ChatGPT can copy content from existing sources when writing content. It does this by synthesizing existing content, which is basically combining ideas from multiple sources to form a unified argument or topic. This makes its content plagiarize the sources it uses.
However, literal plagiarism detection isn’t the only problem in ChatGPT’s content. Plagiarism occurs when you use a source’s text or original ideas without giving it credit. So, even if your ChatGPT appears free of plagiarism detection in a plagiarism detector, not crediting the sources used in the content still contributes to plagiarism.
This means, using ChatGPT gives rise to two kinds of plagiarism: Plagiarism due to similarity between the text and the source, which is detectable by plagiarism checkers; and actual plagiarism that occurs by not citing your sources.
If this is the case, how can we avoid plagiarism when using ChatGPT for content creation? This article answers this question below.
How to Avoid Plagiarism While Using ChatGPT
1. Fact-Check to Verify Sources
When you generate content using ChatGPT, always fact-check the information to verify its source. This is essential for writing research properly, since understanding the origin of information allows you to cite it correctly. ChatGPT often borrows information from different sources. Sometimes, the tool links to the sources, and sometimes, especially when it writes articles or posts, it doesn’t include links to sources.
So, if you see a piece of information without any source, copy the text and search it online to trace its origin and find out its source. If the tool links to a source, go through the link to see where the information is given and if it is accurate. In case of multiple links to a single piece of information or idea, the information was likely a synthesis of the information from all the linked sources. In this case, you’ll have to go through all the sources to verify the facts.
In case the tool links to a social forum, like Reddit, the information is likely someone’s personal opinion. If that is the case, look for a better source manually or do a little of your own research. Sometimes, the source is a PDF file. In this case, you can look at the publisher—the website hosting the PDF is likely the source.
Also, make sure the sources are credible before you cite them. You don’t want to cite an unknown source, which might not be reliable. If you do come across a source you’re not familiar with, verify its credibility through some research.
2. Cite the Sources
When you track the sources, record their citation details. Include all the details required in the style guide you follow. This may include:
the author’s full name,
the article title,
the website name,
the page number of the PDF/book,
the paragraph number,
the date of publishing,
the date of modification, and
the URL of the source webpage.
Use the necessary details to cite the source in your content. You can include them in in-text citations or cite them in footnotes and also create a reference sheet, however your style guide requires. Make sure the citations are accurate and free of mistakes.
Fact-checking and citing the sources used in the AI content will help prevent the actual plagiarism, which occurs due to borrowing ideas without crediting them. But the content might still plagiarize these sources if its wording matches theirs, which increases the similarity score in plagiarism checking. The following steps address this issue.
3. Check Plagiarism
Before you can paraphrase your content to remove its plagiarism, you need to identify whether an AI detector flags your content for plagiarism or not.
Go ahead and run your text through a reliable plagiarism remover to confirm this. Once the scan is done, look for the parts that are flagged or highlighted. These are the parts you need to paraphrase to reduce their similarity.
It’s better to paraphrase all the affected parts of the text, even the ones that include citations, because you don’t want your content: article, assignment, research paper to appear as a copy-paste of the original work. Most of the text should be in your own words and avoid stating a source directly, except in some cases where a direct quotation is prioritized.
4. Paraphrase and Quote
Now that you know which parts of the content need to be rewritten, consider using both paraphrasing and quoting methods to present the source information.
What is Paraphrasing and How to Do It?
Paraphrasing means to rewrite an idea or piece of text in your own words, especially to make it clearer. It is a writing skill and method used to borrow information from sources while making it more concise and avoiding plagiarism by not saying it verbatim.
You can paraphrase the source information through various techniques, including:
Swapping words with their synonyms
Restructuring sentences
Changing sentence voice
Changing the structure of text and/or order of ideas
Re-expressing the entire idea or concept
Paraphrasing the text alters its wording so that it stops matching the original version, which prevents plagiarism.
However, you need to be wary of loose or ineffective paraphrasing, which happens when you’re not able to effectively change the text, so the overall wording of the text remains similar to the original one. The text might still be detectable by plagiarism detectors. That’s why you need to make sure your paraphrasing is thorough.
What is Direct-Quoting and How to Do It?
Direct-quoting refers to when you use a piece of text without changing its wording at all. In other words, you state an idea or text as it is stated originally by its author. Direct quotes are written within double quotation marks (“ ”), which indicate that the text within them is directly copied without a change.
Although this method of borrowing the text does not prevent AI detection, it clarifies that the quoted text belongs to someone else, which eliminates the need to evade plagiarism detection.
Direct quotation is simply done by writing the source text verbatim within the double quotation marks. It is often followed by an in-text citation to clarify the source.
Use double quotation to state text that is already concise and clear, especially if the text is already powerful in its wording that changing it might make it less clear or make it lose its impact.
Another thing to keep in mind is that you paraphrase more than your direct-quote. In fact, most of the text should be paraphrased, because direct-quoting is simple copy-pasting. It involves plagiarism detection and can make it look like a lazy job if you’re doing it excessively. On the other hand, paraphrasing a source material requires you to understand it before rewriting. Hence, paraphrasing a source text in your words shows that you understand the idea/concept/argument well.
5. Humanize the Text
If you’re using ChatGPT to write content, literal plagiarism detection isn’t the only thing you need to get rid of. You also need to get rid of the content’s robotic writing style, which can make it feel AI-generated.
The reason you should avoid publishing or submitting content that sounds AI-written is because people can tell the difference between AI and human-written content, which is why they may feel like your content is AI’s copy-paste and plagiarized, because AI content is usually plagiarized.
So, even if your content appears plagiarism-free and cites the sources, readers might not find it credible and trustable, which is why humanizing your ChatGPT content can be essential to present it as original (provided that your content carries your original insights and ideas, even if the text itself was drafted by ChatGPT).
However, you don’t have to humanize the content yourself. Our AI text humanizer, can do it for you: Just paste your AI text into HumanizeAI.net and click the “Humanize Text” button. The tool will rewrite your text, change its wording, restructure its sentence, and alter the voice to make sure it sounds human-written instead of AI-written, without compromising its meaning. (Plus, it also reduces plagiarism through its paraphrasing.)
Humanizing ChatGPT content ensures it appears original and authentic to your audience, so that they trust it is your own work and not a copy-paste of someone else’s ideas or ChatGPT.
Conclusion
ChatGPT written content can contain plagiarism, which can be a big problem for writers and students. Luckily there are simple ways to prevent it. To prevent actual plagiarism and intellectual copyright infringement of sources used in the ChatGPT content, you need to fact-check the information to trace its sources and cite them properly. To eliminate plagiarism detection, consider paraphrasing the text, along with using double quotations to ensure the idea or piece of text is not your own. You may also need to humanize the content so that it appears human-written and original to the audience to maintain a positive and credible image.
