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Plagiarism

How to Properly Cite Sources and Avoid Plagiarism

With the advent of the internet, social media and artificial intelligence, now more than ever, information is always at hand, whenever and wherever we need it. At the same time, instances of plagiarism have grown exponentially. All of these ease of access also makes it easy to forget to credit the original creator. 

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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.

With the advent of the internet, social media and artificial intelligence, now more than ever, information is always at hand, whenever and wherever we need it. At the same time, instances of plagiarism have grown exponentially. All of these ease of access also makes it easy to forget to credit the original creator. 

Plagiarism, at its core, is using someone else’s words or ideas without giving them proper credit. But it’s not something you just have to worry about if you’re a student writing an essay. Professional content creators need to worry about plagiarism too, which is where this article can help. Let’s take a closer look at how to properly cite sources and avoid plagiarizing others’ content, either intentionally or unintentionally. 

More than One Kind of Plagiarism

You may not know it, but there’s more than one kind of plagiarism. Imagine you copied and pasted an author’s text directly from their website and passed it off as your own, without changing any of the wording. That would be considered direct plagiarism. It’s the easiest to detect but also the easiest to circumvent. 

Where many students and professionals alike find themselves in trouble is through types of plagiarism like mosaic plagiarism, which involves borrowing phrases from another source without using quotations or citing them, or outright forgetting to cite a source (or misquoting them). You can even plagiarize yourself through “self plagiarism”, where you use your previous work in a new project without divulging that you’ve done so.

With all of these points in mind, it’s easy to get confused. Fortunately, there are a wide range of tools and strategies you can use to help you avoid plagiarism. 

How to Properly Cite Sources

Follow these steps to cite your sources correctly and fully: 

  1. Determine the Preferred Citation Style - There are several different types of citation styles including MLA, APA, Chicago and Harvard. Even within academic institutions, different majors will have different preferences. For example, some English and language arts courses prefer MLA while APA is preferred in the sciences. Your university or publisher will provide you with guidelines as to the style of citations they want to see.

  2. Keep Track of Your Sources - As a writer or content creator, it’s up to you to keep a record of your sources. That means every book, website or other source you consult and opt to use, make a note of it. It will be far easier to create your works cited page or references if you have all of that information on hand.

  3. Quote the Source Exactly - When using someone else’s words or sharing their idea, put their quote word for word incite quotation marks and cite them according to the style guide you’re using.

  4. Putting it into Your Own Words - When you take someone else’s idea and rephrase it in your own words, it’s important to do so with care. Don’t just change a word here or there. Even if you’re paraphrasing what someone else wrote, you still need to cite them as a source. 

If you’re worried about having too many citations, don’t be. It’s better to cite too much than not enough! 

Cite it Right

Be thankful that in the digital age, you no longer have to leave through countless pages of a style guide to find the reference style that most closely aligns with the source you’re trying to share. As someone who went to university around the time of the dot-com boom, I can remember vividly having to specify which “Internet format” was used to access the source, such as WWW, Usenet or Gopher. Gopher!

Thankfully times have changed and technology has vastly improved. There are even online tools to help you format your references correctly. Zotero.com pulls from over 10,000 different citation styles to organize and save information from a variety of sources all in one place. You can even co-author papers and work together on the bibliography.

Zotero Personal Research Assistant
Zotero makes it easy to organize and cite your references to avoid plagiarism

The tool also works with Google Docs, Microsoft Word and LibreOffice, letting you use your favorite word processing program and extract your cited works directly into your software for easy formatting and reference. It’s free to use as well, making it great for students and professional content creators alike. Zotero is available for Windows, macOS and Linux operating systems. 

If you don’t need a full blown reference management program and instead want a program that generates citations for you, check out EasyBib or CiteThisForMe.com. You can create a variety of different citations according to your preferred style and ensure that they’re all formatted correctly and effortlessly. 

If you simply want to detect plagiarism in an existing work or avoid instances of unintentional plagiarism or you want to see if a writer or content creator has potentially used AI to write their paper for them, simply upload or copy and paste the text directly into Originality.AI. 

With Originality.AI, you have the option of choosing either a plagiarism scan, an AI detection scan, or both. You can purchase credits for a one-off scan (checking a paper or two) or you can subscribe to monthly scans for ongoing scans, making it an excellent investment for website owners who work with a roster of writers. 

Best Practices to Help You Avoid Plagiarism

Be Meticulous in Your Organization - A scattered desk full of sticky notes is not meticulous organization. Have a centralized hub to organize the sources you pull from and update it frequently as you consider other ideas, studies or sources. 

Watch Out for Common Knowledge Pitfalls - If a fact or idea is widely known, or if you’re  quoting a commonly-known idiom or saying, you don’t necessarily need to cite it. If you’re not sure, go ahead and cite it anyway. Better safe than sorry! 

Review Your Work Thoroughly - Once you’ve finished writing, go through your work and read it thoroughly. Get another set of eyes or two on it as well, as it’s entirely possible that by reading and re-reading it so much, you’ll start to overlook things that a fresh reader wouldn’t

With so many sources of innovative ideas, great sayings and incredible findings all around us, it should be easy and commonplace for us to give credit where credit is due. Unfortunately, with that ease of access also comes the ease of taking other people’s ideas and concepts and rebranding them as our own. By understanding how to properly cite sources, you’ll not only be protecting your integrity as a writer, but you’ll also be taking steps to avoid any professional (or academic) repercussions that can take place if you do plagiarize unintentionally. 

Now that you know what steps to take, the only step left is for you to go out there and share your own knowledge with confidence, being sure to acknowledge all of the others who have helped you bring your own ideas to light.

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

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In The Press

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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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.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why is it important to check for plagiarism?

Tools for conducting a plagiarism check between two documents online are important as it helps to ensure the originality and authenticity of written work. Plagiarism undermines the value of professional and educational institutions, as well as the integrity of the authors who write articles. By checking for plagiarism, you can ensure the work that you produce is original or properly attributed to the original author. This helps prevent the distribution of copied and misrepresented information.

What is Text Comparison?

Text comparison is the process of taking two or more pieces of text and comparing them to see if there are any similarities, differences and/or plagiarism. The objective of a text comparison is to see if one of the texts has been copied or paraphrased from another text. This text compare tool for plagiarism check between two documents has been built to help you streamline that process by finding the discrepancies with ease.

How do Text Comparison Tools Work?

Text comparison tools work by analyzing and comparing the contents of two or more text documents to find similarities and differences between them. This is typically done by breaking the texts down into smaller units such as sentences or phrases, and then calculating a similarity score based on the number of identical or nearly identical units. The comparison may be based on the exact wording of the text, or it may take into account synonyms and other variations in language. The results of the comparison are usually presented in the form of a report or visual representation, highlighting the similarities and differences between the texts.

String comparison is a fundamental operation in text comparison tools that involves comparing two sequences of characters to determine if they are identical or not. This comparison can be done at the character level or at a higher level, such as the word or sentence level.

The most basic form of string comparison is the equality test, where the two strings are compared character by character and a Boolean result indicating whether they are equal or not is returned. More sophisticated string comparison algorithms use heuristics and statistical models to determine the similarity between two strings, even if they are not exactly the same. These algorithms often use techniques such as edit distance, which measures the minimum number of operations (such as insertions, deletions, and substitutions) required to transform one string into another.

Another common technique for string comparison is n-gram analysis, where the strings are divided into overlapping sequences of characters (n-grams) and the frequency of each n-gram is compared between the two strings. This allows for a more nuanced comparison that takes into account partial similarities, rather than just exact matches.

String comparison is a crucial component of text comparison tools, as it forms the basis for determining the similarities and differences between texts. The results of the string comparison can then be used to generate a report or visual representation of the similarities and differences between the texts.

What is Syntax Highlighting?

Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors and integrated development environments (IDEs) that helps to visually distinguish different elements of a code or markup language. It does this by coloring different elements of the code, such as keywords, variables, functions, and operators, based on a predefined set of rules.

The purpose of syntax highlighting is to make the code easier to read and understand, by drawing attention to the different elements and their structure. For example, keywords may be colored in a different hue to emphasize their importance, while comments or strings may be colored differently to distinguish them from the code itself. This helps to make the code more readable, reducing the cognitive load of the reader and making it easier to identify potential syntax errors.

How Can I Conduct a Plagiarism Check between Two Documents Online?

With our tool it’s easy, just enter or upload some text, click on the button “Compare text” and the tool will automatically display the diff between the two texts.

What Are the Benefits of Using a Text Compare Tool?

Using text comparison tools is much easier, more efficient, and more reliable than proofreading a piece of text by hand. Eliminate the risk of human error by using a tool to detect and display the text difference within seconds.

What Files Can You Inspect with This Text Compare Tool?

We have support for the file extensions .pdf, .docx, .odt, .doc and .txt. You can also enter your text or copy and paste text to compare.

Will My Data Be Shared?

There is never any data saved by the tool, when you hit “Upload” we are just scanning the text and pasting it into our text area so with our text compare tool, no data ever enters our servers.

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