It was never a mystery that teachers get so many papers to check before a specific deadline that they’re often ready to drop everything and fall asleep at the end of the day. Irritation and stress from such tasks are like poison that makes instructors lose energy and harms their nerves.
Since the current pandemic has made the workload even heavier, many instructors have felt how awful it is to use an unreliable plagiarism checker. Many institutions still rely on Turnitin, but the professionals who must check dozens of essays on a daily basis know that this expensive service can be way too slow.
Although it’s nearly impossible to find a Turnitin alternative free, there are cheaper and more reliable options. In this article, we’ll look at the reasons why Turnitin is so popular, and then we’ll examine several replacement options to choose the one that can truly increase your efficiency.
Disclaimer: this is a sponsored post by PlagiarismCheck.org
Turnitin Pros and Cons
There are the people who claim that there’s no use trying if you can’t find a free plagiarism checker like Turnitin. Experienced instructors might believe this service is indispensable because it has been a huge success. Still, let’s take a look at the actual pros and cons of Turnitin.
Pros
Turnitin is the biggest and the oldest anti-plagiarism tool currently available. This is certainly a huge factor when it comes to popularity. Many instructors and administrators prefer a time-tested solution over something new and unknown.
This is the only service that can access the libraries like Elsevier/Scopus and Springer & Nature. In other words, Turnitin uses CrossRef databases indexed by IThenticate, which also belongs to this company.
That’s quite an advantage since copied materials often come from peer-reviewed articles. The possibility to find the copied text and its exact source is worth a lot for many HigherEd teachers because their students use various and complex sources, unlike the high-school learners.
The popularity of Turnitin also comes from acquiring competitors like Ephorus, VeriCite, Unicheck, and Ouriginal (that’s the name for Urkund and PlagScan too). When you own so many different brands, you can surely attract more customers.
That’s a smart corporate strategy, although it means that users don’t get too many other plagiarism check services to choose from.
Cons
The high price can irritate even the most profitable institutions. The pandemic has imposed massive economic challenges on all organizations, and higher education isn’t an exception. Consider additional payments or trainings, and you’ll understand that it’s an excellent idea to look for a quality Turnitin alternative.
Low flexibility is another major disadvantage. If you’ve ever needed to add more learners in the middle of the school year, you know what this is about.
Not to mention that you’ll have to spend several hours teaching your students to write without plagiarism, and the program won’t offer too much help with that.
Obsolete design isn’t just bad-looking, it’s inconvenient. It takes longer to use Turnitin because the service is behind in terms of interface understandability. As most instructors know, this means that their work will be very tiresome, which is terrible for everyone involved.
The Turnitin support can get too slow when you need it most. The Internet is full of guides on how to resolve various issues with Turnitin, but that’s still not enough to cover all possible problems.
Many people say that the customer support of this service needs improvement because you might spend more time waiting than actually using the site.
Related: What is plagiarism and how to avoid it? 10 Great video tutorials for students
Plagiarism Checkers Similar to Turnitin
If you’re already on the quest to find a plagiarism checker like Turnitin, there are several popular alternatives to choose from. Let’s see what each of them offers before assessing which one is the best.
A. PlagiarismCheck.org
PlagiarismCheck.org is an advanced plagiarism detection service designed to identify not only exact matches but also manipulated content like paraphrasing and stylistic changes, making it a robust tool for uncovering masked cheating. Unlike other services, it does not distract with trivial matches but focuses on meaningful semantic similarities and prevents cheating techniques such as the insertion of special symbols.
The service checks against extensive databases, including institutional repositories, ensuring comprehensive peer-to-peer and internet scrutiny. With features like a Google Docs add-on, it helps reduce student anxiety over accidental plagiarism and improves essay quality. Offering considerable cost advantages over competitors like Turnitin, flexible subscription plans, and enhanced features such as success dashboards, PlagiarismCheck.org is an effective, fast, and affordable solution for educators aiming to maintain academic integrity and support genuine learning.
B. Grammarly
Everyone has heard of Grammarly. This service is famous for fixing grammatical errors, typos, and stylistic mishaps, but it can also scan texts for plagiarism. This 2-in-1 solution seems pretty nice, especially knowing that it has access to the ProQuest databases.
Nevertheless, it’s not much of a tool that would suit teachers and their institutions. First and foremost, checking for plagiarism isn’t a priority for Grammarly, which means that teachers will see the mistakes of their students better, but they’ll still need to double check the originality of every essay.
This process can definitely take a lot of time without optimizing anything. Hence, all you get from this alternative is unreliable plagiarism detection at a steep price.
C. Copyleaks
Copyleaks is the second plagiarism checker similar to Turnitin that caught our attention. This service offers to detect plagiarism and paraphrased content in more than 100 languages, which is definitely a plus.
There are 3 types of similarity in the reports you can get from this site: identical, minor changes in the text, and related meaning.
The website claims to have advanced machine learning technologies, however, Copyleaks “keeps” your texts after checking them. You can change this parameter in the settings, but that’s the standard option.
Moreover, there’s an AI grading tool embedded in this system, but not many experienced teachers would be ready to use it. After all, no machine can evaluate like humans do, considering all the factors in the rubric and beyond, giving every student personalized feedback.
Final thoughts
In conclusion, while Turnitin has long been the gold standard in plagiarism detection, the quest for a more cost-effective and flexible solution is becoming increasingly important, especially under the financial strains and the elevated demands of remote education during the pandemic. PlagiarismCheck.org, Grammarly, and Copyleaks present themselves as capable alternatives, each with unique strengths. PlagiarismCheck.org stands out with its comprehensive detection capabilities and educator-focused features, offering a significant advantage in affordability and functionality.
