Can SafeAssign Detect Paraphrasing? A Review of SafeAssign’s Effectiveness

Do you want to paraphrase a piece of writing and you are afraid of SafeAssign flagging it as plagiarized? The methods you use to paraphrase your work are what matters.

This article will answer all your questions and review the effectiveness of SafeAssign.

Also Read: Can Professors Detect Plagiarism: How Do the Teachers Check

Can SafeAssign Detect Paraphrasing?

SafeAssign can detect any work that is not properly paraphrased and give suggestions of where it was extracted from.

On the contrary, work that is well paraphrased cannot be detected by SafeAssign because it should not look similar to the original.

Any work that is well paraphrased should:

• Present work rewritten in your own words
• Present work that has not lost its original meaning after being re-written
• Present work that has reserved the technical terms used in the original copy
• Present work that is approximately the same length as the original
• Not exclude the in-text citations of the references used in the original essay

To achieve the above and escape plagiarism do the following to paraphrase any piece of writing:

Use synonyms

Using synonyms helps you avoid making paraphrased work similar to the original because different words with the same meanings are used.

When using synonyms choose words carefully to avoid distorting the original meaning.

Change the Sentence Structure

Structuring sentences differently will help formulate different sentences with the same meaning.

For example, simple sentences can be made more complex without changing the original meaning

Change Active to Passive Voice and Vice Versa

These are grammar structures that if used paraphrase sentences effectively without changing the meaning of the sentences.

It involves changing up the subjects and objects in sentences. The doer of the verb is moved from the end of the sentence to the beginning and vice versa.

Use Combine Technique

One of the above techniques will not help you come up with properly plagiarized work. Combining all of them is the only way that you will come up with properly paraphrased work that will not be easily flagged as plagiarized by SafeAssign and other plagiarism-detecting tools.

Also Read: Linking Words for Essay Writing: Useful Paragraph Phrases

A Review of SafeAssign

If you have been having questions on the effectiveness of SafeAssign, everything about it is revealed below to end any unsurety that you may have concerning this tool.

1. Safety

SafeAssign is one of the safest plagiarism-checking tools trusted by millions of students and institutions around the globe. There are no reported incidents of whether work checked on SafeAssign was reviewed and plagiarism was found.

Sometimes even instructors have to review the plagiarism score and everything that SafeAssign flags as plagiarism because even correctly paraphrased work and references that show similarity are identified.

When you choose SafeAssign then you have a reliable anti-plagiarism tool that can save you from the dangers of submitting similar work.

2. Accuracy

Accuracy is one of the main attributes of SafeAssign that makes it an exceptional plagiarism-checking tool. For example, all percentages indicated on the originality reports are a true reflection of the amount of plagiarism in your work.

All reports with a score of 15% and below have less evidence of plagiarism. They include some quotes or common block texts that match others on the SafeAssign database.

If the score is between 15% and 40% that work mostly has overused quotes and chances are high that it is poorly paraphrased. Such papers should be reviewed to bring the percentage down to the level required.

In originality reports with more than a 40% similarity score, the content was probably copied from another source.

Therefore, if you have a specific percentage of plagiarism that your assignment must not exceed, you can rely on what SafeAssign generates even if your instructor uses a different plagiarism-checking tool.

All papers checked by SafeAssign always return a 100% similarity score if resubmitted.

The accuracy of Safeassign is also seen in the sources suggested as evidence for plagiarism. Every source that SafeAssign suggests as the origin of plagiarized material is correct.

Instructors do not have to check to prove whether it is accurate.

3. Store files

Every document that is checked on SafeAssign is stored in its database. This helps prevent the submission of similar work thus to some extent preventing cheating.

However, you can request that your paper be removed from the SafeAssign database. Upon this request, your paper is removed from the database but SafeAssign can still use it for future reference.

The twist comes in when you and a different student submit the same work. Your submission will be detected by SafeAssign but there will be no similarities or similarity score displayed on the originality report.

However, when other students submit the same paper, SafeAssign will detect it as plagiarized and a non-existent paper listed as the source.

Since the file has been deleted the instructor will know that the work is plagiarized but will not be able to confirm the source.

4. Cost

SafeAssign is incorporated in Blackboard. Therefore, you will have to have a Blackboard subscription to access SafeAssign as an instructor.

Blackboard does not allow access to SafeAssign in free trials. The pricing for Blackboard classrooms is $300 a year while departments are required to pay $9000 per annum.

The first option for classrooms is easily affordable in many schools hence the increased use of SafeAssign in many institutions.

5. Free

Usually, students access SafeAssign through the Blackboard platform. All that is required of you as a student is to do the assignment, upload it on Safeassign, and submit it.

Whether you can view the originality report or not depends on the settings that your instructor put in place.

You can always view all your submissions on SafeAssign because an originality report is provided for each.

This lies at the instructor’s discretion.

However, some smart students have discovered some hacks to bypass SafeAssign through paraphrasing. That way, they are not caught with any plagiarism.

6. Multiple Attempts

SafeAssign allows multiple attempts by a single student on the same assignment. All attempts are checked and their originality reports are produced. In such cases, SafeAssign detects that it is a similar assignment originating from the same student. As a result, all the assignments are checked using the existing database and not the previous versions of the paper uploaded.

This allows students to correct errors that may have been made in assignments and resubmit them without being accused of plagiarism.

7. File Restrictions

It is important to know that not all files can be submitted and checked by SafeAssign. To start with, files that exceed 10MB cannot be uploaded on SafeAssign.

Also, there are specific file formats that Safe Assign checks. These include; DOC, DOCX, PPT, DOCM, ODT, TXT, PDF, HTML, and RTF.

Any file that is outside these formats will not be checked by SafeAssign, therefore, it is good that you convert them to any of the above before submitting.

8. Special Characters

Any assignments that involve the use of special characters such as hashtags are not evaluated by SafeAssign and no originality reports are produced.

It is therefore recommended that you keep your text official. Only include numbers, letters, and punctuations such as full stops, hyphens, and underscores in your assignments. In cases where you have submitted an assignment with special characters, do the correction and re-upload it.

If the re-upload fails to go through ask your instructor to allow multiple attempts.

9. Accessibility

SafeAssign aims to ensure that its services are accessible to all users without minding their age, situation, and ability.

All products offered are designed as per Web Content Guidelines that are internationally recognized. Third parties also inspect the websites regularly to ensure that the quality expectations required are maintained

Foreign Languages

SafeAssign supports several languages. Several tools in the database check different languages hence making submissions in them analyzable.

These languages include British and American English, Danish, Chinese, welsh, Arabic, Finnish, French, Czech, Dutch, Italian, Korean, Polish, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Turkish, Swedish, Thai, and Malay.

Also Read: Can Plagiarism checkers detect AI Text like Jervis? Turnitin or SafeAssign

Frequently Asked Questions

Is SafeAssign Check Free

SafeAssign checks are free for students. This plagiarism-checking tool is integrated into online learning tools such as Blackboard which institutions pay for to streamline the process of submitting assignments.

can I check SafeAssign before Submitting?

You can check SafeAssign before submitting through the draft box. The draft bot is located within all classes that use SafeAssign to enable students to check their assignments’ originality reports before submitting them to the official assignment SafeAssign box. You can find this draft box in the course Menu on Blackboard classrooms.

What is a SafeAssign draft box?

Safe assign draft box is a tool found on the course menu on Blackboard classrooms used by students to check assignments before submitting them officially. The draft box also allows for the submission of assignments without them getting stored.

Is SafeAssign only for students?

SafeAssign is not only for students because instructors use it to ensure that students do not submit plagiarized work and for the submission of assignments to run smoothly. Even the website has pages for instructors, students, and administrators.

Does SafeAssign check previously submitted work?

SafeAssign checks previously submitted work on its database to flag any new paper that may contain similar content. If plagiarism is detected, previously submitted work is provided as the source. Even when the owner of the paper requests that the paper gets deleted, its contents remain to check new submissions, and only the resubmission by the same writer will not be flagged as plagiarized.