Avoiding Pitfalls of Plagiarism and Software Solutions

 

avoiding plagiarism

Plagiarism and the things associated with it are not just a menace to academic writing but also have far reaching consequences and impacts that spillover into other areas. We must be cautious of them to protect ourselves from those pitfalls. They include the pitfalls of plagiarism from a psychological perspective, the loopholes in a plagiarism detector and the related dangers of using software solutions such as the plagiarism software online.

Plagiarism: Psychological Burden to Personal Development Goals

Though it seems quite easy at first glance to copy-paste other’s material, present it to your superiors and get fame out of it. But “Plagiarism” can bring more severe consequences to you emotionally than just the forged fame and false lofty figure. Everyone has their own psychology type that is unique to their personality.

One person’s reason for taking part in plagiarism could be a lack of confidence and pressure of academic performance and another person’s reasons could be something else. However, the psychology of human behavior tells us that it is best when you are avoiding plagiarism whenever possible because of the negative consequences that stem from on a societal and emotional level. Imagine you being the “Catchy Crook” in your institute or work place.

  • Everyone starts avoiding you.
  • All your colleagues begin to hide their work and projects from you.
  • You are not welcomed in group discussions.
  • No one bothers to give prestige to your opinion.
  • You are no more trusted by anyone.

It’s always a better option to put effort in at the start and pen your own words uniquely to create original work. This is much better than imitating others’ script and ending up in disgrace for yourself for the rest of your life through the pitfall of plagiarism.

Plagiarism Checker X is the most precise and easy plagiarism software that allows you to detect plagiarism ratio from one or multiple documents and also provide an online comparison feature that is a life saver for any student life or professional environment.

Unfortunately, all plagiarism detection software is not equally accurate, detailed and safe. That means, people are able to find the loopholes and get away with plagiarism. Let’s explore this kind of pitfall in plagiarism software that doesn’t tick all the boxes.

Five Loopholes in Plagiarism Detection Software and Tips on Avoiding Them

software loopholes

There is an ongoing debate on the accuracy of plagiarism checkers. Many claim that it falls short in recognizing sophisticated forms of plagiarism. Nonetheless, this doesn’t mean plagiarism checkers are useless. In fact, it can benefit you in the long run. You must simply be always on your guard even with an automated plagiarism checker. Be aware of the limitations of plagiarism detection software. This way, you will be able to recognize when someone is taking advantage of a loophole, and you will be able to act on it immediately. With that, here are some tricks on how people can fool plagiarism detection software and how you can avoid them.

1. Paraphrasing gets a pass

The most common way that people can get away with plagiarism is by paraphrasing other people’s work. This is where they change the sentence structure but retain the same idea of a certain text either through a paraphrase tool, paraphrase generator, or paraphrase machine. Paraphrasing in itself is all right but it needs proper citation and attribution to be acceptable. Otherwise, it will fall under the category of paraphrase plagiarism and that is a one way to ticket severe consequences. So, always remember to paraphrase with citation because it is one fo the easiest way to avoid plagiarism

To make sure the plagiarism detection software identifies paraphrased works, you must invest in the best plagiarism detector. Often, premium or paid checkers have more sophisticated algorithms and programming to recognize unattributed paraphrased works.

2. Substituting with synonyms

Another way to confuse plagiarism checkers is by replacing certain words with their synonyms. Document editor apps such as Microsoft Office and Google Suites can suggest synonyms for any words in the file. You have to highlight a particular word, right-click, and choose the “synonyms” function.

Like with paraphrased sentences, most basic plagiarism checkers can easily be fooled by substituting certain words with their synonyms. Once a word or two have been changed, it tends to dismiss plagiarized works as original ones.

You can avoid this by investing in premium plagiarism checkers. For example, Plagiarism Checker X’s Artificial Intelligence powered plagiarism detection software has better accuracy and detailed reporting to counter this issue.

3. Copying something not online

Most plagiarism checkers search the internet for possible sources of plagiarized works. While this can be beneficial, it is also one of the disadvantages of plagiarism detection software. For example, if a student decides to copy their classmate’s unpublished work, your software could fail to recognize it as plagiarism.  However, the text compare feature in Plagiarism Checker X can help to combat these types of plagiarism.

Teachers can do this by familiarizing themselves with how students write and checking for any discrepancies in terms of academic writing style in their works. This will also work if you are an editor or publisher.

4. Beware of letter substitution

Another clever trick to get around your plagiarism checker is through letter substitution. This where students or writers would change every English ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘o’, and ‘c’ with Cyrillic letters. Others would use Unicode to bypass your plagiarism detection software.

letter substitution software

By substituting certain letters, most plagiarism checkers would fail to match it with similar content. This can easily be avoided by manually checking the content for plagiarism. Go to the plagiarism checker and re-type the suspicious text instead of copy-pasting them. This way, you can get rid of the substituted letters and your software can detect any signs of cheating.

5. When sources hit a paywall

A lot of journal articles are hidden behind paywalls. This can be an issue with some plagiarism checkers especially those who offer their services for free and rely on online databases for reference. Their reach could be limited especially when it comes to paywalled articles.

You must check out what publishing sites, libraries, and journals does your software have access to—even paywalled ones. The more partners it has, the more extensive its database is and the more thorough its search capacity will be as a software solution for plagiarism.

Closing up the loopholes and selecting better plagiarism checkers

Is a plagiarism detector accurate? This would depend on which software you choose to use. If you check for plagiarism with an inadequate software solution for plagiarism then it may not be accurate. However there are better options.

Investing on premium software tools like Plagiarism Checker X could avoid the loopholes mentioned above. But most importantly, you must also recognize the limitations of your software in order to avoid letting stolen works slip through the cracks.

How to Protect Yourself in Plagiarism Software Solutions

Online safety and software security is a very important subject and specially for plagiarism software that involves words and data of others. That is why privacy and data protection have been foundational principles of Plagiarism Checker X from the start. Here are two rules that will go a long way in protecting you online and especially when using plagiarism software solutions

Rule: Stay away from fraud and spam in email

Computer Security and safety

An online scam can disguise itself in many robes. Few common ways to trap someone is by phishing scams and fraudulent ads, a lot of which take place through spam in email. This could be through clicking a link about some interesting news piece with clickbait or a shopping ad on a plagiarism website even. We must be careful about what we click on and what source an ad or email is coming from. Advertisement on compromised websites, those without encryption, can be dangerous and cause theft of stored browser information.

Rule: Shop Safely

Online scams can also take place through insecure payment gateways such as those without verification or without encrypted information channels. A website that is not encrypted is open to every kind of risk of data theft. With financial data, that risk becomes highly dangerous. Putting credit card information or banking details online is very common since so many purchases happen digitally like paying for a premium plagiarism software license. So, all the more important to do everything to protect it. Coupled with encrypted websites, using secure payment methods are crucial.

Secure Payment Gateways

Secure Payment Methods

Always look at how a company, product, or software handles their payments. For example, in order to provide safe processing of payments and to show its commitment to privacy and data security, Plagiarism Checker X uses the best available encryption and > payment handling services.

safe plagiarism checker

Knowing more about these pitfalls will surely help you to avoid them as you walk through your student life, professional pursuit and academic excellence journey. You can also stay up to date with more interesting and insightful pieces on the Plagiarism Checker X Blog

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