving proper credit.

Even if you delete a few words or replace them with synonyms, it still counts as verbatim plagiarism.

To use an author’s exact words, quote the original source by putting the copied text in quotation marks and including an in-text citation .

If you’re worried about plagiarism, consider running your work through a plagiarism checker tool prior to submission, which work by using advanced database software to scan for matches between your text and existing texts.

Global plagiarism means taking an entire work written by someone else and passing it off as your own. This can mean getting someone else to write an essay or assignment for you, or submitting a text you found online as your own work.

Global plagiarism is the most serious type of plagiarism because it involves deliberately and directly lying about the authorship of a work. It can have severe consequences .

To ensure you aren’t accidentally plagiarizing, consider running your work through plagiarism checker tool prior to submission. These tools work by using advanced database software to scan for matches between your text and existing texts.

Plagiarism can be detected by your professor or readers if the tone, formatting, or style of your text is different in different parts of your paper, or if they’re familiar with the plagiarized source.

Many universities also use plagiarism detection software like Turnitin’s, which compares your text to a large database of other sources, flagging any similarities that come up.

It can be easier than you think to commit plagiarism by accident. Consider using a plagiarism checker prior to submitting your paper to ensure you haven’t missed any citations.

Some examples of plagiarism include:

• Copying and pasting a Wikipedia article into the body of an assignment
• Quoting a source without including a citation
• Not paraphrasing a source properly, such as maintaining wording too close to the original
• Forgetting to cite the source of an idea

The most surefire way to avoid plagiarism is to always cite your sources . When in doubt, cite!

If you’re concerned about plagiarism, consider running your work through a plagiarism checker tool prior to submission. Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker takes less than 10 minutes and can help you turn in your paper with confidence.

Academic dishonesty can be intentional or unintentional, ranging from something as simple as claiming to have read something you didn’t to copying your neighbor’s answers on an exam.

You can commit academic dishonesty with the best of intentions, such as helping a friend cheat on a paper. Severe academic dishonesty can include buying a pre-written essay or the answers to a multiple-choice test, or falsifying a medical emergency to avoid taking a final exam.

Consequences of academic dishonesty depend on the severity of the offense and your institution’s policy. They can range from a warning for a first offense to a failing grade in a course to expulsion from your university.

For those in certain fields, such as nursing, engineering, or lab sciences, not learning fundamentals properly can directly impact the health and safety of others. For those working in academia or research, academic dishonesty impacts your professional reputation, leading others to doubt your future work.

Academic dishonesty refers to deceitful or misleading behavior in an academic setting. Academic dishonesty can occur intentionally or unintentionally, and varies in severity.

It can encompass paying for a pre-written essay, cheating on an exam, or committing plagiarism . It can also include helping others cheat, copying a friend’s homework answers, or even pretending to be sick to miss an exam.

Academic dishonesty doesn’t just occur in a classroom setting, but also in research and other academic-adjacent fields.

Paraphrasing without crediting the original author is a form of plagiarism , because you’re presenting someone else’s ideas as if they were your own.

However, paraphrasing is not plagiarism if you correctly cite the source . This means including an in-text citation and a full reference, formatted according to your required citation style .

As well as citing, make sure that any paraphrased text is completely rewritten in your own words.

Plagiarism means using someone else’s words or ideas and passing them off as your own. Paraphrasing means putting someone else’s ideas in your own words.

So when does paraphrasing count as plagiarism?

• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if you don’t properly credit the original author.
• Paraphrasing is plagiarism if your text is too close to the original wording (even if you cite the source). If you directly copy a sentence or phrase, you should quote it instead.
• Paraphrasing  is not plagiarism if you put the author’s ideas completely in your own words and properly cite the source .

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If you’ve properly paraphrased or quoted and correctly cited the source, you are not committing plagiarism.

However, the word correctly is vital. In order to avoid plagiarism , you must adhere to the guidelines of your citation style  (e.g. APA  or MLA ).

You can use the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker to make sure you haven’t missed any citations, while our Citation Checker ensures you’ve properly formatted your citations in APA style.

The consequences of plagiarism vary depending on the type of plagiarism and the context in which it occurs. For example, submitting a whole paper by someone else will have the most severe consequences, while accidental citation errors are considered less serious.

If you’re a student, then you might fail the course, be suspended or expelled, or be obligated to attend a workshop on plagiarism. It depends on whether it’s your first offense or you’ve done it before.

As an academic or professional, plagiarizing seriously damages your reputation. You might also lose your research funding or your job, and you could even face legal consequences for copyright infringement.

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Our team helps students graduate by offering:

• A world-class citation generator
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Scribbr specializes in editing study-related documents . We proofread:

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Scribbr’s Plagiarism Checker is powered by elements of Turnitin’s Similarity Checker , namely the plagiarism detection software and the Internet Archive and Premium Scholarly Publications content databases .

The add-on AI detector is powered by Scribbr’s proprietary software.

The Scribbr Citation Generator is developed using the open-source Citation Style Language (CSL) project and Frank Bennett’s citeproc-js . It’s the same technology used by dozens of other popular citation tools, including Mendeley and Zotero.

You can find all the citation styles and locales used in the Scribbr Citation Generator in our publicly accessible repository on Github .

Best Ai Essay Writer Tools in 2024

By mountainwestwire June 17, 2024 6:15 pm

By mountainwestwire | June 17, 2024 6:15 pm MT

Revamped for originality: Our AI essay writer is an advanced yet easy-to-use software designed to help you create eloquent essays in no time, being secure against plagiarism.

Our essay writing software uses advanced AI techniques to generate complete essays at dizzying fast speed with just a keyword and without signing up.

Either the topic or the content of your essay must be added to the appropriate text field.

We will transform anything into an essay, from topic sentences to word selection.

The writing process will be kicked off from clicking the “My essay” button.

AI writer https://eduwriter.ai/ is just a couple of seconds from creating an original essay. You’ll find the output in the Box below.

Either by the copy icon or you can download it for your convenience, is all you need to do.

Quillbot’s AI-powered facilitated writing service is a one-of-kind tool with unique features. Its principal function is serving as a paraphrasing tool. It uses Artificial Intelligence so that text is reworded in different styles. It also hosts grammar checks and plagiarism detection controls.

In 2017, Roham Gharegozlou, David Silin, and Luke Lau formed a team to invent a tool that could assists in improving the writing skills of people through providing rephrasing and sentence restructuring suggestions. What is unique about QuillBot team is that it is bigger than the competing software teams who are not linguists, research scientists, and other experts. This diversity may be perceived as a suggestion that there is more experience than a single person behind the development.

Quillbot offers a suite of services including:

Paraphrasing Tool: Individuals can compose words themselves or use the AI-driven paraphrasing tool by copy and pasting the content which is already there. The device can be set to either adjust for simplicity or clarity depending on the user’s purpose of writing and desired formality.

Accessibility

Quillbot is browser based, as well as is plug-in-compatible with a great variety applications like Word, Google Docs etc. Therefore one can write in Quillbot whether he or she is online or offline, even in Microsoft word.

Homeworkify

Homeworkify enunciates its position as an assistant-app that is based on the AI technology, which is available to be used on both Android and iOS devices. The School’s objective is to boost the students’ success level in their academics. The tutor is the means through which these intricate solutions to math problems, scientific inquiries and many homework tasks, are provided, the tutor also gives out studying materials and exam readiness aids.

Humanizing the sentence: It turns out to be much simpler to locate the exact help after you have got familiar with the Homeworkify’s interface that is user-friendly. In addition, the AI-driven text-to-speech function brings an extra layer of learning by letting the learners completely understand the stated purposes audibly.

Including a variety of disciplines from mathematics and science to history and language proficiency tests, Homeworkify has developed a customizable platform to assist students in enhancing their performance. It be the case of standardized tests like IELTS, GRE, PTE, or TOEFL, or the one of disciplines such as Maths and Physics, Homeworkify is a comprehensive academic partner in all of the academic needs.

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The Enigma of Bloody Mary: Exploring Folklore, Fear, and Cultural Resonance

This essay about the legend of Bloody Mary explores its cultural significance, psychological allure, and evolution across time and media. Originating from diverse folkloric traditions, Bloody Mary’s tale reflects universal fears of the supernatural and mortality. The ritualistic summoning through mirrors taps into primal human anxieties, offering a lens into our fascination with the macabre. Variations in the legend highlight regional interpretations and cultural adaptations, showcasing its adaptability and enduring relevance in contemporary society. Through literature, film, and digital media, Bloody Mary continues to haunt popular imagination, evolving to resonate with modern audiences while retaining its core themes of fear, curiosity, and the unknown.

How it works

The legend of Bloody Mary stands as a testament to the enduring power of folklore, weaving together elements of supernatural intrigue, psychological suspense, and cultural fascination. Originating from diverse narratives across Western folklore, this enigmatic tale has transcended generations, captivating the imaginations of those who dare to delve into its dark depths.

At its core, the legend of Bloody Mary revolves around a chilling ritual where participants summon a vengeful spirit by chanting her name into a mirror, often in dimly lit settings.

This ritual, steeped in superstition and mystery, taps into primal fears of the unknown and the supernatural. Each retelling of the legend adds layers of complexity, shaping Bloody Mary into a spectral figure embodying vengeance, tragedy, or warnings against vanity and curiosity.

Across cultures, variations of the Bloody Mary legend abound, enriching its narrative tapestry with diverse interpretations and regional nuances. In some iterations, she emerges as a spectral guardian, while in others, she embodies a malevolent force seeking retribution. Such variations highlight the legend’s adaptability and its ability to reflect cultural anxieties and beliefs about death, the afterlife, and the consequences of invoking forces beyond human comprehension.

Psychologically, the allure of Bloody Mary lies in its ability to evoke suspense and anticipation through ritualistic repetition and the solitary act of facing one’s reflection in a mirror. This psychological tension, heightened by dim lighting and whispered chants, plays upon innate fears of the supernatural and the eerie sense of being watched or not being alone. Such elements make the legend a potent vehicle for exploring the human psyche’s fascination with the macabre and the unseen.

Moreover, the legend of Bloody Mary has evolved with the advent of modern media, including literature, film, and digital platforms. Each adaptation reinterprets the core elements of the legend while integrating contemporary themes and technologies. From horror films depicting her as a spectral antagonist to internet challenges inviting participants to summon her through viral videos, Bloody Mary continues to resonate with audiences seeking thrills and a deeper understanding of cultural folklore in the digital age.

In popular culture, Bloody Mary’s enduring presence is evidenced by her inclusion in various forms of entertainment and media. Whether as a character in horror novels, a plot device in television series, or a motif in visual arts, her spectral presence persists, continually reimagined and reinvented by storytellers seeking to evoke fear and fascination in their audiences.

Furthermore, the cultural resonance of Bloody Mary extends beyond mere entertainment, serving as a reflection of societal fears, taboos, and beliefs. As folklore evolves in response to changing cultural landscapes and societal anxieties, the legend of Bloody Mary remains a touchstone for exploring themes of mortality, guilt, and the supernatural’s intersection with everyday life.

In conclusion, the legend of Bloody Mary stands as a testament to the enduring power of folklore to captivate, terrify, and provoke contemplation. Through its ability to evolve across time and cultural boundaries, Bloody Mary’s spectral presence continues to haunt the imaginations of those who dare to summon her in the darkened mirror. Whether viewed as a cautionary tale, a supernatural mystery, or a cultural phenomenon, Bloody Mary’s legend endures as a timeless exploration of humanity’s fascination with the unknown and our eternal quest for understanding the realms beyond our comprehension.

Cite this page

The Enigma of Bloody Mary: Exploring Folklore, Fear, and Cultural Resonance. (2024, Jun 17). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/the-enigma-of-bloody-mary-exploring-folklore-fear-and-cultural-resonance/

"The Enigma of Bloody Mary: Exploring Folklore, Fear, and Cultural Resonance." PapersOwl.com , 17 Jun 2024, https://papersowl.com/examples/the-enigma-of-bloody-mary-exploring-folklore-fear-and-cultural-resonance/

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Enigma of Bloody Mary: Exploring Folklore, Fear, and Cultural Resonance . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-enigma-of-bloody-mary-exploring-folklore-fear-and-cultural-resonance/ [Accessed: 20 Jun. 2024]

"The Enigma of Bloody Mary: Exploring Folklore, Fear, and Cultural Resonance." PapersOwl.com, Jun 17, 2024. Accessed June 20, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/the-enigma-of-bloody-mary-exploring-folklore-fear-and-cultural-resonance/

"The Enigma of Bloody Mary: Exploring Folklore, Fear, and Cultural Resonance," PapersOwl.com , 17-Jun-2024. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-enigma-of-bloody-mary-exploring-folklore-fear-and-cultural-resonance/. [Accessed: 20-Jun-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2024). The Enigma of Bloody Mary: Exploring Folklore, Fear, and Cultural Resonance . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-enigma-of-bloody-mary-exploring-folklore-fear-and-cultural-resonance/ [Accessed: 20-Jun-2024]

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