Plagiarism & Paraphrasing detection technologies are improving at an enormous pace. With concepts like AI and NLP being integrated into the plagiarism detection tools, using plagiarized content is not an option anymore.
Paraphrasing is a bit different from plagiarism. When you paraphrase a piece of content, you don’t use it as is. You reword the main idea in your wording and express it in your own way.
Paraphrasing tools help you do that. These tools enable you to rewrite complete essays and articles in a short amount of time. The rephrased content will be unique and 100% plagiarism-free.
Still, there are certain tools that are claiming that they can detect paraphrasing as well. Turnitin is one such tool.
Let’s take a closer look at Turnitin and test it to see whether it can detect paraphrasing or not.
What is Turnitin?
Turnitin is one of the most renowned plagiarism checker tools that are popular all around the globe. It is a web app with over 30 million users from all over the world.
This AI-based tool is used for academic as well as content marketing purposes for detecting plagiarism in the content.
In fact, many educational institutions have made it a standard for grading their exams. This tool analyzes an academic paper against its massive library of content to see whether the paper is plagiarized or not.
Turnitin is now the official standard for detecting plagiarism in academic documents for many colleges and universities in the world. The Turnitin passing score is different for different institutions.
Features of Turnitin
Here are the features and services that Turnitin has to offer
- GradeScope:Offers an assessment platform for teachers to grade all kinds of papers. This service helps teachers streamline the grading process.
- Originality: This service checks for plagiarism in the content. It is a great tool for students as well as teachers to maintain the credibility and integrity of their work.
- Similarity: This service lets the user know about the sources of plagiarism. The users can use this tool to find matching sources for their content.
- FeedBack Studio: This tool is excellent for improving writing skills. It gives real-time feedback about your writing approach so that you can improve it.
- IThenticate: This is the most powerful plagiarism checker solution by Turnitin which is recommended for professional use.
Testing – Can Turnitin Detect Paraphrasing from the Content?
The plagiarism detection performance of Turnitin is remarkable. There is no doubt about it. But is it good at detecting paraphrasing too?
We are about to find out. We are going to test the paraphrasing detection features of Turnitin with our very own test.
Here are the tools that we are going to use to perform this test
- Prepostseo Paraphrasing Tool
- Turnitin Plagiarism Checker
We are going to paraphrase a piece of content using the paraphrasing tool by Prepostseo. After that, we are going to put that content into the Turnitin Plagiarism Detector to see the result.
Paraphrasing Content Using Prepostseo Paraphrasing Tool
The first thing we are going to need is a paraphrasing tool. A paraphrasing tool with advanced rephrasing features would be the best for testing Turnitin Paraphrasing Detection.
Prepostseo Paraphrasing Tool is one of the best free online tools for dodging Turnitin. This tool can help you rewrite academic as well as web content for free. We are going to use this tool to rewrite the content.
Let’s use the Paraphrasing tool to rephrase input content
- Type in your content in the Original Content Box
- You can also upload a file from local or cloud storage
- Choose from one of the 4 Paraphrasing Settings (Creative Recommended for Turnitin)
- Click on the Paraphrase Button
- The output will appear in the Paraphrased Content Box
Here’s the close screenshot of original and paraphrased content.
- Copy the output in a separate file
Adding Paraphrasing Content in Turnitin
The next step is to add the paraphrased content in Turnitin. Turnitin is a paid app so you will have to purchase the subscription to get access to its full features.
Still, you can register for the free trial to get access to the Turnitin plagiarism checker. You need to go to theTurnitin website, create an account there and apply for the free trial.
Here is how you can add the paraphrased content to check for the paraphrasing detection in Turnitin
- Open the Turnitin Plagiarism checker
- Upload the paraphrased content in this tool
- Click on Check for Plagiarism
- Wait for the plagiarism checker to finish processing
The Turnitin UI keeps on updating. You can use the File Upload process as per the latest update.
Once you have added the academic content to this tool, it will start processing it for you. You might have to wait for a few minutes till the tool is done processing the input file.
Here are the results that we got after adding the paraphrased content to this tool
The Result
After adding about 2 to 3 paraphrased files into this tool, we have found that Turnitin could not detect the paraphrasing.
The tool did show a little bit of plagiarism but that was under the accepted range. The Turnitin plagiarism checker is meant for checking plagiarism only. It is not good at identifying paraphrasing.
So, can Turnitin Detect Paraphrasing?
The myth that Turnitin can detect paraphrasing is not true. If the paraphrasing job is done right, the tool won’t be able to detect it.
The bottom line is, Turnitin can’t detect paraphrasing. We paraphrased various files using the Prepostseo Paraphrasing Tool to further verify our assumptions and the results were the same every time.
You just need to use a powerful paraphrasing tool and you’d be able to beat the plagiarism detection features of Turnitin with ease.
Final Words
Although plagiarism detection technologies have become much better over the past few years, they are still not effective at detecting paraphrasing.
We don’t know what the future of paraphrasing detection will look like. But as of now, the plagiarism detection tools are not powerful enough to detect paraphrasing.
