Question 1

How can I access Paperpal’s online plagiarism checker?

Accepted Answer

All Prime subscribers have access to Paperpal's online plagiarism check provided in partnership with Turnitin. You can upgrade here to start checking your document for plagiarism.

Question 2

How many pages or words can I check per month?

Accepted Answer

With Paperpal Prime, you can check up to 7,000 words per month; we roughly take 1 page as 275 words, which adds up to approximately 25 pages. This limit resets every month with your Prime subscription.

Question 3

Will my unused quota transfer to the next month?

Accepted Answer

No. Your unused words/pages will not roll over to the next month.

Question 4

What software is being used to detect similarity?

Accepted Answer

Paperpal's plagiarism checker is provided in partnership with Turnitin, which offers the gold standard in similarity detection tools, including iThenticate.

Question 5

What database is my writing checked against?

Accepted Answer

Paperpal's plagiarism checker matches your writing against Turnitin's industry-leading database, comprising 99 billion webpages including 200 million Open Access research articles.

Question 6

How do I interpret the similarity score?

Accepted Answer

Please consult your university or journal for details on the acceptable similarity threshold. Paperpal’s online plagiarism checker presents similarity as a percentage between 0% to 100%. 0%: No matching text. 1-24%: 1-24% matching text. 25-49%: 25-49% matching text . 50-74%: 50-74% matching text. 75-100%: 75-100% matching text. Zero-similarity means your academic text is unique with no similarity to other sources. Note that it's not unusual to have some similarity; most assignments require citations to other sources as evidence or validation for one's own work. Most journals consider similarity higher than 20% to be a red flag, particularly if similarity to a single source is greater than 5%. A high similarity score means that a large portion of your text is similar to other sources, which may indicate that very little of your paper is your own writing.

Question 7

Why did I get a high similarity score after polishing language with Paperpal or using its AI-generated text?

Accepted Answer

There are a few reasons why this might happen, Training data: AI models are trained on vast amounts of text, including published works. This means the generated text may inadvertently draw on or closely resemble existing publications. Common linguistic patterns: Paperpal's AI language check strives to achieve clarity and coherence, which may lead to the use of common expressions and sentence structures found in academic writing. Input from existing sources: If you provide Paperpal with text lifted from other sources as input for our generative AI, the outputs will retain similar phrasing and the similarity with get flagged accordingly.

Question 8

Can Paperpal ensure that my content is not flagged by plagiarism or AI detection tools?

Accepted Answer

Paperpal’s generative AI features are not designed to avoid detection by plagiarism and AI detection software. Using them doesn't guarantee your content will be plagiarism-free. In fact, if you incorporate text from published sources without proper citation, those sections will likely be flagged regardless of the writing tool. If any of your input text to Paperpal generative AI features was pasted from a published source, there will be a higher likelihood of the generated result being flagged as similar. Always cite the sources you've quoted in your work and incorporate a thoughtful analysis on how those works relate to your own article. In fact, AI-generated outputs may have high similarity to published works because the outputs may be based on published sources in the model's training dataset.

Question 9

My paper is completely original. Why is my similarity score so high?

Accepted Answer

Paperpal’s plagiarism checker matches your text against Turnitin's extensive database and flags portions with high similarity to existing sources similarity. If it finds instances where a piece of writing has a high match with an original source, this will be highlighted for you to review and take the necessary measures. Given the nature of language and the way the tool is designed, some similarity is not unusual. You could rephrase the flagged portions to reduce the similarity score. If you find the linked source relevant to your work, you could even add a citation.

Question 10

What types of documents can I upload?

Accepted Answer

We support doc, docx, and PDF files at the moment and expect to support additional file types soon.

Question 11

Are my documents stored and added to Turnitin’s database?

Accepted Answer

Paperpal stores your content so that you can access your plagiarism reports in the future. Our third-party vendor, Turnitin, does not add your work to their database. This means that if you check your document via Turnitin Similarity check on Paperpal, it will not be flagged as plagiarized text when re-scanned via Turnitin by your institution or journal. Additionally, Paperpal will never share your content with third parties outside of Turnitin.

Analyzes	Plagiarism check against 97% of top publications
Provides	Real-time plagiarism report with similarity score
Accuracy	Trusted by educators and institutions worldwide
Monthly scan	7,000 words for free and 10,000 words (~36 pages) with Paperpal Prime

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