How effective is Turnitin and other anti-plagiarism software?

I submitted an essay using an essay writer, which got a good grade. But I want to find a new company for my second essay. Will this be risky? I read that turnitin and other anti-plagiarism software memorizes your writing style and can detect differences. What to do?

Thanks

Yes, if you fail to use the model essay as a reference / guideline only..

so does that mean that if I find a new essay writer I need them to use the essay from the previous essay writer as a reference? If so won't it be hard to manage this?

Also, I am thinking of writing the second essay myself due to my distrust of essay writers in general due to my bad experiences. In this situation, I do not know how I can use the previous essay as a reference. I don't have that skill. It would be ironic if I got caught for plagiarism when I wrote my own essay!

I also thought that these Turnitin type anti-plagiarism software do not memorize writing styles...and that it's all about content and matching actual words to what's already published or available on line or what's already been scanned into their systems.

If so, how can it detect two essays written by two different people?

It cannot detect two essays written by either two or the same person: the only thing, the essays have to be original works.

Turn it in does not memorize someone's idiosyncratic writing style (if you mean to say that); it simply matches new content with the already stored/scanned content and produces a similarity index. That is it.

As stated before i'm pretty sure that all those plagiarism detectors (turnitin, copyleaks etc.) can only check if the content match and not the writing style.

What do you mean by content matching?

They search for combinations of words in the work submitted that match the same combinations of words found in sources that are searchable online. They also highlight them and indicate exactly where the same sentences or paragraphs or whatever were found so that whoever is doing the search can go check them. Sometimes, they "flag" combinations of words that have just been written thousands of times, such as "Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939" or "The four functions of management are planning, organizing, directing, and controlling." That type of thing is understood by the users of scanners not to be plagiarism, necessarily, simply because there are only so many ways to word those ideas. What they're really looking for is matches of entire sentences that are much too complex to be explained by coincidence and entire paragraphs lifted from other sources without proper citations and quotation marks. They don't look for similar writing styles; they look for actual matching content (strings of words).

I have disturbing news. The essay writer company suggested that I buy the Grammarly anti-plagiarism software and so I did. I bought it because I thought the paper from the essay writer was plagiarized. It's contents page looked very similar to a paper I found online. But the Grammarly did not detect it. Maybe because individual text had been paraphrased. But you could tell the essay wasn't the essay writer's original work. Now I am afraid to submit it and I do not trust the Grammarly plagiarism detector.

Do you guys have any suggestions?
Thanks

I showed, 6 years ago, exactly how useless Turnitin is. In fact, it was being used to further the criminal activities of a ripoff company from Pakistan.

Hi thanks. I read your link from 6 years ago, but it did not really tell me about how useless or good turnitin is. It only said how bad the essay writer company in Pakistan is.

I have an essay written by an essay writer and I am so worried it will be plagiarised, because the same company plagiarised before. Other guys did not have problems with this company eventhough they used them many times. So I want to give them a chance too, but I am really afraid now and I do not know where to turn. This essay is too difficult for me to write.

You don't see how an easily-gamed tool is useless?

Sorry but my English slang ability is very low. I don't know what you mean by easily gamed?
And if turniitin is useless and universities use it, then doesn't it mean they cannot catch plagiarism anyway?

game (verb)
"to take dishonest advantage of; cheat"

SOURCE: merriam-webster.com/dictionary/game

Why do you guys keep using them?

We feel that there is no other choice. I have heard worse things about other companies.

If turnitin is useless, why do so many universities still use them and how can it continue to detect plagiarism?

If turnitin etc etc are useless, how do universities manage to continue to catch people for plagiarism? And what is there to worry about regarding submitting bought essays?

TurnItIn is not useless. It is probably the most reliable text scanning internet-based crawler (due to its vast databases) available today.

However, what W2B points to above is how this crawler can be fooled, that is, how that specific company found the loophole in the software and sold plagiarized essays.

There is not even ONE example of a human-made invention that is flawless or perfect. There are always loopholes, shortcomings, etc. The only thing is a cheat will always find a way to work around.

That said, it is likely that your paper has been poorly PARAPHRASED by the essay company, and turnitin may detect the same combination of words used in the original essay. You should give it a go. I have shared my personal experience with Grammarly in another thread.

If there are worse stories/cases, then probably you're not well-informed. There are good websites as well, the same way as there are reliable freelance writers. This forum has a good amount of such information.


Probably, it is where my theory seems to be fitting a bit. :-)

Thanks guys.
MeoKhan, when you say "That said, it is likely that your paper has been poorly PARAPHRASED by the essay company, and turnitin may detect the same combination of words used in the original essay. You should give it a go. I have shared my personal experience with Grammarly in another thread."

what do you mean by poorly paraphrased? Do you mean the essay company poorly paraphrased from an original essay and is therefore plagiarised anyway?
And what do you mean by "You should give it a go."?
And could you please share your link to you personal experiences with Grammarly?

I said this in response to your statement that you 'feel' the essay is plagiarized, i.e.,


So, I thought the company had it paraphrased and the copy doesn't flow well. And, yes, to paraphrase is to reword another writer's words.

I wanted to say you should turn your essay in to your professor; maybe it will pass.


I have a screenshot sent to me by one of my clients. I can share it here; however, I don't think it is so relevant, is it?

Turnitin detects how much you copied in a source (books, articles, etc.) and gives you a percentage of originality. As for anti-plagiarism software I dont think there is one.

Turnit In is very effective, though a student must submit his/her paper, however, writers should not use the software.

Do you mean, "writers cannot use the software?" Sometimes the whole can/could will/would thing can seem like the whole picture, though it shouldn't.

In as much as it is advisable to use the plagiarism checkers, it is of paramount importance to come up with original work, that solves the problem before even getting to the software level. From the look of things on your end your distrust in the software is valid and the paper needs to redone.

If anyone wants to make any money on prewritten essays anymore, someone is going to have to take on Turnitin.com in court and win. I don't have the means, personally, so all I can really do is advocate this assertion in every thread possible, hoping that one of you company owners with deep enough pockets for an expensive lawyer will see it. You will have brought down Goliath.

Turnitin already won that fight in court.

Yes, but against students, not against essay-mills.

Unfortunately, Turnitin will use the exact same argument (i.e., "we only use encoded derivatives of the papers' text, not the actual text, so it's not copyright infringement"). Essay mills will get far less sympathy and benefit of the doubt than the students received. The students still lost, despite having strong support from many academics. The likelihood of an essay mill winning--especially in light of the legal precedent--is virtually 0%.

Turnitin is receiving some pretty stiff competition these days from other "grammar" and "plagiarism" software apps and online sites. The problem, is that these essays are all seen as big data by these companies so they do their best to keep as much of the information from the research paper on their servers for an indefinite period of time. Your hard work is their gain. So that means, anti-plagiarism softwares are not meant to help you. It is only meant to fleece you of your money and then the company that owns the software turns around and makes more money off the paper you thought you just had them check for plagiarism. The truth is, all of these anti-plagiarism tools are just a means to an end for these companies. They don't really care if your paper is original or not, they only care that they can use the data in your paper as a marketing tool for their company. It is the fact that the students innocently go to them for help, only to be conned in the end by having their hard work turned over to a third party, that makes this anti plagiarism situation a bad deal for the students.

I do not believe that you could end up being detected by Turnitin or other plagiarism detecting software. While I am unclear as to whether or not you submitted the paper from the writer for a grade, what I do understand is that when you hire a different writer, you end up with a totally new and (usually) different writing style than the first writer. If you turn in the second paper from the new writer in for a grade, you should be free and clear.

Cone to think of it, even if you go through the bother of rewriting the sample paper, turnitin will not detect the work as plagiarized because it will be based on a different topic and a new presentation. You should still be in the clear because the system will be looking for totally different trigger points in the writing that will be submitted for checking.

Anti plagiarism software is a waste of time. Some of these software actually flag words such as "the" and "that" in a paragraph, claiming the word is plagiarized. Well, I would like to see someone write an essay without using any conjunctions, verbs, adverbs, etc., which seem to trigger some plagiarism reports. It is an idiotic way of checking the originality of an essay. Eventually, all the sources used will be similar, so how do similar sources translate to plagiarized presentations? Try not to use plagiarism software if you can avoid it. It won't help an honest student get a better grade.

Instead of wasting your time worrying endlessly about plagiarism scanners, prospective customers should just devote their efforts to doing the simple research to identify good legitimate writers whose work they won't have to worry about being plagiarized. This forum provides plenty of information in that regard, especially if you learn how to use the search function properly (by changing the default "titles" to "messages"). It would be impossible for any writer who plagiarizes to continue operating here for many years, especially under the same ID.

Risky? I hope so. I hope the school detects your cheating and throws you out and sullies your name. Cheaters like you should not be allowed to earn a degree.

Turnitin.com and Safe Assign have huge data bases and will catch most of your cheaters.

Seeing as how there is a 5 year limitation on the validity of academic sources, students writing their own paper or writers hired to work for students should be in the clear, provided they use only up to date materials and sources. Having a wide database only means they have a huge library of sources. It does not mean that students can be successfully accused of plagiarism. The internet has made it possible to use extremely old sources in their reports. Does that mean the student plagiarized? No. So that database is not really worth much unless it is being constantly compared to the most updated information, which it does not.

I signed up for this site only so I could tell all of you students who cheat and all the people who help them cheat, that you are all basically pond scum and frauds. You'll never get anywhere in your life because you can do an honest day's work and you'll just keep stealing and cheating till you get caught, maybe at something bigger, and you'll be where you really belong. Behind bars. Bye now.