Can Turnitin detect plagiarized work after it was paraphrased by QuillBot - 10 sources tested

Introduction

In this experiment, I aimed to evaluate how well Turnitin detects plagiarized content after it has been paraphrased using an AI tool, specifically QuillBot. For this, I used 10 published sources, including scholarly articles, conference papers, a website, and an ebook chapter. Here’s a detailed walkthrough of my methodology and findings.

Methodology

Gathering Sources

I collected 10 sources to simulate what a student might use for an assignment. Here’s the list of sources:

1. Journal Publications
2. Conference Papers
3. A website
4. A chapter from an ebook
5. Research report

Initial Test: Plagiarism Detection on Original Content

First, I copied entire paragraphs verbatim from each of these 10 sources, resulting in a document with over 2,000 words of purely copied content. When I ran this document through Turnitin, it returned a high similarity index of 89%, indicating successful detection of the copied material.

Paraphrased Content Test

Next, I used QuillBot to paraphrase the entire document. This is how I did it:

1. Selected the entire document (over 2,000 words).
2. Pasted it into QuillBot for paraphrasing using the "academic" mode.
3. Copied the paraphrased output and ran it through Turnitin.

Results

Original Content

Turnitin’s initial analysis showed substantial highlighting, detecting copied sections from each source. Here’s a summary:

• Website: Directly copied sections were perfectly identified.
• Journals & Conference Papers: Each was accurately flagged.

Paraphrased Content

After paraphrasing, Turnitin’s similarity index dropped dramatically to 16%, a reduction of 73%. Here’s how Turnitin performed on the paraphrased content:

• Journal Articles: Previously detected sections went undetected.
• Websites: No detection post-paraphrasing.
• Ebook: Went completely undetected.

Implications

The experiment underscores significant weaknesses in plagiarism detection when paraphrasing tools like QuillBot are used. With such a drastic reduction in the similarity index, the AI paraphraser effectively masked the plagiarized content. This revelation calls for educators to reconsider reliance on tools like Turnitin for plagiarism detection and to think critically about their assessment methods to ensure genuine learning.

Final Note

Ecological Time does not promote or support academic misconduct. Copying work without proper citation is considered plagiarism and may result in disciplinary measures at your institution.