The Internet may provide students with readier access to pre-written papers than their parents' generation had, but online tools also make it easier for instructors to catch them in the act. Services such as Turnitin offer sophisticated interfaces for checking documents for plagiarism, while simpler services like Plagiarism Checker provide quick links to potential Web sources for plagiarized materials.
Education Dive took a look at some of the more prominent and plagiarism prevention tools online and broke down how they each set themselves apart. Here is what we found:
1. Turnitin
Turnitin offers online services with highly customizable options for checking the originality of a written work and inserting feedback where needed. A leading plagiarism prevention tool, Turnitin and its partner services are used by thousands of academic institutions worldwide.
A free, simplified anti-plagiarism tool, Plagiarism Checker quickly scans the writing inserted into its text box for any trace of plagiarism. Suspicious wording is then linked to online sources of possibly copied material. Plagiarism Checker also offers a premium plan for more accurate scanning.
3. iThenticate
Partnered with Turnitin, iThenticate is a plagiarism prevention service with a focus on published works. It offers online tools to check the authenticity of documents uploaded into its system. It also boasts a massive database of millions of published articles and billions of websites with which to refer to for plagiarized content.
4. SPlat
SP stands for self plagiarism, which is what SPlat is all about. SPlat is built on the idea that authors who recycle content from their previous works are harming the quality and originality of writing as a whole. It offers a tool to check documents for material that has been reused by the same author in the past.
5. TinEye
TinEye is an anti-plagiarism service for images. It checks where an uploaded or linked image has been used elsewhere on the internet. The tool is useful for people who want to check for unauthorized displays of images they own the rights to.
6. WriteCheck
WriteCheck is a service by Turnitin for students to check their own writing for plagiarism. It runs uploaded documents against Turnitin's database to check for authenticity, and it also provides feedback on spelling and grammar. A good way to avoid the chance of being punished for plagiarism before submitting a paper, WriteCheck is used by over 200 thousand students.
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