Students
Check a college essay the night before it's due. A quote that lost its quotation marks during a late revision shows up right away.
Step by step
Check plagiarism in six steps
Six steps take you from a pasted draft to a fixed one.
Add your text
Paste it in or upload a file, such as a Word document, a PDF or plain text. One check covers 40 words at minimum and 1,500 at most.
Confirm the language
The checker guesses your text's language and searches in it. If the guess is off, change it in Language below the text.
Run the check
Press Check plagiarism. The checker sends your most distinctive sentences to a web search, opens the results and compares every sentence of yours against them.
Read the marks
Matching sentences are highlighted. Each one is tagged as an exact copy or a near match and numbered by the source it came from.
Open the source
Each source links to the page where the match turned up. Open it next to your draft and compare the passages.
Fix it
Put the passage in quotation marks and cite it. Or restate it, by hand or with the paraphrasing tool, and cite the source anyway.
The basics
How the plagiarism checker works
A plagiarism checker looks for your wording on other web pages. Textlume marks each matching passage, numbers it by source and links to the page, so you can quote, cite or rewrite it before a professor, editor or client reads the draft.
Most copied sentences aren't deliberate. A quote loses its quotation marks between drafts of a history paper. Notes typed straight from an article slide into an essay. A freelancer recycles two paragraphs from an old post. Those slips are exactly what this check catches.
It works best on wording that was lifted whole or with a few words swapped. Searches run against public web pages in your text's language. Your school's own system is a different thing: it also holds private databases and archives of earlier student papers, and this checker can't see those.
Your report
How to read the report
The report has three parts. The match share is the part of your words that sit in sentences also found on a web page, split into exact copies and near matches, where most of a sentence's meaningful words return in a new order. Your text shows the matched sentences highlighted, and the source list gives each page with its share.
A match is a lead, not a verdict. A cited quote should match its source, and names and stock phrases show up on plenty of pages. Look hard at passages that match a source with no quotation marks and no citation.
What share is acceptable? Your school, a journal or a client sets that rule, so read the passages, not just the percentage. Every match should end up in quotation marks with a citation, or in your own words with a citation.
Two checks
Plagiarism checker vs AI detector
A copied passage and an AI-written one are different problems. Teachers and editors check for both, so run each check on a draft before it goes in.
| Plagiarism checker | AI detector | |
|---|---|---|
| Looks for | Wording that's already published on a web page | Writing that reads as if a language model produced it. Run it in the AI detector. |
| Compares your text with | Pages on the open web | Nothing outside your text. It reads how the writing is put together |
| You get | A match share, highlighted passages and links to their sources | A likely range, how confident the reading is, and a mark on each sentence |
| Plans | Basic, Plus and Pro. See pricing. | A free check every day, with more words on every paid plan |
Who uses it
Who checks for plagiarism
Teachers
A paragraph sounds too polished? See whether it's already published somewhere and open that page straight from the result.
Editors
Check a commissioned article before it runs under your publication's name.
Content agencies
Check a freelancer's draft before it reaches the client.
Bloggers and marketers
Make sure a blog post written on deadline doesn't repeat copy that's live elsewhere.
Second-language writers
A grad student from Korea working from English sources can confirm no source sentence ended up in the draft word for word.
Scope
What it checks and what it skips
- Searches cover public pages that a search engine has indexed. Journals behind a paywall, archives of student papers and private documents stay out of reach, so this doesn't stand in for Turnitin or your university's own check.
- It catches copied wording and close rewording. A passage rewritten so heavily that few original words survive usually gets through.
- You see where your text lines up with a source. What to quote, cite or rewrite stays your call.
- For members, the checked text, the shares and the number of sources stay in your history until you delete them, for at most a year. You can delete entries or switch history off. The checker itself keeps no copy.
Other tools
Try another tool on the same text
AI detectorMarks each sentence as AI-like or human-like and gives the whole text a range and a confidence rating.AI humanizerRewrites stiff AI drafts into plainer prose and checks that numbers, names and quotations come through.Grammar checkerFinds spelling, grammar and punctuation errors and lets you fix them one by one or all at once.SummarizerCuts a long text to a short, medium or long summary, or pulls out its key sentences.Paraphrasing toolSays the same thing in new words, in the mode you pick, from fluent to formal.Word counterCounts words, characters, sentences and paragraphs as you type, with reading and speaking time.Character counterCounts characters with and without spaces against the limits of common forms and posts.
Is the plagiarism checker free?
No. The checker is not open for checks yet, and it will come with the paid plans: 10,000 words a month on Basic, 25,000 on Plus and 40,000 on Pro. The other tools keep their free run every day.
How does a plagiarism checker work?
It picks your most distinctive sentences, about one for every 60 words, runs them as web searches and reads the pages that come back. Then it compares each of your sentences with those pages, highlights the ones that match and lists their pages as sources.
How much plagiarism is acceptable?
There is no single safe number. Each school, journal or client sets its own rule, and cited quotes raise the share too. A paper full of cited quotes can score high and be fine, while a low score can hide one copied paragraph. Check that every highlighted passage is quoted or reworded, and cited.
Is this the same as Turnitin or my university's check?
No. A university system also compares your paper with earlier submissions and paid academic databases. Textlume compares it with public web pages. Use it to catch copied or uncited online passages before you submit, then follow your school's official check.
Which languages does it check?
Searches run in your text's language, so a Spanish essay is checked against Spanish pages. The checker reads the language from the text. If it guesses wrong on a short or mixed text, change it before you run the check.
Will a plagiarism check catch AI-written text?
Usually not. A chatbot writes new sentences that match no published page, so an AI-written essay can come back almost clean. To see whether a text reads as AI-written, use the AI detector, which looks at how the writing is built.
Where does my text go when I run a check?
A handful of your sentences go to a web search service as queries, and the pages that come back are read on their own sites. The checker keeps no copy. Signed in, your history saves the checked text, the shares and the source count for up to a year, unless you turn history off or delete it.
How do I fix plagiarism in my text?
Decide what you meant to borrow. For the exact words, use quotation marks and a citation. For the idea, restate it in your own words and still cite the source. The paraphrasing tool helps with the wording, the citation keeps it honest.
Can it catch paraphrased text?
Partly. A near match catches a sentence that keeps most of the source's meaningful words in a new order, which is what a quick reword produces. A thorough rewrite usually won't match, but the idea still came from the source, so cite it.
Can my teacher see that I ran a plagiarism check?
No. Your check isn't sent to your school and isn't added to any shared database of papers. The run stays in your own account history, which you can delete. The only text that leaves for the search is a handful of sentences sent as queries.
What if my text is longer than one check allows?
The checker searches the first part, up to the per-check limit or what's left of your monthly words. The result says how many words it searched and how many it left out, so a clean first half doesn't pass for a clean paper. Paste the rest in as a second check.
Find copied passages before your reader does
The checker is not open for checks yet. Until it is, the AI detector and the grammar checker are ready for your draft.