With chatbot-like writing assistants like ChatGPT becoming increasingly popular, it was inevitable that students would catch onto the trend and leverage the capabilities of such tools in their own academic lives. Turnitin, the widely-used plagiarism prevention software program, has introduced a ChatGPT checker in an attempt to stay one step ahead of the AI curve.
What is Turnitin Used For?
Students and educators alike have used the Turnitin software application since its inception in 1998 when it was built by a team of researchers and entrepreneurs to help academic institutions curb the growing issue of plagiarism and protect intellectual property. Today, it is still a widely-used tool that has grown in its ability to verify the authenticity of written works, mainly for academic purposes, as digital technology has advanced.
Among educational establishments worldwide, Turnitin is one of the leading anti-plagiarism solutions. Educators can use it to compare students’ academic writing against existing web content to ascertain just how original the writing is, and students can similarly use the software to ensure that their writing is primarily original and cites relevant sources before academic submission.
Through the development of an extensive academic database against which academic writing is compared and the invention of a plagiarism detection algorithm that tracks similarities between written work and online sources, the team that ultimately created Turnitin has reduced academic plagiarism significantly.
How Does Turnitin Work?
Turnitin uses its vast digital database and an efficient comparative algorithm to analyze submitted essays, theses, assignments, and transcriptions against both internet content and other academic texts.
Typically, this process would start with the student’s digital submission. Either the educator or the student can easily submit their work electronically on their Turnitin dashboard.
Turnitin then conducts a rigorous scan of the content and compares it to online sources, including articles, web pages, other published academic works, and even the same student’s previous writing (that’s right - as far as Turnitin is concerned, you can plagiarize yourself!). It highlights the content in the submitted document that is closely similar or identical to other existing works and makes note of the web address of the borrowed content.
The software’s final result will be presented in the form of a “similarity report” - a document that shows the percentage of plagiarized content vs. original content, with URLs clearly citing the online content that the writer has directly borrowed from. If the similarity percentage surpasses what the educator or institution permits, the student may have the opportunity to amend their work and submit it to Turnitin again.
Can ChatGPT be Detected by Turnitin in Terms of Plagiarism?
Considering its impressive plagiarism-checking capabilities, it’s worth wondering: Can Turnitin detect ChatGPT, and does Turnitin detect AI? In 2023, Turnitin introduced a new feature that not only picks up on plagiarism but also detects content generated by AI writing tools. With the sudden rise in popularity of AI writing assistants like ChatGPT, it’s to be expected that software programs like Turnitin would develop initiatives to try and combat a possible compromise in authentic, original academic writing.
Now that Turnitin can detect GPT, it not only provides a similarity report that shows a plagiarism percentage, but it also delivers a comprehensive originality report that aims to identify parts of the submitted content that the algorithm suspects are AI-generated. With a 98% success rate in detecting AI writing from tools such as ChatGPT, the Turnitin AI detection feature certainly places an obstacle in the way of any student hoping to leave their assignment to the trusty hands of an AI chatbot.
Before this crucial upgrade, text generated by ChatGPT could fly safely under Turnitin’s radar. Because the responses generated by ChatGPT are technically original and not directly borrowed from any source, and Turnitin could only detect plagiarism up until now, students who relied on the advanced GPT-3.5-based chatbot were safe. However, this has now changed.
So, how does Turnitin detect ChatGPT, and exactly what does Turnitin check in order to make a report? Since its recent creation, the Turnitin AI checker analyzes not only the originality of submitted content but also the writing style, language patterns, tone, context, structure, and syntax, allowing it to effectively detect AI-assisted writing.
It’s crucial to note that Turnitin does, in fact, support the learning potential that AI offers in academic spaces. In fact, developers at Turnitin are working with both students and educators to further educational resources and improve the learning process using AI tools. However, responsible and transparent use of such tools for educational purposes is paramount.
Academic Writing with ChatGPT
It goes without saying that using ChatGPT to write an entire academic assignment from scratch is clearly unethical, and such assignments will undoubtedly be flagged by Turnitin’s new AI detection capabilities. However, tools like ChatGPT can still be responsibly used to help further academic understanding and enhance student learning.
For example, AI-writing tools and chatbots like ChatGPT can assist students with conducting research, brainstorming ideas, and exploring potential academic writing topics. ChatGPT can summarize key points and direct learners to useful resources that they can use to better structure their own writing and improve the quality and content of their written assignments.
If students need guidance or help with citing their sources, checking facts, or perfecting their grammar and spelling, these are all tasks that ChatGPT and other AI writing tools can easily assist with. Using AI tools for such tasks is not only permitted but, in fact, encouraged by many educators and institutions, and students will have no problem checking with Turnitin with content crafted in this way.
What is important is that students do the actual academic writing themselves. It is vital that students learn how to reword and paraphrase information from multiple credible sources themselves in order to build their own arguments and show their understanding of the academic content.
An Undetectable AI Writing Solution for Turnitin
Now that Turnitin has been appropriately updated to consider the use of ChatGPT in student writing, it’s time to consider an easier and faster solution that can better meet students’ writing needs.
Introducing HIX Bypass, powered by HIX.AI, able to convert your AI-generated text into 100% original, unique, and plagiarism-free content that can bypass AI detection tools like Turnitin. While it is still recommended that students use such tools merely to assist and guide their academic writing, HIX Bypass can give users greater confidence when submitting their final assignments to Turnitin.
One of the main features that allow HIX Bypass to be the needed academic companion is the ability to transfer the provided text into fully humanized content. The advanced natural language processing algorithm allows the tool to reorganize your text, as well as replace vocabulary, improve expressions, and modify sentence orders to make it look more professional, and more like human-generated content so that to easily get the green light from AI detectors like Turnitin.
What’s more, this innovative content processing tool can complete all the humanized work without changing the original meaning of the content. Thanks to the powerful AI language model, HIX Bypass is able to produce naturally crafted, high-quality, like-human written text that 100% reflects the original meaning.
Conclusion
It’s important that plagiarism prevention software programs like Turnitin are continually reviewed and adapted to keep up with the ever-changing technological and digital landscape. Because AI writing tools are forecast to become a seamlessly integrated part of many professions as well as learning processes, it is more vital than ever that the use of these tools is monitored and policed to ensure that their potential is not abused.
