Correspondence Address:
Himel Mondal
Department of Physiology, M.K.C.G. Medical College, Berhampur - 760 004, Ganjam, Odisha
India

Full Text

Sir,

Among different forms of plagiarized content,[1] verbatim plagiarized content and inadequately paraphrased content can be checked online. When an author submits any article to credible journal, editors may check the level of plagiarism in any stages before, during, or after peer review process.[2]

Different journals use different online tools (i.e., websites or software which provide plagiarism checking service) to screen submitted article. Furthermore, a combination of tools is used by some journals for reinforcement in the detection of duplicate content.[3] These tools can be used by authors end too. However, professional plagiarism detection service providers provide paid service. Many authors may not access these professional services from developing countries. That was the origin of the question – How to check plagiarism free of cost? And that question was the triggering factor behind this hands-on guide for budding authors.

We searched the phrase “free plagiarism check” in Google search engine (i.e., www.google.co.in website) and found a bunch of websites which provide duplicate content detection service free of cost. We tested the websites of first 10 result pages with an intentionally plagiarized article as a testing tool. The article contained three types of content-text copied and pasted from an open-access online journal article, inadequately paraphrased text whose original article was available from an open access online journal, and unique sentences. The test report provided by the websites was compared with that of expected level of plagiarized content (i.e., 100% for the first part, >50% for the second part, and 0% for the third part of the prepared text). Among the websites, the website which scored best was https://plagiarismsearch.com.[4] Hence, we used this website as an example for the tutorial. However, this website provides 300 words search free of cost for a day for registered users. Hence, an author who would be checking the article of 1800 words needs 6 days to get the full report of the screening.

Steps to check the level of plagiarism in any article on the said website are [Figure 1]:{Figure 1}

Open the website https://plagiarismsearch.com on your personal computer browser (e.g., Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer)Click on the “register for free” button on the website and register yourself with required information

After logging in, click on the “plagiarism check” buttonCopy the text (maximum 300 words) from your file (e.g., Microsoft Word document) which to be checkedPaste the text on the designated text box on the webpageClick on the “check your text” button

The website would take some time and show the report for the text.

All other websites which provide similar service (e.g., http://plagiarisma.net, www.plagiarismsoftware.org) can be used by authors according to their preferences. The procedure is more or less similar.

After getting the plagiarism report for the article, authors can change the strategy of presentation before submitting it to any journal to avoid rejection due to plagiarism. Hope this hands-on guide would help many authors in making their article plagiarism free, especially verbatim and inadequately paraphrased content.

Declaration: This article was prepared on the basis of research conducted by the authors. The company or owner of the websites whose web links are used in this article has no connection or influence on the research or on this article. Authors do not promote the websites in any form.

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

References