Verdict: Although scoring around average amongst its contemporaries, the warning from its homepage, the unreliability of its document upload facility and the basicness of its overall design means it’s a website many will want to avoid.
Service: www.plagiarism-detect.com | |
| What are the subscription options? e.g. free, paid only, paid and freeIf paid options, what length of subscription/price structure is offered? | Free online checker. |
| Maximum word count? (if any) | Unlimited/ not specified. |
| Resubmissions allowed? If so, is this limited? | Unlimited checks. |
| Type of scanner E.g. software download, copy and paste, upload document online. Say if multiple options are offered. | Two options offered: “Copy and paste’ online scanner; File uploader. |
| 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 | Several file types supported including .ODT, .TXT, .DOC and .DOCX. |
| Extra features? E.g. grammar checker, spelling checker | None. |
| Support offered? E.g. phone, email etc | There is no support offered for the online plagiarism checker although the website does have a facebook page where users might wish to leave a comment on their wall. |
| Report / results | |
| Type of report Downloadable? Shareable? | Reports are generated within the website’s browser but these can’t be downloaded or 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 | Detected. The online scanner correctly identified the webpage which contained material that had been plagiarised. |
| Some words changed – copied and pasted from a website source | Not detected. The online scanner did not identify the website 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 did not identify 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? | |
| The website itself is a very basic design with a header, some stats down the left hand side and a box into which text can pasted. In addition, files may be uploaded, although it sometimes struggles with this and crashes, so the scanning process is much quicker if text is copied and pasted directly into the browser. There is also an update which warns the user that, due to technical changes in the way search engines work (and new associated costs), the scanner may not “work correctly”. No support is provided by plagiarism-detect.com – there is no FAQ section or even a “contact us” link, although it does integrate its Facebook page into the website where users can leave comments. The most recent entry seemingly bemoans the website’s failure to detect plagiarism in her submission, “the software is showing no plagiarism whereas another software [sic] is strong enough to verify the same”. Seven people like this comment. The scanner is split up into four sections, check essay, check article, check webpage and other text, although the reason for splitting up the detector into four parts (meaning the user has to repeat the process four times) isn’t explained, nor is the “other text” facility. Plagiarism-detect.com detected plagiarism in three out of the six sample documents, detecting blanket plagiarism where a whole text had been copied from a website and a pdf, in addition to detecting plagiarism in a text where some of the words had been omitted. However, it did not detect plagiarism where some of the words had been changed or in a submission which had been paraphrased, nor did it pick up the plagiarism of an online electronic book. Although scoring around average amongst its contemporaries by identifying plagiarism in half of the sample documents, the warning from its homepage, the unreliability of its document upload facility and the basicness of its overall design means it’s a website many will want to avoid. | |
