Plagiarism isn’t an academic word that disappears once you graduate. Neither is it as simple as borrowing someone else’s work.
So, what is plagiarism? In short, it is theft. Whether written, multimedia (images, videos, graphics, music), or spoken word, using someone else’s content without proper attribution to the original source falls within the realm of plagiarism.
Though not technically illegal or criminal, it can be classified as a crime depending on the severity of the case. In worst cases, you could be fined, sued, charged, or even put in jail. To avoid these sticky situations and double-check the legitimacy of their work, many people utilize plagiarism checkers.
Plagiarism is the uncredited use of someone else’s proprietary content, passed off as original. It includes everything from copying essays and quotes from books to the unauthorized use of content protected by a trademark or copyright.
To prevent yourself from accidentally (or intentionally) plagiarizing, keep reading and learn about the examples of plagiarism and how to stop yourself from committing this morally questionable offense.
The following plagiarism types are the most common yet super easy to avoid. Although many are specific to academic writing (e.g., essays and research papers), anything below is applicable to business professionals with writing-heavy job functions as well.
Any time you use a quotation, whether it’s a couple of words, a few sentences, or a large block of text, you have to attribute the quote to the person who originally uttered (or wrote) the words you’re referencing. To do this, list the person by name and include quotation marks around any and all words belonging directly to the speaker/writer.
In the academic world, you’ll most likely be using MLA, APA, or CMS citation style guides for your classwork (unless in a specialized concentration), so make sure you know which one you’re supposed to use for your specific course.
In the professional world, simply referencing the person by name (first and last) and the work from which you are quoting will suffice. Otherwise, sticking with MLA format is always a safe choice.
Especially popular among college students facing strict deadlines for midterms and final exams that consist of an essay portion, essay writing websites might seem like a hero in disguise. These sites promise 100% original content within a certain timeframe (e.g., in 24 hours or three days, depending on how quickly you need your paper).
However, while this method might seem failsafe, many online essay-writing websites reuse essays that their essay writers had once created for someone (100% originally, as promised) and send you, the naive buyer, a copy of a previously-written paper about the topic you requested an essay for.
Because you cannot guarantee that they have hand-crafted a brand new essay for you, you could potentially be accused of plagiarism if you turn it in and someone else had submitted it before you – even if it was at a school or institution far from yours.
It’s not like you can go to your professor and make a claim that the paper isn’t plagiarized because you bought it brand new online. Then, not only are you a plagiarist, but you’re also a cheater. It’s not a good look.
Even if you’re not a student anymore, you were at some point, meaning you definitely had friends who took a class before you did and vice versa. Many instructors stick with the same syllabus semester after semester, year after year. So much work goes into creating a syllabus that they don’t want to overhaul and create another one for the same class they’re teaching for the 12th time.
Students are wise and know this from talking to each other. So if your friend took a class on the history of artificial intelligence in the fall semester of 2021, and you plan to take it in the spring semester of 2024, you’re already aware of the fact that there’s a 10-page final essay you’ll need to write. But you don’t like writing, and your friend got an A on their final essay, so you figure it’s been long enough that you can re-submit the paper with your name on it, and you’re good to go.
Well, not only do instructors have a pretty good memory, but they can also use plagiarism-checking websites to give them an extra layer of security in confirming the originality of your final paper.
Plus, if you get caught plagiarizing, you’ll definitely fail the paper, fail the class, and both you and your friend can be expelled for such an offense. But hey, those are the consequences of plagiarism.
Students who are struggling with starting or completing a paper will usually take their professor’s advice and seek help at their university’s writing center from a writing tutor. But a large number of students take the word help a bit too liberally and expect a writing tutor to, well, write their paper for them.
While writing tutors are beneficial resources for assisting in the completion of an assignment, finding more source material, or helping a writer with learning how to rework their content, tutors aren’t there to write or rewrite students’ papers.
If you ask a writing tutor to “reword” or “rephrase” a large chunk of a paper you’ve written, or ask them how they would say something with the expectation that they give you a word-for-word response that you can copy and use as your own words, that’s plagiarism.
Writing tutors should be used to enhance your own writing while helping you learn how to become a better writer. Don’t take advantage of them!
Using an old paper you wrote for a class years ago, or an article you published on your former employer’s website and trying to pass it off as freshly written or “repurposed” content is considered self-plagiarism.
You’re probably thinking, but I can’t plagiarize myself! Well, actually, you can.
Self-plagiarism is pretty simple. If you use the exact same content you’ve previously written and try to pass it off as new or “repurposed” content, you’re self-plagiarizing. Be honest with your reader and provide them with a note indicating that this is not the first use of or publication of the content they’re reading.
And hey, if your writing is in an online format, you can even link back to your other content and grow your site traffic!
To get around citing sources, people opt to paraphrase the content. However, there’s a fine line between paraphrasing something and usurping content that someone else wrote first. You might come across the most informational source about the topic you’re researching (and have to write about), and you think that they say what you need to say better than you ever could. So you decide to copy and paste directly from their website and change some words here and there, but keep the general idea of what they said intact.
Guess what? That’s still plagiarism.
Just because you add a few flowery words and switch the order of the text from the original source doesn’t mean you’ve created something original. To make sure you aren’t accidentally plagiarizing, give credit to the author of your original source or the website where your source material came from. You don’t have to use quotation marks because you aren’t directly quoting the source, but you should reference your source by name as a way to cite them.
In the same way that not citing your source constitutes plagiarism, so does citing an incorrect source. Just because you read that one person said or wrote a famous quote you’ve heard a hundred times doesn’t mean that the person you heard it from actually said it first.
Words and phrases like Abraham Lincoln’s “four score and seven years ago” or Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a dream” are considered common knowledge. So yes, we all know that Lincoln gave The Gettysburg Address and that MLK Jr. gave the I Have a Dream speech; however, you should still note the source (person) whose common words and phrases you’re using.
Simply noting “When MLK Jr. said he had a dream…” in your writing would be sufficient in this instance. Nobody’s going to confuse Lincoln or MLK Jr. with someone else, and everybody knows who they are.
If you're on the receiving end of some fishy content, you may be wondering how to find out if plagiarism is involved. Here are some quick tips to keep in mind while you figure that out.
Now that you understand what is plagiarism and how to identify it, let’s see how to simplify this process. At first glance, it’s not always easy to tell if something is plagiarized. Plagiarism-checking software can make all the difference by automating the detection of suspicious writing.
To qualify for inclusion in the plagiarism checker software category, a product must:
* Below are the top five leading plagiarism checker platforms from G2’s Fall 2024 Grid® Report. Some reviews may be edited for clarity.
Grammarly is a writing assistant that helps expedite the writing process with tools like a grammar checker, plagiarism checker, citation generator, style guide, and more. It can be added as a Chrome extension to use these features in your desired content application like Google Docs and HubSpot. However, it is to be noted that plagiarism check is only available with the premium plan.
“One of the best things about Grammarly is how it provides real-time feedback on writing, making it easy to catch errors as you go. It’s more than just spell-checking; Grammarly suggests improvements for clarity, engagement, and conciseness, which can really elevate writing quality. I also love how it adapts to different writing styles and tones based on your goals—whether you’re writing something formal, casual, or creative, it offers tailored suggestions. Plus, the plagiarism checker is an added bonus, especially for academic or professional writing. Overall, it’s like having a virtual writing assistant that helps me communicate more clearly and effectively!”
- Grammarly Review, Dylan P.
“The plagiarism checker feature is not as useful as others. Needs more work to help assure work written is free of plagiarized material.”
- Grammarly Review, Joel S.
GPTZero uses machine learning to identify text generated by large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Widely used by educators, content creators, and researchers, this cloud-based AI detector also offers features like plagiarism detection, authorship verification, and finding sources.
“GPTZero quickly and effectively analyzes text, emails, etc. to determine if they were generated or enhanced through the use of artificial intelligence. It logs your entries and provides you with a detailed understanding of how the texts were modified by AI.”
- GPTZero Review, Theren B.
“It sometimes gives false positives or negatives, making it difficult to fully rely on the results. There are times when human-written content is flagged as AI-generated, and vice versa. This inconsistency can be frustrating, particularly when accuracy is critical, such as for academic or professional content verification..”
- GPTZero Review, Ashutosh J.
Feedback Studio (Turnitin) specializes in prioritizing academic integrity in the education industry. Feedback Studio's most popular tool is state-of-the-art plagiarism detection which is especially helpful in online learning environments.
“Turnitin is a very exhaustive, accurate, and easy-to-use Plagiarism detection tool. The color-based identification helps in finding out and distinguishing the actual sources of Plagiarism."
- Turnitin Review, Nitin S.
“Like most technologies, it's not going to catch everything. Plus, some of the flagged assignments might be legitimate student work, so be sure to double-check, especially if multiple students were allowed to work together to create a thesis or topic sentences.”
- Turnitin Review, James T.
Copyleaks is an AI-powered content detector and plagiarism checker that can identify various forms of plagiarism, including paraphrasing, image-based plagiarism, AI-generated text. This tool also offers code plagiarism detection, cross-language plagiarism detection, scheduled recurring scans, and detection in over 100 languages.
“Copyleaks is an online handy tool that quickly detects if the submitted content is human-written or AI-based and copied from the internet. You can easily register and start using the tool. There are multiple settings that help in customizing omit settings, sources to be checked, internal databases, and frequency of scans.”
- Copyleaks Review, Pranav K.
“Copyleaks functionality of the free tier is limited in terms of the number of scans allowed and the depth of analysis provided, restricting full exploration of its capabilities.”
- Copyleaks Review, Alejandro A.
Plagiarism Checker X is a free plagiarism detection tool that can be easily downloaded on Windows and Vista. It scans text against various online sources to identify similarities in content. Some standout features include deep search technology, multiple file format compatibility, multi-language support, and a readability checker.
“It's user friendly interface combined with the detailed review of text is something that really comes in handy when running plagiarism check on lengthy pieces of text.”
- Plagiarism Checker X Review, Vineet S.
“One potential drawback of Plagiarism Checker X is its limited capability to detect paraphrasing or rephrased content, which could potentially lead to missed instances of plagiarism.”
- Plagiarism Checker X Review, Anmol J.
Plagiarism is a serious issue in educational, professional, and creative fields. Below, you will find some frequently asked questions about plagiarism that address its types, strategies to avoid it, and the consequences.
A- The common types of plagiarism are:
A- You can avoid plagiarism in a few sure-shot ways, such as:
A- The severity of consequences depends on the context and can range from:
A- Accidental plagiarism occurs when you unintentionally fail to cite sources properly or misunderstand how to paraphrase correctly. Learning proper citation practices is crucial to avoid this.
A- Paraphrasing includes rewording and rephrasing someone else's work in your own words while giving proper credit. Plagiarism, however, involves using someone else's work without proper attribution.
A- There isn't any "accepted" percentage of plagiarism. It generally depends on the context and the standards set by institutions, organizations, or publishers. Some institutions may accept up to 15% plagiarism, while in other places, even minor plagiarism (as low as 1-2%) can be unacceptable. The best practice is to always give proper credit when using others’ work.
Because detecting plagiarism with the naked eye isn’t always a foolproof solution, you might want a second opinion on determining the originality of a text. That's why automation is the way to go!
Grammarly is rated among the top plagiarism checkers, but is Grammarly premium worth it? See for yourself.
This article was originally published in 2019. The content has been updated with new information.
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