Answering Main Questions: What Is Turnitin Used For? How Accurate Is It?
Turnitin is frequently listed among the best academic helpers, but how exactly does it help students? If you are wondering does Turnitin check for plagiarism, then you are right on money, as it is one of its main goals. The company started operating in 1998, and since then, it amassed over 30 million users. Turnitin sells its licenses to high schools, colleges, and universities. The institution uses the Turnitin software to check various writing assignments for plagiarism. Moreover, in certain cases, students have to submit their work to be tested on Turnitin to join a particular class or course. Because of that, the platform got its fair share of criticism. But that’s not what we are talking about here.
Yes, the platform is used for identifying plagiarized content, as well as detecting AI-generated content. The question is how accurate is Turnitin plagiarism checker. Most professional reviews state that the service is extremely reliable. However, when you check out customer reviews, you can bump into a few comments claiming that the service is untrustworthy and that the commentators were falsely accused of plagiarism. Upon our testing of the service, the Turnitin is quite accurate, but it has some flaws nonetheless.
Is Turnitin Reliable: Platform’s Plagiarism Checker And AI Detector Trustworthiness
Thanks to our fellow students, we were able to test the service — more on that later. So, if you want to know how accurate the Turnitin plagiarism checker is, we got you covered. We’ve tested different texts. Original ones, written specifically for the test, as well as random articles we’ve found on the internet. Our results? There is a 3% to 5% margin of error when you are using the Turnitin plagiarism checker. We’ve tested three original texts two times we got a 100% uniqueness result, and once we got a 97% uniqueness rate. As for the random articles we’d found online to feed Turnitin, the results ranged from 95% to 100% plagiarized content. So, the plagiarism checker is accurate.
Next question: is Turnitin AI detector as reliable as a plagiarism checker? Well, here we ran into some problems. While the service can easily identify documents that are either completely written by humans or crafted by artificial intelligence, it struggles when you feed it mixed texts. Also, it can make some mistakes. We wrote one text similar to the way an AI will generate one, and segments of it were flagged as an AI. So, if your writing closely resembles AI-generated texts, you can be in big trouble with Turnitin.
Is It Possible To Buy A Turnitin Subscription Individually?
We’ve already specified that in order to answer the question is Turnitin accurate, we had to seek help from our fellow students. You see, you cannot purchase a Turnitin subscription on your own. You have to be a student at the institution that uses the software in order to check it out. For personal use, Turnitin offers iThenticate, but it’s expensive, academic-wise is designed for dissertations and theses, and, all in all, deserves a separate review. With all that said, the new question arises: can you use Turnitin as a student? Yes, but only if your institution is using it. To register as a student, you will need your class ID and class enrollment key.
So, you can’t use Turnitin if your high school, college, or university is not using the software. But do you have to pay, using it at the institution? Is Turnitin free for students? Well, do we have some good news for you. If the education institution you’re enrolled in is using the service, it pays for it. Hence, all the students can check their papers for plagiarized and AI-generated content for free. Yet, it is rather disappointing that it is impossible to use the service individually.
Turnitin vs. Grammarly: Which Service Offers A Better Plagiarism Checker?
Whenever there is a new product arrives, the market becomes highly competitive. The first plagiarism checkers appeared in the early 1990s. Nowadays, it’s easy to say that the market is overcrowded with plagiarism checkers with various levels of accuracy. Turnitin rates are among the best ones. But, the answer to your can I use Turnitin to check my work-question is already obvious: only when your institution uses it. This may force you to look for alternatives. That leads you to a new question: what plagiarism checker is as good as Turnitin? Well, the one that arrived approximately ten years later than the subject of this review — Grammarly.
Grammarly is known for grammar checks, but it offers plagiarism checking tools as well, and it is as accurate as Turnitin’s one. You can access Grammarly on your own for a price of $12+ per month. Also, Grammarly is available in the mobile version. So, is Grammarly winning? Well, not exactly. Yes, Grammarly, seemingly, has a lot of benefits compared to Turnitin. But there’s one big problem: AI-generated content. Grammarly still doesn’t have an AI detector. Yes, Turnitin’s one is not perfect, but you can use it nonetheless. So, while the accuracy of plagiarism checkers on both platforms is identical, Turnitin still wins.
Explaining The Confusion With The Turnitin.Com Bad Customer Reviews
If you go to some review aggregation sites, you can find a lot of bad comments from past users. Some of them are more or less believable, like one person accusing the service of flagging regular phrases as plagiarism. Yes, we’ve seen something like that with other plagiarism checkers. But the issue with comments like that is that it seems that commentators don’t know how to use Turnitin plagiarism checker. Or, more precisely, how it works. It doesn’t just flag some phrases as plagiarism. It always shows links to articles where there’s a match with your work.
Then, there are a lot of comments in poor English about awful customer support or the inability to get a refund. Strange, given that you can get access to the service only if your college or university is using it. Well, most comments like that come from users from India and Pakistan. There are third parties that offer Turnitin tools for users outside North America for prices of ₹ 1500/day. So, it’s obvious where the complaints about the support and rejected refunds come from. These complaints have nothing to do with Turnitin per se, but as the third parties don’t have a page on Trustpilot or SiteJabber, unsatisfied users attack the subject of our review.
How Good Is Turnitin? Summing Up The Advantages and Downsides
So, what is Turnitin, and how does it work? Turnitin is a service that is used by educational institutions for teachers and students to check their writing for plagiarized and AI-crafted content. It is one of the most accurate plagiarism checkers available. However, there’s a 3% to 5% margin of error. The AI detector is accurate when it comes to texts that are either completely human or AI-written. When it comes to mixed texts, the tool struggles to point out the segments that are AI-generated. The actual downside of Turnitin is that it’s not designed for personal use. Thus, if you are not studying at a high school, college, or university that utilizes the software, your chances of using Turnitin are close to zero.
.webp)
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Turnitin and how it helps avoid plagiarism?
Turnitin is a plagiarism detection tool that analyzes student work and compares it to other student works and publications available in the software’s vast database and with texts available online. Turnitin is considered one of the most accurate plagiarism checkers and is widely used by educational institutions in North America.
Is Turnitin free or I have to pay for it?
The Turnitin pricing is not available for average users. Educational institutions purchase the system so teachers and students can use it cost-free. Hence, you can use the software only when you are studying at a high school, college, or university that uses Turnitin.
Is Turnitin plagiarism checker accurate or not?
Turnitin is considered to be one of the most accurate plagiarism checkers available today. It always provides links to the materials that it finds match the analyzed texts. There’s always a margin of error, but when it comes to Turnitin, the margin of error is between 3% and 5%.
Is Turnitin safe to use?
How does Turnitin plagiarism checker work when it comes to your personal and financial data? As the service is not available for your personal use, you are safe. In order to use the service as a student, you need to provide a class ID, the class enrollment key, and your email. But you can register under your college or university email, rather than your one.
*Screenshots used for review and criticism purposes fall under the 'fair use' doctrine of the United States Copyright Law.
The latest customer reviews
We've received your feedback!
You Might Also Be Interested In
