Unlike in the past years, when students had to write their papers from scratch, things have changed tremendously. The establishment and widespread of the internet has led to the development of numerous paraphrasing tools, at the top of the list being Quillbot.
Students and other professional writers use these tools to enhance their papers or rephrase existing content to generate new writing pieces. This raises questions on the credibility of these tools, and that is why one would ask, is using Quillbot cheating?
To answer this question and more others on this platform, kindly read this article to the end.
What is Quillbot, and How Does It Work?
Quillbot is a paraphrasing tool launched by three Computer Science students, David Silin, Anil Jason, and Rohit Gupta, in 2017. This paraphrasing tool employs state-of-the-art artificial intelligence to rewrite different types of content.
It does so by substituting different words with their synonyms and altering the structure of various phrases and sentences while maintaining the original ideas and message.
When using Quillbot, you either use the Quillbot free plan or the premium plan. In the free plan, you can rephrase a maximum of 400 characters consequently, summarize a maximum of 500 characters at once, have access to three-word flipper options, and process two sentences at once. In addition, you have access to three Quillbot modes, the standard mode, creative mode, and fluency mode.
Also see: Is paraphrasing cheating?
On the other hand, Quillbot premium plans allow you to paraphrase 10,000 characters, summarize 25,000 characters, process 15 sentences at once, and access six writing modes. You access these services by paying a monthly plan, a semi-annual plan, or an annual plan.
To paraphrase your text using Quillbot, copy it, paste it in the box and click the rephrase button. After you do so, Quillbot highlights several phrases and words that require you to click on them and substitute them with the suggested synonyms.
It will also help you point out grammatical errors and alter the structures of sentences that appear similar to those of the original text.
Is Quillbot a Good Paraphraser?
Quillbot is a good paraphraser. Millions of students and professional writers have been using this paraphrasing tool to generate high-quality pieces of articles, essays, and research papers. This has been made possible by its ability to rephrase, summarize, and check grammar.
Remember, Quillbot integrates several features that make the paraphrasing work more accessible and more authentic. These features include a Summarizing tool, Application Programming Interface, Editor Interface, Grammar Checker, Extensions, Word Flipper, and Vocabulary Enhancer.
All the above features work hand in hand to ensure that the final content that Quillbot generates is unparalleled and mistakes-free.
Quillbot consists of writing seven modes that you can use to rewrite your article in a tone and style of your choice. These modes include the standard mode that ensures your article maintains its meaning, the fluency mode to ensure that the sentences and the general text sound natural, and the creative mode, which modifies the phrases in your article and leaves them completely different from the original content.
In addition, the premium plan consists of the creative+ mode, which is more sophisticated and better than the creative mode, the formal mode for formal papers such as academic or business papers, shortened mode contracting the number of phrases in your text while maintaining the original message. The expand mode increases your text’s word count by adding words and phrases.
Is It Cheating to Use Quillbot?
It is cheating to use Quillbot. Remember, when you take someone else’s work and run it through Quillbot to paraphrase the text and later submit that piece of writing as your own, then that is a severe form of cheating.
Quillbot is a paraphrasing tool where students copy and paste pieces of writing for the platform to rephrase them. It does so by substituting several words with their synonyms and altering some of the phrases in the text so that the piece of writing can appear new and original.
However, since the ideas and message in the produced text are not your own, you will have committed plagiarism.
In addition, Quillbot does not help you to cite your sources correctly. This means that paraphrasing the text does not give credit to the original author of the content, which is wrong.
As a result, if you submitted the text for grading and your professor employs plagiarism-detecting software such as Turnitin, then your work will be flagged for plagiarism, and you will be punished accordingly.
Is Using a Paraphrasing Tool Cheating?
Using a paraphrasing tool is not cheating. Remember, paraphrasing tools are meant to be used by their users to help them beef up their original thoughts and ideas through rephrasing and writing more cohesive pieces of writing. If you used any paraphrasing tool to improve your piece of writing, then that would not be treated as cheating.
However, when you use a paraphrasing tool to rephrase someone else’s content and submit the resulting text as your own, that is cheating. Remember, even if the paraphrasing tool rewrites the text so well that no plagiarism detector can trace the original text, it would still be cheating because only the words will be yours but not the message and the original idea.
Also see: Is Using Spinbot Cheating?
To effectively use a paraphrasing tool to rephrase another author’s work, you need to cite your sources and acknowledge the original author of that text. When you have appropriately cited the text, even your professor will not consider that as cheating because you acknowledge the ideas as someone else’s.
Can Teachers Find Out if You Used a Paraphrasing Tool?
Teachers can find out if you use a paraphrasing tool. Therefore, a keen teacher can always detect the paraphrased parts if a student uses a paraphrasing tool.
When you use a paraphrasing tool to rephrase your work, the resulting text may have several unusual phrases that would catch the eye of an experienced and keen instructor. Some of the red flags that such a teacher may find evident in such a text include mismatching style and tone where there are parts with sophisticated phrases and others with amateur phrases.
In addition, if the teacher compared your article and your previous submissions, they will find inconsistency in the style you used and be suspicious. Other red flags in a text that have been produced by a paraphrasing tool include peculiar phrases and unclear sources in the bibliography.
An effective way to avoid detecting such mistakes would be to proofread and edit the generated text extensively. Including your ideas would be an added advantage in preventing detection.
Can You Get Caught Using a Paraphrasing Tool?
You can get caught using a paraphrasing tool. Educators have several ways and techniques at their disposal to find out if a particular student has used a paraphrasing tool and committed plagiarism in their work.
An effective way that most educators in various institutions of learning employ are plagiarism prevention and detection software such as Turnitin or SafeAssign. These programs use algorithms that detect similar streams of text and phrases in the submitted paper by comparing it to their large database of web documents, publications, and previously submitted papers. They need to run the submitted work in this software and wait for them to generate a similarity report.
Also see: Can Paraphrasing Beat Turnitin?
Therefore, if a student used a paraphrasing tool to generate a piece of writing, Turnitin or any other program will detect the similarities and help the educator flag the student for plagiarism.
Conclusion
After reading this article, you might still ask yourself; Is using Quillbot cheating? It is evident that unless you use the platform or any other paraphrasing tool correctly, then you will be cheating. If caught, you will be held liable, and you will face severe consequences for the misconduct.