Plagiarism is a serious academic offence that can have severe consequences for students and educators. Plagiarism is using someone else’s words or ideas without proper attribution or citation. Plagiarism can be intentional or unintentional, but it can damage the credibility and reputation of the author and the institution.

To prevent and detect plagiarism, many educational institutions use software tools that can compare texts and identify similarities and differences. One of the most popular and widely used tools is Turnitin, founded in 1996 and claims to have over 34 million active users in 140 countries. Turnitin compares submitted texts to a large database of academic sources, web pages, student papers, and other documents. Turnitin generates a similarity report that shows the percentage of matching text and the sources of the matches. Turnitin also provides feedback tools to help students improve their writing skills and avoid plagiarism.

However, Turnitin has its limitations and challenges. One of the main criticisms of Turnitin is that it can flag legitimate quotations, paraphrases, common phrases, and technical terms as plagiarism, resulting in false positives and unfair penalties. Another issue is that Turnitin can be easily bypassed by students who use online tools that can rewrite or generate texts using artificial intelligence (AI). These tools can produce coherent, fluent, and original texts, making them difficult to detect by human readers or conventional plagiarism checkers.

ChatGPT: A New Challenge for Plagiarism Detection

One of the most advanced and impressive AI writing tools is ChatGPT, released in November 2022 by OpenAI. ChatGPT is based on GPT-4, a deep neural network that can generate natural language texts on any topic given a prompt or a context. ChatGPT can produce indistinguishable texts from human-written texts in style, tone, grammar, and content. ChatGPT can also adapt to different domains, genres, and formats, such as essays, articles, stories, poems, tweets, emails, etc.

ChatGPT poses a serious threat to academic integrity and honesty, as it can enable students to cheat on their assignments by generating high-quality texts that can pass Turnitin’s similarity check. ChatGPT can also create texts tailored to specific prompts or requirements, such as word count, keywords, citations, etc. ChatGPT can even mimic the writing style of a specific author or source by using their texts as inputs.

GPTZero: A New Solution for Plagiarism Detection

To combat the challenge of ChatGPT-generated texts, a new tool called GPTZero was developed by Edward Tian, a senior at Princeton University who majors in computer science. GPTZero is a tool that can detect whether ChatGPT or a human wrote a text. GPTZero works by analyzing the text input provided by the user and assessing it against a predetermined set of rules and patterns characteristic of AI-generated content. These rules and patterns include:

• The use of uncommon words or phrases that are not typical of human writing
• The repetition or inconsistency of words or ideas within or across sentences
• The lack of logical coherence or structure in the text
• The presence of factual errors or contradictions in the text
• The deviation from the prompt or the topic of the text

GPTZero then assigns a score to the text based on how likely it is to be generated by ChatGPT. The score ranges from 0% (human-written) to 100% (ChatGPT-written). GPTZero also highlights the portions of the text that are suspicious or indicative of AI generation.

GPTZero claims to be the world’s first and only AI detector, with over 1 million users. GPTZero also offers an API for organizations that want to integrate its functionality into their systems or platforms. GPTZero has received positive feedback from users and educators who have found it useful and reliable for detecting ChatGPT-generated texts.

Comparison and Conclusion

So which tool is more effective for detecting plagiarism: GPTZero or Turnitin? The answer depends on the type and source of plagiarism involved. Suppose plagiarism involves copying or paraphrasing from existing sources without proper citation. In that case, Turnitin is more suitable as it can compare texts to a large database of sources and identify matches. However, plagiarism involves generating texts using ChatGPT or other AI writing tools without proper attribution. GPTZero is more suitable as it can analyze texts for signs of AI generation and assign scores accordingly.

Therefore, both tools have their strengths and weaknesses in detecting plagiarism. A possible solution is to combine both tools to achieve a more comprehensive and accurate plagiarism detection system. By using both tools, educators can ensure that their students submit original and authentic work reflecting their knowledge and skills.

Tags: plagiarism detection, Turnitin, ChatGPT, GPTZero, academic integrity, AI writing tools, plagiarism prevention, plagiarism detection software