Plagiarism Checker
Paste your text and get an originality score with sentence-level analysis
Got a plagiarism warning from Turnitin? We can fix it.
Our PhD-qualified experts rewrite, paraphrase, and properly cite your work to bring it under your school's similarity threshold, fast, for any US college or university.
Free Plagiarism Checker for Students and Academics
This free plagiarism checker helps US college students check their work for plagiarism before submitting it. Paste your essay, assignment, research paper, or thesis and the plagiarism detector analyzes it for originality issues: unoriginal phrasing, missing citations, and duplicate content that closely mirrors common academic text. You get an instant originality score and a sentence-by-sentence similarity report showing exactly which parts need attention.
Plagiarism is one of the most serious academic integrity violations at US colleges and universities. Integrity offices at schools like Arizona State, Ohio State, and Boston University treat even unintentional plagiarism (a forgotten citation, paraphrasing too closely, or reusing your own previous work) as academic misconduct that can mean a failing grade, academic probation, or a formal hearing. A plagiarism check before submission is the simplest way to protect yourself.
What is plagiarism?
Plagiarism means presenting someone else's words, ideas, or work as your own without proper acknowledgment. It includes copying text from a website or book without a citation, paraphrasing a source too closely, buying or copying another student's work, and self-plagiarism (reusing your own previously submitted work). Most plagiarism in student writing is not deliberate cheating. It is poor citation practice, weak paraphrasing, or misunderstanding how to integrate sources correctly.
Types of plagiarism this checker helps you catch
- Direct plagiarism: copying text word-for-word from a source without quotation marks or a citation.
- Paraphrasing plagiarism: rewording a source while keeping its structure and ideas, without citing it. This is the most common type in student work.
- Mosaic plagiarism (patchwriting): mixing copied phrases with your own words so the sentence structure still mirrors the source.
- Self-plagiarism: submitting work you have already submitted for another assignment without permission.
- Accidental plagiarism: forgetting a citation, misquoting, or citing the wrong source. Universities treat this as seriously as deliberate plagiarism.
How to Use the Plagiarism Checker
Paste your essay, assignment paragraph, or research text, up to 1,000 words. Click Check Plagiarism. The AI plagiarism scanner analyzes each sentence for originality and produces an overall score with color-coded highlights. Green sentences are original, amber sentences have moderate concern, and red sentences need rewriting or citations.
Understanding Your Score
- 80 to 100% Original: Low risk. Your writing appears genuinely original.
- 60 to 79% Original: Moderate concern. Some sentences use common phrases. Consider rewording or citing sources.
- Below 60% Original: High risk. Significant rewriting and citation work needed before submission.
Important Note
This tool uses AI pattern analysis, not a live web database. For the plagiarism check your school actually runs (Turnitin), use this as a first-pass self-check. If you score poorly here, rewrite the flagged sections before submitting officially.
This Plagiarism Checker vs Turnitin
Students often ask whether a free plagiarism checker gives the same result as Turnitin. The honest answer is no, and it is important to understand why, so you know how to use each one correctly.
Turnitin is the plagiarism detection software most US universities use officially, usually built into Canvas or Blackboard at schools like the University of Michigan, Texas A&M, and Purdue. It compares your submission against a database of over 90 billion web pages, 1 billion student papers, and millions of journal articles and books. It produces a similarity report showing the percentage of your text that matches existing sources, with the matched sources linked. You usually cannot run Turnitin yourself; your school runs it when you submit.
This free checker uses AI to analyze the writing itself, flagging sentences that read as unoriginal, boilerplate, or in need of a citation. It does not compare against a live database, so it cannot give you a true Turnitin similarity percentage. What it can do is catch the problems before you submit: weak paraphrasing, missing citations, and copied-sounding phrasing. Think of it as a first-pass self-check that costs nothing and takes seconds.
Which should you use?
Use this free checker while you are still writing and editing. It is instant and shows you what to fix. Then, for the definitive check against the actual Turnitin database before final submission, use our expert plagiarism service, which runs a full Turnitin scan and returns the official similarity report. Using both gives you complete coverage.
How to Avoid Plagiarism in Your Assignments
The best plagiarism checker is good academic habits. Here is how to keep your similarity score low and your work genuinely original:
1. Cite every source
Every idea, statistic, quotation, or argument that is not your own needs an in-text citation and a matching reference. When in doubt, cite. Use our free citation generator to format references correctly in APA 7th, MLA 9th, Chicago, or IEEE.
2. Paraphrase properly
Good paraphrasing changes both the words and the sentence structure of the original, not just a few synonyms. If your paraphrase keeps the same structure as the source, Turnitin will still flag it. Use our free paraphrasing tool to rewrite flagged sentences properly, then cite the source.
3. Use quotation marks for direct quotes
If you use a source's exact words, put them in quotation marks and cite the page number. Quoted text is not plagiarism when it is marked and cited correctly.
4. Keep track of your sources as you research
Most accidental plagiarism happens because students lose track of which notes are their own and which are copied from a source. Record the source next to every note as you take it.
5. Check before you submit
Run your work through a plagiarism checker before submission, not after you get the result back. This free tool gives you a fast first pass; a full Turnitin check confirms it.
Plagiarism Checker for Every Type of Academic Work
Students at US universities from Northeastern to the University of Houston use this plagiarism scanner to check originality on:
- Essays and assignments: the most common use. Check each section before submission.
- Research papers: where correct citation of many sources matters most.
- Dissertations, theses, and capstone projects: long documents where self-plagiarism and uncited literature reviews are common risks. Check chapter by chapter.
- HR and CIPD assignments: where evidence-based practice requires careful citation of professional sources and academic literature.
- Personal statements and application essays: where originality is essential.
- AI-generated drafts: if you have used ChatGPT or similar, check whether the output reads as unoriginal, then rewrite and cite properly.