free online plagiarism checker

free online plagiarism checker

The Importance of Using a Free Online Plagiarism Checker

1. Introduction

The issue is exponentially getting worse with the internet. Because of the overload of information happening in cyberspace, compounded by the difficulty in regulating what goes in and out of the internet, the need to ensure that written works are original is paramount. In counterpart, we have seen the emergence of several free online plagiarism checkers, software programs that enable users to check whether or not their written work is original. This in itself seems like a great idea, but what is most surprising is that many people aren’t even aware of these services, not to mention what they can contribute to students and writers. This essay will seek to justify the usage of these plagiarism checkers, particularly for students. We delve into the context of plagiarism in this day and age, how the internet has affected its prevalence and severity, and what can be done to rectify the situation.

Plagiarism has become the gravedigger of academics and literary researchers. No author or original writer wants to have their creative works sullied by someone else’s hands, particularly those of a lesser writer. Many are willing to go to court over a plagiarism accusation, and the damage in credibility and integrity done to a suspected plagiarist is inestimable.

2. Benefits of Using a Free Online Plagiarism Checker

A plagiarism checker will identify these issues and ensure that your work is authentic and error-free. With so many information options at our fingertips, the temptation is too high for students to wholly copy an assignment from a source and hand it in as their own. Using a plagiarism checker can help students identify any potential issues before the assignment is handed in. This way, they can either re-write the work or just make the necessary edits, saving them more work in the long run.

The vast majority of students and other professionals looking for a free online plagiarism checker do so because they are scared of committing unintentional plagiarism. Due to the explosion of information online, it can be very easy to simply copy a statement and forget to cite the source. Likewise, with paraphrasing, it is all too simple to accidentally replicate a sentence or two. Any of this could result in claims of literary theft, and the student or author will face severe consequences. A cheap alternative can prove to be an expensive mistake.

A good free online plagiarism checker for students has been a long time coming. Years of unhelpful and clunky software means that now, when a good tool does exist, many people are unaware of it. Although the internet has made it easier for authors and students to access a plethora of information, the rise of the internet has also made it too easy to engage in plagiarism. This is a big issue as the demand for fresh original content has soared.

3. How to Use a Free Online Plagiarism Checker

Using an online plagiarism checker is very simple. To begin, download all the documents that you need to check for plagiarism. Copy and paste the content to your clipboard. In other words, highlight the text in the document and right-click on it. Click copy, and the content will be saved to your virtual clipboard. Next, open a tab to the plagiarism site that you would like to use. Scroll through the site and look for a search box where you can paste the content. This should be accessible from the main page and not buried in several layers of links. You should also see a submit or check button. Paste the text into the search box and click submit. This should all be fairly easy because plagiarism sites are user-friendly and designed for students and businesses. It is not necessary to be technologically advanced to use a plagiarism site. The last step is simple: scroll through the results to see if the content is duplicated. It will show you the percentage of plagiarism and a list of sources where the duplicated content has been found. Using this information, you can determine if the content is properly cited and sourced. This is very important because it is not essential to rewrite content that has been cited properly. An online plagiarism checker will save you time and effort and is an effective investment for determining if your content is original.

4. Limitations of Free Online Plagiarism Checkers

The most obvious limitation is that whoever uses these services is required to upload the document. Not only can this be a little tedious, it carries some risk of privacy invasion. For example, our top-rated service, Turnitin, stores a copy of every essay it receives. For some people, this is an invasion of privacy which outweighs the service’s benefit. There have been cases where students have discovered their essays in Turnitin’s database when they have not used the service themselves. In some third-world countries, students are also using internet cafes to complete essays. Uploading an essay to a website from a public computer could potentially lead to a security risk. In contrast, Crossloop’s plagiarism detection tool works on essay drafts stored on your computer. This means that the essay never has to leave your hands’ custody. This would be the most secure way to scan a document for plagiarism. Another limitation is that many of the free internet services use Yahoo and Bing’s search indexes. Unfortunately, these indexes are a lot smaller and less comprehensive than Google’s, meaning that fewer internet sources will be searched for in comparison to Google. The pay services such as Turnitin look through an enormous database of academic journals and material, in addition to internet sources. This kind of material is inaccessible to any search engine. Therefore, if the plagiarized material comes from an academic source, the free services will not find it. In our age of increasing tertiary education enrollment, this limitation is becoming larger.

5. Conclusion

An awareness of plagiarism should undoubtedly be considered in the academic world, be it the students who commit the act, and those who do not, in order to prevent it, or provide the instances of collusion and plagiarism more leniently. Viable action must be taken to educate students on what is considered plagiarism and provide them with a means to identify and correct it. This education would be more than just an awareness, but an investment in a life skill which will stay with the student throughout their academic and professional career. On the educator’s part, providing the instances of plagiarism more leniently and less punitively, that is not zero marks, but the opportunity for students to take their remiss back to an assignment, should be considered. This would alleviate the pressure of resorting to plagiarism because of a one-time mistake, and a student would not live with the permanent consequence of a foolish error.

It is said that nothing is original and every product of thought and expression is the reformulation of what has already been thought and expressed. The academic world has been more than welcoming to this idea, and reiteration or blatant plagiarism of ideas, text, and theories is a truth that students have to live with. The availability of paper mills and outright cheating sites is only making students’ lives even easier. A grim reality, but despite this, we don’t have to come to terms with it. Not as long as we promote and practice original thought and authenticity.