Verdict: Checkforplagiarism.net is very good at advertising. It is not, however, very good at detecting plagiarism and should therefore be avoided.
Service: www.checkforplagiarism.net/mnucompare.html | |
| What are the subscription options? e.g. free, paid only, paid and free. If paid options, what length of subscription/price structure is offered? | Online checker may not be used without a subscription. No trial or free credits. Basic Account, $20;Special Account, $39.95;Professionals/ Teachers account, varies; Academic Account, varies; Professional Account, varies. |
| Maximum word count? (if any) | Unlimited/ not stated. |
| Resubmissions allowed? If so, is this limited? | Each resubmission or scan cost varies on package selected. Only five scans included in the basic package. |
| Type of scanner E.g. software download, copy and paste, upload document online. Say if multiple options are offered. | “Copy and paste’ online scanner. |
| Sources checked E.g. internet, any specific journal databases mentioned, any electronic book databases such as Google docs mentioned, past submissions from other students etc | Website – no words altered; Website – some words removed; Website – some words changed;Website – fully paraphrased; Online pdf; Electronic book. |
| File types supported E.g. doc, docx, rtf, open office, pdfs, ppts | None – the user can only cut and paste text into the online scanner. |
| Extra features? E.g. grammar checker, spelling checker | None. |
| Support offered? E.g. phone, email etc | There is an FAQ section and a “contact us” section in addition to an interactive online chat facility (during office hours). |
| Report / results | |
| Type of report Downloadable? Shareable? | Reports are generated within the browser and these may be downloaded and shared. |
| Side by side comparison to plagiarism? | No. |
| Accuracy of results – Which sections were detected and which were not (make sure the correct source is identified) | |
| Basic plagiarism – copied and pasted from a website source | Detected. The online scanner correctly identified the webpage which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Basic plagiarism – copied and pasted from an online pdf | Detected. The online scanner correctly identified the online pdf which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Some words removed – copied and pasted from a website source | Not detected. The online scanner did not identify the website which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Some words changed – copied and pasted from a website source | Detected. The online scanner correctly identified the webpage which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Full paraphrasing – copied and pasted from a website source | Not detected. The online scanner did not identify the website which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Basic plagiarism – copied and pasted from an electronic book | Not detected. The online scanner correctly identified the electronic book which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| General observations Ease of use, overall experience. If other features were included (e.g. spelling, grammar check), how easy were they to use and how useful were they? | |
| Checkforplagiarism.net’s website is a flashy bells and whistles affair. It’s advertised widely across the internet and when you arrive on its homepage you’re greeted with a wealth of information – and this is quite overwhelming. To its credit, however, it doesn’t make bold unsubstantiated claims like other websites about its scanner being the best in the world.Using checkforplagiarism.net’s plagiarism checker is expensive – it’s the second most expensive scanner on the internet at the time of writing, and their basic option alone costs $20. Because of this, it really tries to sell it on its webpage:“Paying for any service that has a free alternative sounds like a silly thing to do, at first. But consider the advantages that those few dollars will get you: Comprehensive and structured checking and cross matching against billions of websites and papers submitted worldwide; checking against blog entries, paid site articles, journals, books and magazines; availability of multiple languages to check in; Checking not just for a simple text match but a comprehensive synonym and sentence structure match, both automated and manually.” However, a lot of the features described are available across a range of free checkers. Additionally, it’s not strictly true that any manual checking takes place – the process is fully automated and no human intervention is involved – again like all the other scanners available online.There is no free trial and users who want to try the scanner are required to sign up to a basic account costing $20. This will allow up to five scans so each one is worth $4 each – again, this is expensive when compared to other options available.The plagiarism scanner itself is simple to use; clear instructions take the user through the process step-by-step and scans usually take less than a minute (for smaller documents). However, it didn’t perform well at all, only detecting plagiarism in half the sample documents. In tests, it detected straightforward “copy and paste’ plagiarism and a plagiarised pdf. It also spotted the plagiarism of a website where some of the words had been changed, but not from a website where some words had been removed. It also failed to detect paraphrased work and an ebook which had been plagiarised.Checkforplagiarism.net is very good at advertising. It is not, however, very good at detecting plagiarism and should therefore be avoided. There are, after all, free options available which perform better. | |
