Plagiarism detector

Yes. Compilatio’s detection system is cross-language; it identifies rephrasings of text translated from one language to another. A student who translates a passage from Mandarin into French, or who rephrases a Spanish text into English, will have that passage flagged in the same way as a direct copy.

Yes, and that’s exactly what Compilatio does: plagiarism and AI are analyzed in a single report, for students using Compilatio Studium, and for teachers using Compilatio Magister. Since no AI detector can guarantee 100% reliability in this regard, we refer to text that may have been generated by AI: a result to be interpreted rather than absolute proof.

The document’s content is extracted before being compared to a very large number of sources (the web, academic databases, and previously submitted work). The tool identifies similar passages and calculates a similarity score, along with details of the relevant sources. This score is a starting point for interpretation, not an automatic verdict: it is up to the person reading the report to distinguish between legitimate citations and uncredited borrowing.

Some tools offer free access, which is often limited to a partial analysis or funded by reselling the analyzed documents to third-party databases. Before choosing a tool, it’s best to check what happens to your documents.

Copying and pasting without citing the source is the most obvious form, but there are others: unattributed paraphrasing (rewording an idea without citing its source), translation plagiarism, self-plagiarism (reusing one’s own work without acknowledging it), or simply failing to cite a source, often unintentionally. Identifying these issues helps you avoid them next time.

Plagiarism involves using another author’s words, ideas, or work without attributing them, thereby passing them off as one’s own. This ranges from verbatim copy-and-paste to uncited paraphrasing, as well as the translation of a foreign-language text presented as original work. In an academic setting, it stands in contrast to rigorous citation practices, which remain the best safeguard.

Compilatio Studium lets you analyze your own work before turning it in, with complete confidentiality: similarity scores, text potentially generated by AI, and a list of detected sources. It’s a way to turn in your work with confidence, having already identified what needs to be adjusted.

There is no universal threshold: each institution sets its own standards. As a general guideline, a similarity rate below 10% is generally considered normal (including citations and the bibliography); a rate between 10% and 25% warrants verification depending on the type of assignment; and a rate above 25% requires a careful review. The number alone never tells the whole story: what matters is the nature of the flagged passages.

For more details, see our article on the subject: “What level of plagiarism is acceptable?”