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Navigating Issues of Plagiarism as a Web Publisher

Learn about navigating plagiarism issues as a web publisher — discover common plagiarism issues, then find out if plagiarism and copyright infringement are the same.

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Trusted By Industry Leaders

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.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. Don’t use it in place of legal advice. If you have concerns about plagiarism and copyright infringement it’s best to speak to a lawyer.

As a web publisher, navigating potential plagiarism is an important part of the job. With potential risks to brand reputations and the possibility of legal action, copying someone else’s work and presenting it as your own has consequences.

But knowing what is and isn’t plagiarism can be tricky.

Many people think that if they just avoid copying text word-for-word, they won’t have to worry about plagiarism. Sure, they’ll be avoiding direct plagiarism, which is one of the more obvious types of plagiarism. However, there are other examples of plagiarism that require a different approach.

Learn about navigating plagiarism issues as a web publisher, why it’s important to avoid plagiarism, common plagiarism issues, and how to prevent them.

Why Is It Important to Avoid Plagiarism on Your Website?

It might just take a minute or two to plagiarize, but publishing plagiarized content can have serious consequences for both your website and brand.

Legal issues

Plagiarism is often considered more of an ethical issue than a legal one. However, it is related to copyright infringement, which is against the law. So, if you infringe on someone’s copyright by copying or reproducing their content (without prior permission and citations), it could result in a lawsuit.

Search engine penalties

They may not have a specific “duplicate content penalty,” but Google and other search engines can still penalize your website if you violate their policies. In Google’s case, for example, some types of plagiarism may go against their spam policies, especially when it comes to scraped content. Google could lower rankings impacting your site’s traffic.

Reputational damage

It can take weeks, months, or even years to build up a loyal following for your brand, and plagiarism can tarnish it in no time, damaging trust, and reputation. Even one plagiarism incident can result in the loss of subscribers and customers. 

Common Plagiarism Issues for Web Publishers and How to Deal with Them

To avoid potential legal consequences, search engine penalties, and reputational damage, identifying and navigating common plagiarism issues is key.

So, let’s review the different types of plagiarism and how to avoid them.

Direct plagiarism

Direct or verbatim plagiarism is word-for-word copying someone else's work without credit. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a few sentences or a few pages — it’s plagiarism.

The best way to avoid direct plagiarism is to credit the original author and use quotation marks or italics (depending on the citation style guide) when including a direct quote. If you’re unsure if you’ve plagiarized or you’re reviewing other writers’ work, then a plagiarism checker is an asset. 

Plagiarism detectors highlight any potentially plagiarized text and provide the matching URLs so you can check the content. Plus, a good plagiarism detector will be able to find more than just direct plagiarism — it can identify more subtle forms too.

Mosaic plagiarism

Mosaic or patchwork plagiarism occurs when someone takes ideas or sentences from sources and changes them up a bit. You throw in a synonym here, change up the sentence structure there, and put it all together to make it look like an original work.

As you can imagine, mosaic plagiarism is a little harder to detect than the direct kind. Your best bet is to use a plagiarism checker that can detect patchwork plagiarism, but you may also be able to spot it with a keen eye. If you find that certain sections or sentences of a piece seem out of place, for example, then double-check their origin.

Self-plagiarism

Yes, it’s possible to plagiarize yourself. While this may seem harmless initially, self-plagiarism can still lead to serious problems.

For example, let’s say you’re writing similar content for two different clients. If you use the same words and ideas to describe a concept in each article, then you’re not creating unique content for each client. If you are writing about past work you’ve published, it’s best practice to cite your previous work.

Preventing self-plagiarism can be tricky, but there are a few things that you can try. One of the best ways is to use a text compare tool on similar documents to figure out where they’re too similar. Then, you can paraphrase or switch up your language and sentence structure so it sounds more unique.

Accidental plagiarism

Finally, accidental plagiarism is just what it sounds like — when you copy someone else’s original work or style by mistake. This is becoming more common with the rising popularity of generative AI writing tools.

While these tools aren’t technically designed to plagiarize content, it’s possible that ChatGPT or other large language models (LLM) may generate content that sounds eerily similar to an author’s original work. So, it’s a good idea to use an AI checker if you use or suspect someone else is creating AI-generated content.

An AI checker highlights areas that are likely written by AI, so you can review them and confirm they haven’t been copied from other sources. Whether you choose to verify those sources with a plagiarism checker or manually is up to you, but it provides a great starting point.

Are Plagiarism and Copyright Infringement the Same Thing?

With so many different types of plagiarism, especially subtle ones, you may be worried about the potential legal consequences of publishing plagiarized content. What if you don’t catch plagiarized text before publication? Does plagiarism automatically equal copyright infringement? 

For context, as soon as someone creates an original work and fixes it in a blog post, article, eBook, etc., they automatically own the copyright in the United States. 

Unlike other types of intellectual property, there is no formal registration process to obtain the copyright to your work (though registration has its benefits). So, since someone holds the copyright, you could be infringing on their rights by plagiarizing it.

However, plagiarism and copyright infringement aren’t the same thing. Only certain forms of plagiarism can lead to copyright infringement. For instance, if you copy an entire blog post and distribute it without permission, it could be considered copyright infringement. 

If you have questions regarding plagiarism and copyright infringement speak to a lawyer for legal advice.

Final Thoughts

Navigating plagiarism issues as a web publisher can be challenging, but it’s key to protecting your reputation, ranking well on search engines, and, perhaps most importantly, avoiding legal issues. Fortunately, you don’t have to do it alone.

With Originality.ai’s suite of tools, including our AI content detector, text compare tool, and plagiarism checker, you can help identify potential AI and human-generated plagiarism to avoid plagiarism issues.

Jess Sawyer

Jess Sawyer is a seasoned writer and content marketing expert with a passion for crafting engaging and SEO-optimized content. With several years of experience in the digital marketing, Jess has honed her skills in creating content that not only captivates audiences but also ranks high on search engine results.

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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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.

Software License Agreement

Copyright © 2023, Originality.ai

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Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

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THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

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