It’s never been a mystery that teachers have so many papers to go through before a specific deadline that they’re often ready to drop everything and fall asleep at the end of the day. The irritation and stress of such tasks are like a poison that makes instructors lose energy and damage their nerves.
Since the current pandemic has further increased the workload, many instructors have felt how horrible it is to use an unreliable plagiarism checker. Many institutions still rely on Turnitin, but professionals who must review dozens of essays daily know that this expensive service can be too slow.
Although it’s almost impossible to find a free alternative to Turnitin, there are cheaper and more reliable options. In this article, we’ll look at the reasons why Turnitin is so popular, and then we’ll look at several replacement options to choose the one that can really increase your efficiency.
Turnitin Advantages and Disadvantages
There are people who say there’s no use trying if you can’t find a free plagiarism checker like Turnitin. Seasoned instructors may believe this service is indispensable because it has been such a success. Still, let’s take a look at the real advantages and disadvantages of Turnitin.
advantages
Turnitin is the oldest and largest anti-plagiarism tool available today. This is undoubtedly a very important factor when it comes to popularity. Many instructors and administrators prefer a proven solution over something new and unknown.
This is the only service that can access libraries like Elsevier/Scopus and Springer & Nature. In other words, Turnitin uses CrossRef databases indexed by IThenticate, which is also owned by this company.
That’s a big plus since copied materials often come from peer-reviewed articles. The ability to find the copied text and its exact source is valuable to many higher education teachers because their students use varied and complex fonts, unlike high school students.
Turnitin’s popularity also stems from the acquisition of competitors such as Ephorus, VeriCite, Unicheck, and Ouriginal (also called Urkund and PlagScan). When you own so many different brands, you can surely attract more customers.
That’s a smart corporate strategy, though it means users don’t have many other plagiarism checking services to choose from.
cons
The high price can irritate even the most profitable institutions. The pandemic has imposed enormous economic challenges on all organizations, and higher education is no exception. Consider additional payments or training, and you’ll understand that it’s a great idea to look for a quality Turnitin alternative.
Low flexibility is another big disadvantage. If you’ve ever needed to add more students in the middle of the school year, you know what it’s all about.
Not to mention, you’ll have to spend several hours teaching your students how to write without plagiarism, and the program won’t offer much help with that.
Outdated design is not just ugly, it’s inconvenient. Turnitin takes longer to use because the service is behind in terms of understanding the interface. As most instructors know, this means your job will be very tedious, which is terrible for everyone involved.
Turnitin support can become too slow when you need it most. The internet is full of guides on how to solve various problems with Turnitin, but that’s still not enough to cover all possible problems.
Many people say that the customer support for this service needs improvement because you may spend more time waiting than using the site.
3 Popular Turnitin Alternatives
If you’re already looking for a plagiarism checker like Turnitin, there are several popular alternatives to choose from. Let’s see what each of them offers before evaluating which is the best.
A. Grammar
Everyone has heard of Grammarly. This service is famous for correcting grammatical, typographical and stylistic errors, but it can also scan text for plagiarism. This 2-in-1 solution seems pretty cool, especially knowing that it has access to ProQuest’s databases.
However, it is not a very suitable tool for teachers and their institutions. First of all, checking for plagiarism is not a priority for Grammarly, which means that teachers will better see their students’ mistakes, but will still need to check each essay for originality.
This process can definitely take a long time without optimizing anything. So all you get from this alternative is unreliable plagiarism detection at a hefty price.
B. Backups
Copyleaks is the second Turnitin-like plagiarism checker to come to our attention. This service offers to detect plagiarism and paraphrased content in more than 100 languages, which is definitely a plus.
There are 3 types of similarity reports you can get from this site: identical, minor text changes, and related meaning.
The website claims to have advanced machine learning technologies, however, Copyleaks “saves” your texts after reviewing them. You can change this parameter in the settings, but that is the standard option.
Also, there is an AI grading tool built into this system, but not many experienced teachers would be ready to use it. After all, no machine can assess like humans do, considering all factors in the rubric and beyond, providing personalized feedback to each student.
C. Plagiarism control
PlagiarismCheck.org is the third option that is not Turnitin but can be better in many key ways. With a modern and flexible algorithm that is all about saving time, responsive support, and unlimited training, this one has quite a few advantages to offer.
With PlagiarismCheck, you can find out if your students are copying pieces of text from each other, give them the opportunity to pre-check your essays for accidental plagiarism, and see if stylistic patterns match the suspected author.
Administrators also find this service easy to integrate with flexible assignment settings in Canvas and Moodle. Add in subscription prices that save you up to half the money you’d spend on Turnitin, and you get a general idea of this anti-plagiarism tool.
Which plagiarism checker is better than Turnitin?
- This service places exact matches and manipulations such as paraphrasing and stylistic changes. These features give you the ability to spot almost any masked cheat, no matter how hard a rogue student tries.
- PlagiarismCheck never distracts you by marking small words. Instead, this service focuses on the semantic similarities that really matter without exposing common constructs. However, no cheating techniques like adding special symbols will escape your notice with this checker.
- Internet search includes various authoritative databases and your institution’s repository for peer verification. That means it will definitely detect plagiarism among students and from any other sources. Then you can save time you could spend grading non-original work or googling “alternative Turnitin Reddit.”
- No payback period or limits. PlagiarismCheck is really fast, so this service allows you to automate your work as a teacher without sacrificing accuracy. You can better explain your qualifications and have an hour or two free.
- The price is considerably lower, while the flexibility is greater.. On average, subscriptions to this service cost 2x less than similar Turnitin solutions. This is one of the main factors that makes PlagiarismCheck the best Turnitin alternative.
- success dashboards for students and institutions. This element helps educators and students collaborate more effectively and see their room for improvement. Your students will become more responsible and you will be given another opportunity to build mutual trust with them.
- Google Docs Plugin It makes your students more aware of their problems. As a teacher, he probably knows how much stress students experience when they think of accidental plagiarism. This feature can make them feel more secure and improve the quality of their work.
As you can see, PlagiarismCheck.org takes a comprehensive approach to issues that educators commonly face. Education professionals in need of a reliable anti-plagiarism tool often struggle to find something that combines flexibility and versatility with affordability. That is why this Turnitin alternative will definitely meet most of your needs.
In addition, PlagiarismCheck saves teachers time and supports their students by helping them write original essays and avoid accidental mishaps. That’s why this tool can help you individualize your approach to each student and eliminate cheating once and for all.
The best alternative is at your disposal
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to find a free plagiarism checker similar to Turnitin, but there are better alternatives to this service. At the end of the day, a limited number of checks, inconvenient design and little flexibility can make almost anyone angry, and these are the main disadvantages of the most popular anti-plagiarism tool.
Unresponsive support doesn’t add much positivity to daily routines when you often need information ASAP.
We’ve reviewed several options for teachers and schools that aren’t satisfied with how slow and inconvenient Turnitin can be. After all the observations, we can say with certainty that PlagiarismCheck.org is the most convenient option available.
A lower price and an advanced range of features for teachers are the advantages that make this plagiarism checker the best alternative to Turnitin.
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post by PlagiarismCheck.org
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