When it comes to improving the academic outcomes of students, there are several strategies you can use. Perhaps one of the most popular is the use of plagiarism checker-free tools such as Turnitin.
After all, what makes more sense is implementing a system that helps students learn how to avoid the problems that lead to plagiarism in the first place.
Can you Use Turnitin for Free?
Yes, you can use the Turnitin free plagiarism checker. Besides, you can use the world’s best tool for checking plagiarism at no charge as long as your students register with a valid email address.
If your institution offers Turnitin Premium, then you are entitled to one year of free access. In addition, you are allowed up to 10 users. After this time you can purchase a license for continued free access.
Tips on how to use Turnitin well
Turnitin is the industry standard in plagiarism detection. It is a reliable tool that universities, schools, and businesses around the world use.
Here are ten tips on how to use Turnitin:
- Make sure you understand what Turnitin (and plagiarism) is
- Understand the limitations of using Turnitin
- Know how to get started using Turnitin effectively
- Use Turnitin to improve your writing skills
- Get familiar with your options for using Turnitin
- Use Turnitin for feedback on your students’ writing assignments
- Use Turnitin to learn from other people’s work (aka teach yourself)
- Get help with using Turnitin – it’s not hard!
- Find out more about upgrading to the premium version of Turnitin
- Make sure you’re compliant with your institution’s policies
Hacks How to use Turnitin Plagiarism Checker Free
There are several ways that you can use Turnitin to your advantage, as listed below:
1. Check for Plagiarism
The main purpose of Turnitin is to check for plagiarism. The scanner does this by scanning the contents of an essay and comparing it against its database of over 10 million sources.
If there are any matches, then the essay will be flagged. As a teacher, you can decide whether or not to contact the student about it.
This function is very useful in helping students understand what plagiarism is and why it’s a problem.
2. Monitor Students’ Progress
Sometimes, teachers do not want their students using Turnitin because they feel like it will take away from their own ability to grade writing assignments.
However, you can use Turnitin as a tool for monitoring your student’s progress and determining their credibility.
Limitations of Turnitin’s Free Plan
1. Types of documents you can Submit
The Turnitin free plagiarism checker is limited to analyzing documents that are between 800 and 2500 words in length. This means that if your paper is longer than this, then you will need to pay for a paid plan to use the service.
If your paper is under 800 words, then you will have to use the free plagiarism checker.
Turnitin’s free plagiarism checker only works with Microsoft Word documents and PDFs. If your essay has any other type of file (such as a .docx file from OpenOffice), then it cannot be compatible with the Turnitin tool.
This might sound limiting, but fortunately, most students are using Microsoft Word for their coursework and essays.
2. Length of time that Turnitin will keep your work
If you use Turnitin’s free plagiarism checker, then your essay will be kept online for 14 days after it has been submitted for analysis.
After 14 days have passed, Turnitin will delete your work from its servers without your input.
Free Student-friendly Alternatives to Turnitin
1. Unicheck
Unicheck is a free plagiarism detection service for students and professionals. It provides originality reports for written documents of any kind. Processing of documents is by qualified experts in the language, who will then provide you with an originality report.
UniCheck is the most accurate plagiarism detection software that helps students detect and overcome the problem of plagiarism when writing papers, submitting assignments and preparing reports.
2. Unplag
Unplag is a free plagiarism checker. A service that allows you to run a text through their system to see if it matches any of over 10 billion web pages, PDFs and even source code in their database.
When you submit your text, the Unplag team will run it through the system and get back to you with the results. If they find no match, you will receive a clean report.
3. Text Secure
Text Secure is a free online plagiarism checker. The tool allows you to paste the text into the box on their website.
Then, you compare it with other websites and documents that have already been checked by their plagiarism detection software.
4. Grammarly
Grammarly’s plagiarism checker is a free tool that helps you detect and fix plagiarized text. It provides recommendations for improvement and allows you to compare it to millions of pages on the Internet.
To use Grammarly, you will need to sign up for an account and download the extension for your browser of choice. Grammarly works in most popular browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Edge.
If you use Google Chrome as your default browser, you’ll see a Grammarly toolbar button when you visit a site that’s compatible with Grammarly.
5. PlagTracker
PlagTracker is a free plagiarism checker. It compiles plagiarism reports and lets you download them in various formats. If you’re not sure whether a piece of writing is plagiarized or not, this service will help you figure it out.
PlagTracker has a bonus – besides detecting plagiarism, the service also keeps track of your statistics for each project that you submit.
This way, you can keep track of your progress and see what percentage of your work is original.
6. Word Counter
Word Counter is a highly effective and efficient plagiarism checker that will help you to detect and remove plagiarized content in your paper.
It ensures that there are no instances of plagiarism or duplicate phrases in your work.
Paid Alternatives for Turnitin
1. iThenticate
It is the most popular alternative to Turnitin. iThenticate offers quick and easy access to plagiarism reports for your paper.
It searches through a large number of resources for duplicated content, making it one of the best tools available for finding plagiarized material.
You can use it to check your essay, term paper, dissertation, or any other writing piece before submitting it to the professor or lecturer.
Also, you can use it from any device or computer with Internet access, which means that your students can use it as well.
The downside is that there is no free version available—the lowest price available is $8 per document.
2. SafeAssign
SafeAssign is a plagiarism detection tool that helps students and educators identify similarities between student papers.
The application provides an analysis of the paper to give users a grade and a percentage of similarity, which is determined by the number of matching words, phrases, or paragraphs.
Here are some tips on how to get the most out of SafeAssign:
- Check with your professor first – Professors may have specific instructions regarding whether or not they want you to use the SafeAssign database when writing your essay or report.
- Some professors may not allow it at all, so it is important to ask before you begin writing anything to avoid any potential issues later on.
- Check your sources – You might want to cite something from one of the databases available through SafeAssign in a paper that you are going to turn in for school.
