7 Best Plagiarism Checkers For Teachers (Free & Paid)

Best Plagiarism Checkers For Teachers

Thanks to modern technology, teachers have access to numerous tools to facilitate tasks ranging from classroom management to assessment.

Assessment, for instance, used to be quite tricky as ascertaining the authenticity of assignments and other academic work could be challenging.

But thanks to modern technology, teachers have access to plagiarism tools that enable them to easily compare any form of delivery with a large global database.

It’s easy to guess that some learners are not particularly happy when their teachers use these tools.

But as teachers, it’s our responsibility to ensure academic integrity in every aspect of our student’s education. This is especially true at the degree levels of education.

And with the internet flooded with various plagiarism tools, we need to ensure whichever plagiarism application we use is up to standard.

This includes both free and paid plagiarism checkers as the quality of these applications is mostly dependent on the size of their databases.

It is now easy to create a plagiarism checker and since academic institutions rely on these tools, some companies simply leverage internet sources only when creating their plagiarism checkers.

This is not only limited to most free plagiarism checkers, as some paid ones, have none or limited database and only check for similarities with internet content.

Ever heard your students claim they checked for plagiarism and didn’t find any problems, while the school seemed to have identified a huge volume of plagiarism?

This was probably due to the learner using a plagiarism checker with a limited database.

Fortunately, some free and paid plagiarism checkers have huge repositories, and they’re able to easily cross-check any given document for similarities.

In addition, most of these tools search both their library of information and the internet to identify similarities and format the reports to make them easy to read.

Although some free tools do a decent job of detecting plagiarism, it is advisable to leverage a paid tool if you’re publishing a research paper in a high authority journal.

Those students who are looking for non plagiarized essays written by academic experts, can easily contact professional writing services online.

Types of Plagiarisms

Complete plagiarism

This is the most dangerous form of plagiarism which could have legal ramifications. Simply put, this is taking some else’s study and submitting it under your name.

This is a breach of academic integrity rules in most educational institutions and warrants either a warning or in some cases expulsion.

Self-plagiarism

This form of plagiarism involves using parts of your already published content in another publication, especially without citation.

It is worth noting that this particular form of plagiarism has been debated but most journals have restrictions in place on the percentage of reusable content from any publisher’s previous publication.

Self-plagiarism also happens in normal school settings as learners can sometimes present most or parts of a previously presented work.

A recent assignment I graded flagged a student with 96% plagiarism on the Unicheck plagiarism checker which my school uses.

After confronting the student, he explained that he deferred the course the previous year and had submitted that assignment that year.

He decided to resubmit that same assignment when he enrolled in the course again. In such a situation, the system which already had his previous submission flag the whole content.

Most academic institutions have strict guidelines against this form of plagiarism and carry with it some consequences.

Direct Plagiarism

This form of plagiarism is very similar to complete plagiarism but differs in that, it involves using parts of someone else’s publication or writing without the necessary source citation, instead of the complete work.

Accidental Plagiarism

Accidental plagiarism occurs when students unintentionally paraphrase or misquote a source.

From my personal experience, this can be avoided in most cases once students are educated on the importance of including references and attributions in academic work.

Learners with no knowledge of this usually end up in this bracket. This is usually present in most first-year students.

I experienced this when I was grading my first assignments. After explaining to learners the importance of quotations and references, I hardly see learners in the accidental plagiarism bracket anymore.

Mosaic plagiarism

Unlike accidental plagiarism, this form is intentional and simply takes one or more assignments, articles, or writing and copies sections of these to create their own.

They also paraphrase some sentences to create their delivery making it harder for most plagiarism checkers to identify and flag them.

This form demands more effort than most of the others but it is still seen as dishonest and therefore comes with repercussions once caught.

Paraphrasing plagiarism

This is the most common form of plagiarism. It involves changing words and rewriting sentences to convey the same idea.

Paraphrasing tools enable users to better understand an article or writing but these are sometimes misused.

Therefore some users leverage these tools while others manually rewrite other articles and present them as their publication or assignment.

This form of plagiarism is intentional and also comes with some form of punishment outlined by some institutions.

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What makes a good plagiarism checker

A good plagiarism checker should be able to cross-check any given document with a huge database or repository of articles, books, journals, research manuscripts, and many more to identify plagiarism and also deliver a concise and comprehensive report.

Best Paid plagiarism checkers for teachers

ApplicationTurnitinGrammarlyUnicheckScribbr
PriceInstitution subscriptionFreemium subscriptionNumber of pagesNumber of words
Own databaseX
Google indexed
ProQuest database
IntegrationsLMSs, collaboration toolsSoftware, extensionsLMSs, Google docs add-onX

Turnitin – Best plagiarism checker for schools

Price: Institution subscription

First on our list is the most popular plagiarism checker in educational settings. Turnitin is a service geared towards identifying plagiarized content in all forms of submissions.

With the largest database of books, articles, journals, websites, archives, student submissions, and many more, Turnitin provides the most accurate and comprehensive plagiarism report on any submissions.

Not only does it leverage its huge repository but also internet sources to identify and produce the best plagiarism report.

It also has integration for some of the most popular LMSs, collaboration tools, and many more.

If you’re in the market for the best plagiarism checker for your school or educational institution, Turnitin is the best option for you.

It is worth noting that Turnitin’s terms of service stipulate that the company owns a license to any student submission.

This means that student submissions would be included in Turnitin’s already large repository of information.

Pros of Turnitin

  • Easy plagiarism check
  • Large database
  • Comprehensive report
  • Multiple file types
  • Additional tools like PeerMark & GradeMark

Cons of Turnitin

  • Expensive compared to some competitors
  • Doesn’t accurately distinguish citations from plagiarism
  • Unavailable for individual purchase

Grammarly – Best all-round plagiarism checker

Price: Freemium

A tool that needs no introduction, Grammarly is the most popular writing assistant. With its Ai-powered writing assistant and years of experience, Grammarly is the most widely used writing assistant worldwide.

From plagiarism to paraphrasing, this tool is well-equipped to help users produce the best quality content.

Although most people use the free version of the application, the paid version provides users with access to additional tools including the plagiarism checker.

Grammarly’s plagiarism checker checks for similarities by cross-checking submitted content with ProQuest database as well as Google indexed pages to deliver a comprehensive plagiarism report.

Unlike most other plagiarism tools, Grammarly users can easily cross-check for plagiarism while writing.

Grammarly has applications that can easily be installed on Windows operating system and macOS.

Both android and iOS operating systems can also now use the Grammarly keyboard for better sentence structuring.

Additionally, web browser extensions are also available for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Microsoft Edge.

This makes it easy for users to easily use Grammarly’s extensive features including plagiarism when writing articles in Microsft Word and other editing tools.

Not only do you get access to the plagiarism checker on subscription but users also get access to all other features of Grammarly including paraphrasing, premium grammar checker, and more.

Unlike Turnitin which can only be leveraged by organizations, Grammarly subscription can easily be purchased by anyone.

Pros of Grammarly Plagiarism Checker

  • Check plagiarism while writing
  • Large database
  • Additional tools like proofreader, grammar checker
  • Individual usage
  • Multiple file types

Cons of Grammarly Plagiarism Checker

  • Not available in free version
  • Scans full sentences for plagiarism

UniCheck – Our Favourite plagiarism checker

Price: Page count

Another on our list is Unicheck. My personal experience with paid plagiarism tools has been with this application.

This was recommended by my school for grading but my experience with it has been nothing short of phenomenal.

Granted, it’s not perfect but it’s still one of the best tools on the market in my opinion.

It’s an easy-to-use cloud-based plagiarism detection tool that users can leverage to identify similarities, references, and more in any article or academic writing.

The application works with multiple languages but I haven’t tested out this feature as we provide our lessons in English.

Users can easily create a free account on Unicheck but will need to buy pages in order to check for plagiarism in their article or publication.

Prices range from $5 for 20 pages upwards to customized prices.

Reports are well-detailed and users can also use the exclude reference and citation features to exempt detected citations and references from the plagiarism test.

Pros of Unicheck

  • Easy to use
  • Large database
  • Individual usage
  • Trial available
  • Multiple file types

Cons of Unicheck

  • Plagiarism check can sometimes take long

Scribbr plagiarism checker – Turnitin alternative for teachers and students

Price: Document size

Another popular plagiarism checker is Scribbr. Like most premium plagiarism checkers, Scribbr cross-checks an article to identify identical sentences including synonyms in these sentences.

Through their partnership with Turnitin, Scribbr can bring you some of the most accurate plagiarism reports on the market.

As a result, plagiarism tests from Scribbr may end up being quite similar to plagiarism test results from Turnitin.

Scribbr’s access to Turnitin’s database is limited as they don’t have access to Turnitin’s global database with student papers.

This gives Turnitin an edge over Scribbr but Scribbr is more geared towards individual learners as opposed to Turnitin for institutions.

Unlike Grammarly which is subscription-based, Scribbr’s pricing structure is based on the word count of your document.

Pros of Scribbr

  • Multiple file types
  • Turnitin database

Cons of Scribbr

  • Trial unavailable
  • No access to Turnitin global database for student papers

Best Free Plagiarism Checkers For Teachers

There are many free plagiarism tools online that both teachers and students can use but most of these simply rely on Google indexed pages and some online books without their own databases.

These are less accurate compared to some of the premium ones but if you’re simply looking to check for comparison with online resources, these tools will get the job done for you.

We will list three of these free tools and test them against some online articles, books, and journals.

The three were selected after extensive research and trying out dozens of these free tools.

Most were unimpressive in many ways but these three produced some good results, although not without their own setbacks.

I would suggest that anyone looking for a free tool can leverage one of these based on their requirement.

If you’re presenting a large publication, I would recommend leveraging the paid tools instead.

Bear in mind that this is my personal opinion based on my experience using UniCheck plagiarism checker.

So, if anyone knows of some good alternatives that are not included in this article, please feel free to comment below and we’ll quickly review them.

Quetext – Free Plagiarism Checker For Teachers

If you’re looking for a free plagiarism checker, Quetext is one tool to consider. It’s easy to use enables users to check for plagiarism up to 1000 words per search.

I tested the platform out with some of the articles on this platform and it detected plagiarism easily.

We also tested it against one of our books on Amazon and it didn’t identify any plagiarism.

Unfortunately, it couldn’t identify any plagiarism in the content I copied from an online scholarly journal from my school.

The good thing about Quetext was that when some words in the article were replaced with synonyms, it still managed to flag them.

Pros of Quetext

  • Free to use
  • Easy to use
  • Google Indexed content detection
  • Identify synonym changes

Cons of Quetext

  • 1000 word limit per test
  • Didn’t flag journal

Duplichecker – Best Free Plagiarism Checker For Teachers

Another free plagiarism checker on our list is Duplichecker. After trying multiple free plagiarism checkers, I was hesitant to try this one.

Surprisingly, this platform surpassed my expectations and I would even rank it as the best free plagiarism checker.

Although not perfect, Duplichecker was also tested with the same article, book, journal and the result was quite shocking.

Unlike Quetext which only flagged plagiarism in our article, Duplichecker was able to flag plagiarism in the article, book, and journal.

The negative side of Duplichecker is that, unlike Quetext, it couldn’t flag plagiarism when some words were replaced with synonyms.

Additionally, the reports from Duplichecker always seemed to show far less than 100% plagiarism even when the content was essentially copied word for word.

Similar to Quetext, Duplichecker is free and also comes with a 1000 word limit per test.

Pros of Duplichecker

  • Free to use
  • Article, book, and journal plagiarism detection

Cons of Duplichecker

  • 1000 word limit per test
  • Not very accurate report

SmallSEOTools – Best free plagiarism checker for teachers

This plagiarism tool is very similar to Duplichecker in many ways. Our test using the same content we used for both Quetext and Duplichecker tests produced almost identical results to the Duplichecker test.

Like Duplichecker, it flagged all three submissions but also didn’t flag any instances of plagiarism when some words were replaced with their synonyms.

It is also completely free like the other two and comes with a similar 1000 word limit per test restriction.

Pros of SmallSEOTools

  • Free to use
  • Article, book, and journal plagiarism detection

Cons of SmallSEOTools

  • 1000 word limit per test

The Bottom Line

Plagiarism can have a huge impact on your profession and even lead to dismissal in most fields particularly the education and journalism fields.

Based on your requirement and possibly recommendation from your institution, users can leverage either paid or free tools.

If your student looking to present an assignment, using a free tool may be okay but in the case of a project, it would be better to pay for one of these premium tools.

Teachers looking to publish articles or journals can leverage either paid or free tools based on recommendations from your institution.

Lately, most educational institutions, use some form of plagiarism tool and usually recommend these for their instructors and students.

If your institution doesn’t have one yet, I would recommend any of the listed paid tools. My institution uses Unicheck and it has been a great asset.

Akshay Vikhe

I am an aspiring Data Scientist with a huge interest in technology. I like to review courses that are genuine and add real value to student’s careers. Read my story

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