The Best Methods for Detecting Plagiarism and AI in Text

Credits: Ivan Samkov

Whether you’re a student or a writer, recent technological updates have affected your routine. You’ve heard plagiarism definitions before and dealt with this phenomenon directly, but AI advancements have brought the question “what is plagiarism?” to another level. Is plagiarism illegal? Should you spend your time on plagiarism detection tools? Yes, presenting others’ ideas as your own is prohibited. And yes, you would benefit from a reliable plagiarism software even if you’re the most honest person in the world. Everything is possible nowadays, and accidental plagiarism is not an exception! 

From Grammarly to alternatives

It’s not an exaggeration that Grammarly has already assisted generations of writers. This software reviews the spelling and grammar and provides recommendations on engagement and style improvement. It also indicates plagiarism and recognizes robotic tone, which makes it indispensable for academic and creative writing. Nevertheless, Grammarly plagiarism functions may be insufficient for users with various backgrounds. Let’s examine several reasons for exploring Grammarly alternatives: 

• Multifunctionality is a benefit and a drawback simultaneously. Tools that can do anything save your time and effort, but create an overwhelming workspace. You may want several services with more specific functions, like PlagiarismCheck.org, which specializes particularly in indicating plagiarism and AI content detection.
• While Grammarly is perfect for writers, educators, and students, you may look for other key features. For instance, some machines can recognize if other machines function as AI text humanizers.
• Although Grammarly supports variations of English, its capacity is still limited to English only. 
• Finally, free Grammarly functions have limitations that may affect its capacity as an AI plagiarism checker.

You can use only Grammarly and still solve your plagiarism issues. Nevertheless, desperate times call for desperate measures, and the AI revolution requires you to become even more resourceful and open to innovation. 

Several more reasons to care

1. Accidental plagiarism shouldn’t affect your conscience by making you feel guilty. After all, it’s not like you’re cheating to cheat. You don’t even have an intention to cheat, but no one is safe from repeating someone’s ideas by chance. It’s not a problem if you’re writing in your diary, but the academic setting is more demanding and strict. 
2. Accusations of plagiarism bring lower grades and may even require you to rewrite your paper. They shatter trust and endanger core principles of academic integrity. Although this is an abstract concept, it makes studying worth your time and effort.
3. Humans may struggle to detect AI-generated content, which makes relying on such writing even more unethical. Professors don’t compose tasks to test and boost machines’ creativity. Moreover, such technologies can’t be creative by definition. Fantasy writers often depict an ideal future free from repetitive tasks and boring chores. In such a world, we can focus on what matters, and this is not passing ideas generated by AI. 

Of course, we don’t need to give up on AI completely. As long as we don’t stand on the threshold of a machine uprising, it can serve to boost human creativity and support academic integrity, not ruin it. For example, Chat GPT is a perfect tool for addressing your fear of a blank page. Everyone sometimes stares in space for hours without the slightest idea where to start. As a valuable brainstorming tool, AI can assist you with composing an outline and selecting ideas. Even if it won’t offer something worthy, you may realize what you want in the process.

Although fighting fire with fire is not a universal scheme, it works perfectly to solve original content issues. The best plagiarism checkers are AI-powered. While AI generators constantly learn to act more humanely, AI content checkers improve to recognize such tricks and don’t let them pass. Humans who deal with generated content also recognize AI patterns and can’t be tricked. However, what should educators do when they need to check forty papers a day? In some scenarios, the price for relying only on your strength is mental and physical health. 

So, how do we detect AI-generated content?

You can start your own rating of AI detectors by simply googling or relying on already completed comparisons. For instance, Anangsha Alammyan reviews several tools by describing their key features, ease of use, pricing, free trial availability, and targeted audience. 

AI Detector recognizes generated content in text and images and offers to fix the robotic tone. A user-friendly interface makes it suitable for beginners. However, it has no free trial and costs $20 per month. Perfectly fits content creators and publishers who process large amounts of information.

Winston AI also works with text and images and offers direct Chrome integrations. You can test this AI detector on a free trial and decide if you want to subscribe for $12 per month. This service presents itself as suitable for SEO, writers, and academic contexts. 

Monica AI is about multifunctionality since it is an AI assistant, AI detector, humanizer, and translator. It can also generate pictures and videos. Although it doesn’t always follow the prompt precisely, this tool is perfect for multilingual users.

Undetectable AI is a detector, humanizer, translator, and SEO writer. Remarkably, it is designed to assist you with job applications. The tool is perfect for discovering problematic areas and making them appear human-like. 

GPTZero has already made a name as a strict and precise AI detector. You can upload several sentences, a paragraph, or even a document, and check the probability of the text being AI-generated. The tool is perfect for educators and hiring managers. Nevertheless, be careful: sometimes, it claims a completely original text as AI. 

Wrapping up

Leaving a comfort zone is always stressful, and that’s why we may stick to tools that no longer fulfill our needs. However, our objectives change over time, and the best you can do is to be attentive to yourself. Experiment a little with various AI detectors and choose the one that ultimately boosts your productivity. As long as AI learns every day, you can’t afford to stay in one place and follow the old ways.