Do you know that originality is non-negotiable in academia, especially when you are working on an essay or dissertation? Ensuring your writing is authentic and plagiarism-free is crucial to maintaining academic integrity. Why? Because plagiarism, even unintentional, can damage your reputation and derail your career.

According to the University of Oxford, the penalties for plagiarism vary from deductions in academic grades to permanent expulsion from an educational institute. That’s where global reference database checkers come in to keep your academic journey smooth and uninterrupted. With so many options available online, which ones should you trust?

Most importantly, which tools will act as database checkers and detect AI’s presence in your writing? In this detailed guide, we will explore the best academic database checkers that students can capitalise on. Let’s know more about them and make your dissertation easy to submit!

A List of the Top 5 Global Reference Database Checkers for University Researchers

Creating an outline for a dissertation and writing it flawlessly is only one part of the long process. The real challenge for university students or researchers begins when they start checking their writings against the previous books, research papers, online journals, and many more sources. They utilise plagiarism checkers and global reference databases to find out if there is any presence of similarity in their essay or dissertation.

Some of these checkers are paid and allow only educational institutes to use them, meaning students have to submit the first draft to know about the similarity or plagiarism report. All these steps can stress out a student, making him unable to pay attention to other academic tasks. How can students overcome this issue and submit their dissertations without plagiarism and formatting problems?

Acquiring dissertation writing services can help students avoid derailing their academic journey due to text-similarity issues. These services not only write dissertations perfectly but also check for similarity reports and AI’s presence so that you don’t face any academic penalties. Employing these services will enable you to achieve higher grades without feeling burned out.

Here is a list of top global database plagiarism checkers for students that detect the similarity of their dissertation by comparing it with billions of online academic sources.

1. Turnitin

Turnitin has been helping students, educators, and educational institutions to maintain academic integrity for over two decades. Due to its comprehensive reports on similarity, Turnitin always remains the first choice in academia. It offers similarity reports to other texts and effectively detects potential plagiarism. As per Turnitin, more than 20000 educational institutions use it, and over 50 million students in 185 countries trust it to check their academic writings.

The strength and success of Trunitin lie in its massive global reference database, including books, research articles, online libraries, newspapers, etc. When you curate your essay or write a dissertation, you will simply need to ask your educational institute to check the similarity report because Turnitin doesn’t grant access to students directly.

Not only does it help in detecting potential plagiarism, but it also checks for AI presence in an article. You can simply download these reports and use them to show that your writing is authentic and genuine. Here are a few reasons why every student must use this tool before the final submission of their dissertation:

• Turnitin is an extensive global reference database checker, having access to billions of research papers, submitted essays or dissertations, and books. It will compare your document to these academic sources and generate a detailed similarity report.
• It has become the best AI detection tool in academia over the years. Due to the availability of AI-assisted tools to write assignments and dissertations, it is essential to find out whether there is any presence of artificial intelligence in your writing.
• Its comprehensive plagiarism report shows the exact percentage match in your dissertation to previously published essays, articles, and books, enabling you to avoid academic misconduct.

2. SafeAssign by Blackboard

The consequences of plagiarism can go beyond the imagination of a student because it can delay your professional journey as you will not be able to submit your dissertation and earn your degree on time. SafeAssign is a global reference database and plagiarism checker that empowers students to avoid plagiarism by showing the exact and inexact matches in their dissertations or essays.

SafeAssign is designed on a unique text-matching detection algorithm, generating similarity reports without making mistakes. The University of Mississippi states that this global reference checker has about 2.6 million articles in its database from 1990 to date. The management of the tool always focuses on updating its database every week.

These are the features of SafeAssign and why a student should use it:

• It is integrated with Blackboard, which is a web-based learning management system. SafeAssign has a user-friendly interface, meaning students can easily use it without getting external help.
• SafeAssign supports several files that are convertible to plain text. These files include DOC, PDF, HTM, HTML, etc. It will create similarity reports only for supported file types.
• If the score is below 15%, you don’t need any further analysis from this plagiarism checker because it usually entails quotes and some generic sentences. The report from SafeAssign will be comprehensive, covering every detail.
• It allows you to check the similarity of individual files, and you can also make a zip folder of these files to check them based on your preference.
• You can submit your writings to check plagiarism against your papers in the future. This is the most important feature of SafeAssign because it helps detect similarity to unpublished work.

3. Grammarly

Grammarly has been a go-to choice for students and professionals who want to submit their academic tasks flawlessly, from assignments to dissertations. Its database is powered by ProQuest and comprehensively checks your educational work for plagiarism. According to Grammarly, it has a database of 16 billion web pages and research papers, meaning your file will be compared to vast academic sources.

However, it is not a free global reference database checker.  A student or professional can only use it after buying a subscription plan. Many universities offer licenses for Grammarly to students. Before spending money and buying a plan, you can ask your supervisor or educational institute whether they provide licenses for it.

Grammarly allows students to check grammatical and sentence structure issues. This feature is entirely free for students and professionals. You can simply install its Chrome Extension or download the system to run in MS Word. Without Grammarly, submitting an error-free dissertation is a tough challenge for students because there is always room for mistakes, no matter how hard you try to prevent them.

4. iThenticate

iThenticate is Turnitin’s cousin, meaning its similarity reports are detailed and error-free. However, contrary to Turnitin, iThenticate is built specifically for professional researchers or publishers. People usually use it when submitting a research paper for publication. Nevertheless, it does not mean that students can’t utilise it when submitting their essays or dissertations.

As stated by iThenticate, it has access to over 90 billion web pages in addition to 190 million content items. Your dissertation will be compared against all these sources, generating a detailed similarity report without missing a detail. You can present these similarity reports as proof if someone objects to the originality of your work.

Here are a few features of iThenticate that can make you use this tool before submitting your assignment or essay:

• This global reference database checker is integrated with leading publishers who are well-reputed in academia. These publishers are Elsevier and Springer. This integration provides a strong backbone for similarity reports for your dissertations, research articles, or essays.
• iThenticate does not build any student repository. When you submit writing to the tool to detect similarity report, the checker will not add it to its database, ensuring confidentiality for students.

5. Scribbr Plagiarism Checker

Scribbr is a perfect plagiarism checker and is powered by Turnitin technology. As you know, individual scholars and students don’t have direct access to Turnitin because it is only available to educational institutions. Overcoming this problem is not difficult with Scribbr. Individual students and research professionals can easily use it and check their text against millions of academic data sources.

These are some features of Scribbr that make it a trusted choice for students and research scholars:

• It has access to Turnitin’s extensive database. Based on this database, it will generate a detailed similarity report, detecting potential plagiarism without missing any detail.
• Not only does it provide a similarity report, but it also offers actionable insights, such as improving citations and bibliographies.
• It will check your essay or research paper against previously published articles in various journals, online libraries, and websites. It is an ideal database plagiarism checker for research professionals who don’t have access to Turnitin. Moreover, final-year students who have been working on preparing their dissertations can also utilise this tool to make their writing more authentic and genuine.

What Does The Global Reference Database Check?

A global reference database checks your dissertation or research article against a vast set of academic sources, such as books, research journals, and online libraries. A student working on his dissertation must make it go through these databases or checkers to find potential plagiarism – similarities. Preventing similarities with these tools is essential to maintaining academic integrity and avoiding misconduct.

When you submit your writing to a global reference database checker, it will compare your text with previously published or available articles to generate a perfect similarity report, helping you submit a flawless final draft of your dissertation.

Do I Have to Agree to Submit My Paper to the Global Reference database?

It will vary for every global reference database checker. Some tools ask you to submit a paper after agreeing to the terms and conditions. However, other database checkers have simple buttons to submit a dissertation or paper without agreeing to any rules.

For example:

• Turnitin:A student or research professional can opt out of submitting papers to their database.
• PlagScan:You can control whether your dissertation becomes part of the database or not.
• iThenticate:A student doesn’t need to submit his dissertation to a database because this checker ensures confidentiality for every student.

You will always have to check your institution’s policy or the tool’s terms of use.

What Is A Good Percentage For Safe Assign?

SafeAssign provides detailed instructions regarding various similarity percentages for a document. Here is precise information about a similarity percentage report generated by SafeAssign:

• Under 15%:It is generally safe for students and professionals because it includes generic terms, sentences, and quotations. You will not need to further analyse your content if the similarity percentage is below 15%.
• 15-40%: If a similarity report is between 15 and 40%, you will need to revise it carefully. This report may be showing the level of excessive paraphrased content or unintentional plagiarism.
• Above 40%:It’s a red line and risky. You will review the whole document and do a comprehensive revision.

When generating a similarity report through SageAssign, you will need to exclude references and bibliographies.

What Does 100% on SafeAssign Mean?

A 100% similarity report of a dissertation or research paper shows that it is completely plagiarised, meaning you copied someone else’s work and presented it as your own. Sometimes, a part of your dissertation or a paragraph shows a 100% similarity report.

If this paragraph has quotation marks and you cited it correctly, there is no need to worry. Otherwise, you have to remove it or cite the source accurately to prevent academic misconduct.

Final Thoughts

Writing a dissertation while maintaining academic integrity and following the guidelines of your institute requires your complete dedication for weeks. The process of curating this form of writing is hectic because you first have to collect data and then write it and present every argument with solid references.

Moreover, students must compare their writing against billions of academic sources to detect plagiarism. Tackling all these issues without professional help can derail your academic journey because you cannot focus on other tasks. In that case, you can consult dissertation writing firms and submit your final writing to earn your degree. These firms have expert writers who write dissertations according to your guidelines and are always welcoming of revisions.

Author Bio

Mike Johnson is an experienced dissertation writer with over eight years of experience in academic writing. With a master’s degree in social sciences, Mike goes above and beyond to avoid mistakes in dissertations, helping students submit their work head-on.