Can You Plagiarize Yourself? – Originality.AI
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Plagiarism

Can You Plagiarize Yourself?

As someone who writes a lot of marketing content on a daily basis, I’ll inadvertently find myself referencing statistics or research from other places from time to time, and come across a really good piece of information, only to find out that it was something I wrote years ago. And it’s not that I have

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Introduction

Our text compare tool is a fantastic, lightweight tool that provides plagiarism checks between two documents. Whether you are a student, blogger or publisher, this tool offers a great solution to detect and compare similarities between any two pieces of text. In this article, I will discuss the different ways to use the tool, the primary features of the tool and who this tool is for. There is an FAQ at the bottom if you run into any issues when trying to use the tool.

What makes Originality.ai’s text comparison tool stand out?

Keyword density helper – This tool comes with a built-in keyword density helper in some ways similar to the likes of SurferSEO or MarketMuse the difference being, ours is free! This feature shows the user the frequency of single or two word keywords in a document, meaning you can easily compare an article you have written against a competitor to see the major differences in keyword densities. This is especially useful for SEO’s who are looking to optimize their blog content for search engines and improve the blog’s visibility.

Ways to compare

File compare – Text comparison between files is a breeze with our tool. Simply select the files you would like to compare, hit “Upload” and our tool will automatically insert the content into the text area, then simply hit “Compare” and let our tool show you where the differences in the text are. By uploading a file, you can still check the keyword density in your content.

URL compare

Comparing text between URLs is effortless with our tool. Simply paste the URL you would like to get the content from (in our example we use a fantastic blog post by Sherice Jacob found here) hit “Submit URL” and our tool will automatically retrieve the contents of the page and paste it into the text area, then simply click “Compare” and let our tool highlight the difference between the URLs. This feature is especially useful for checking keyword density between pages!

Simple text compare

You can also easily compare text by copying and pasting it into each field, as demonstrated below.

Features of Originality.ai’s Text Compare Tool

Ease of use

Our text compare tool is created with the user in mind, it is designed to be accessible to everyone. Our tool allows users to upload files or enter a URL to extract text, this along with the lightweight design ensures a seamless experience. The interface is simple and straightforward, making it easy for users to compare text and detect the diff.

Multiple text file format support

Our tool provides support for a variety of different text files and microsoft word formats including pdf file, .docx, .odt, .doc, and .txt, giving users the ability to compare text from different sources with ease. This makes it a great solution for students, bloggers, and publishers who are looking for file comparison in different formats.

Protects intellectual property

Our text comparison tool helps you protect your intellectual property and helps prevent plagiarism. This tool provides an accurate comparison of texts, making it easy to ensure that your work is original and not copied from other sources. Our tool is a valuable resource for anyone looking to maintain the originality of their content.

User Data Privacy

Our text compare tool is secure and protects user data privacy. No data is ever saved to the tool, the users’ text is only scanned and pasted into the tool’s text area. This makes certain that users can use our tool with confidence, knowing their data is safe and secure.

Compatibility

Our text comparison tool is designed to work seamlessly across all size devices, ensuring maximum compatibility no matter your screen size. Whether you are using a large desktop monitor, a small laptop, a tablet or a smartphone, this tool adjusts to your screen size. This means that users can compare texts and detect the diff anywhere without the need for specialized hardware or software. This level of accessibility makes it an ideal solution for students or bloggers who value the originality of their work and need to compare text online anywhere at any time.

As someone who writes a lot of marketing content on a daily basis, I’ll inadvertently find myself referencing statistics or research from other places from time to time, and come across a really good piece of information, only to find out that it was something I wrote years ago.

And it’s not that I have an over-inflated opinion of myself or my writing, it was just a really good insight at the time and before I even knew who the author was, I said to myself, “I’m going to reference this” only to be amused at reading my own byline.

But it sounds crazy, right? Can you really plagiarize yourself?

If you wrote the original work and you’re the author, it’s easy to think that you can use (or reuse) your work in lots of different ways again and again. But as it turns out, you really can plagiarize yourself. Let’s take a closer look at what exactly self-plagiarism is, what it involves, and how to avoid it

What is Self-Plagiarism?

As writers and content creators, we all feel the pressure to write consistently good, engaging, and informative content all the time. And if you specialize in a particular niche like healthcare or SaaS, you can find yourself doing a lot of research to uncover interesting statistics, presentations, interviews, and much more. Why reinvent the wheel? You might be asking. If you can pull from something you wrote previously and use that as a springboard for your other content, isn’t it yours to do with as you, please?

In this case, pulling from your own previously-written content (whether you actually use the text you wrote previously or you simply grab certain numbers or other details as references) is still considered self-plagiarism. There’s a lot of debate between writers, content creators, and agencies over what actually constitutes self-plagiarism since you’re not technically borrowing someone else’s ideas or words.

However what’s technically passable and what’s ethically passable are two totally different things. Let’s tweak my scenario a little and consider the following situation:

A Question of Ethics

Let’s say that in writing for a SaaS, like Originality.AI, I reuse some of the content that I’ve created for their blog; maybe even from this article itself. In the strictest sense of the word, I’m borrowing from myself. However, this is a work made for hire, which means that I’ve written it exclusively for Originality.AI. If I took a part of it and tried to use it elsewhere without citing myself or linking back to Originality.AI, that content that I created for the other company wouldn’t be genuinely or exclusively theirs.

At the same time, I can definitely quote my previous writings and add a link back to reference the original thought, but from an ethical point of view, I shouldn’t (and wouldn’t) go grabbing entire paragraphs from here and passing them off as entirely new content for my other clients. Even if it’s not technically plagiarism, it’s still not doing any favors to my reputation as a writer nor does it add value for my clients so I simply steer clear of it.

Examples of Self-Plagiarism

You may not be thinking of pulling entire paragraphs from previously written material, but that’s not the only thing that’s considered self-plagiarism. For example, if you write a generic piece of content and sell it to a content agency and then turn around and sell that same piece of content to a different agency, that’s plagiarizing yourself.

If you’ve done previous research for another client but then use that research for a current client without citing yourself or linking back to the source, that’s also considered self-plagiarism. Even if you just take your previously-written content and rephrase it a little so that it sounds unique, but you don’t add any new findings or ideas to it, it’s still plagiarism.

How to Avoid Self-Plagiarism

The best way to avoid plagiarizing yourself and your previous work? Cite yourself and your source. Consider your previous work: how long ago did you write it? If it was several years ago, the statistics or other details you’re referencing may be out of date and it might be time for a refresh.  You’re also (hopefully) more knowledgeable about the topic now than you were then. What things have changed and how can people be better prepared for what’s to come?

There’s a lot more that you can add to your previous writing to make it stronger, fresher, and better than ever without having to resort to plagiarizing yourself outright. If you’re stuck on ways to modernize or rephrase your content in a different way, you can even turn to AI for some suggestions. It’s great for helping writers get out of their own way when it comes to looking at a given subject from a new perspective and can inspire you to think of your topic from other points of view that you might not have considered before.

The Bottom Line: Can You Plagiarize Yourself?

It might sound complicated or even comical, but yes, you can plagiarize yourself, and in doing so, although it may save time, is doing a disservice to your client, the agency you’re working for, or your website buyer. You want your content to be authentic, interesting, engaging, and unique, and in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t take much longer to go that extra mile and make it happen. Resist the temptation to cut corners – your writing and your reputation will be much better for it as a result!  

The bottom line, no matter how you choose to approach referencing your own content, is to maintain originality above all: it’s what your clients trust you to provide, and it’s something that AI can’t compete with. No one else has your experiences or your expertise, and the more you can share that authentic viewpoint with the rest of your readers, the more your work will shine with Originality.

Sherice Jacob

Sherice Jacob is a seasoned copywriter and content professional fluent in English, Spanish, and Catalan, with over 25 years of experience crafting high-converting copy. Passionate about AI, she enjoys exploring the new innovations and possibilities it brings to the world of content creation.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to fill out the entire form?

No, that’s one of the benefits, only fill out the areas which you think will be relevant to the prompts you require.

Why is the English so poor for some prompts?

When making the tool we had to make each prompt as general as possible to be able to include every kind of input. Not to worry though ChatGPT is smart and will still understand the prompt.

In The Press

Originality.ai has been featured for its accurate ability to detect GPT-3, Chat GPT and GPT-4 generated content. See some of the coverage below…

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Featured by Leading Publications

Originality.ai did a fantastic job on all three prompts, precisely detecting them as AI-written. Additionally, after I checked with actual human-written textual content, it did determine it as 100% human-generated, which is important.

Vahan Petrosyan

searchenginejournal.com

I use this tool most frequently to check for AI content personally. My most frequent use-case is checking content submitted by freelance writers we work with for AI and plagiarism.

Tom Demers

searchengineland.com

After extensive research and testing, we determined Originality.ai to be the most accurate technology.

Rock Content Team

rockcontent.com

Jon Gillham, Founder of Originality.ai came up with a tool to detect whether the content is written by humans or AI tools. It’s built on such technology that can specifically detect content by ChatGPT-3 — by giving you a spam score of 0-100, with an accuracy of 94%.

Felix Rose-Collins

ranktracker.com

ChatGPT lacks empathy and originality. It’s also recognized as AI-generated content most of the time by plagiarism and AI detectors like Originality.ai

Ashley Stahl

forbes.com

Originality.ai Do give them a shot! 

Sri Krishna

venturebeat.com

For web publishers, Originality.ai will enable you to scan your content seamlessly, see who has checked it previously, and detect if an AI-powered tool was implored.

Industry Trends

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