Is it Legal to Use a Paraphrasing Tool to Avoid Plagiarism

Originally published: March 28, 2022 09:35:16 AM, updated: May 12, 2023 05:25:35 PM

Using a free paraphrasing tool can be very helpful when writing content. You can use it to make your content unique. You can also learn new words and see the different ways in which you can structure your sentences.

But, seeing how easy it is to use these tools, you could be a bit worried about whether what you are doing is legal or not. Not to worry. That is what we will discuss in this post.

The Right and Wrong Types of Paraphrasing

There are two types of paraphrasing.

The first type is the one in which the job is done thoroughly, and the final content does not bear a very major resemblance to the original text.

The other type of paraphrasing (and this is the bad kind) is the one in which someone just changes a few words from the original content and then uses it as it is his own.

Of these two types, the first one is legal.

In other words, if a person paraphrases some content then and adequately shares it elsewhere without citing the source, there will be nothing wrong with it.

With this type of content, even if someone were to check Plagiarism, they would not get any type of matches whatsoever. But, with partially paraphrased content, it is important to mention the original author as well.

Is it Legal to Use a Paraphrasing Tool to Avoid Plagiarism?

As we mentioned above, paraphrasing is legal if it is done correctly. With genuine and legitimate paraphrasing, there is no malicious intent involved.

The writer does not aim to use someone else's content as his own wrongfully. He merely wishes to write a certain idea or concept in different words.

However, we should mention that while proper paraphrasing won't be considered Plagiarism, it's not something that you should resort to habitually.

In certain scenarios, it is fine to paraphrase a few paragraphs. But it is not good to adopt this as a permanent practice. A writer should come up with original and unique stuff and not rely on other people's content.

Mind you, there is a significant difference between taking inspiration and paraphrasing. To take inspiration means to learn from some content and then to come up with a completely new and unique way to explain it.

And doing this is completely fine from both aspects: legal and ethical. Without taking inspiration, no one would learn anything.

Recommended video: How to Paraphrase in 5 Easy Steps | Scribbr

How to Use a Free Paraphrasing Tool to Paraphrase Content Properly?

Improperly paraphrased content will not be recognized as unique either by the readers or the search engine. If you don't know how to paraphrase content properly, you need to get familiar with it.

Here is how you can do it in a few simple steps:

Choose a good paraphrasing tool. This part is important. A lot of tools available online will take your content and mess it up…instead of rewording it.

We will look at a few good tools in detail later on, but for now, we can name a few, such as paphraser.io, rephrase.info, searchengingereports.net, etc.

Paraphrase the content. After you have chosen your tool, you will need to use it and rephrase the original text.

Check for errors. Up till now, the two steps mentioned were more or less what you usually have to do when you paraphrase any content.

However, you have to make sure that everything is on point when you want to do it properly. Fixing grammatical and spelling mistakes is the first step to that.

Don't retain the sentence structure. And finally, to make sure that your paraphrased content is not recognizable, you have to change the original structure. You can do this by moving the paragraphs around a bit and breaking the sentences down into smaller parts.

Some changes to the structure will be affected by the paraphraser tool itself, but most of it you will have to do yourself.

If you follow the first two steps of this post only, you will get paraphrased content, but it will not be thorough and complete.

Tools That You Can Try for Paraphrasing Content

The steps discussed above are pretty easy to follow. However, when it comes to choosing the right paraphrasing tool, you could face a hitch.

To help you pick the right tool for your paraphrasing needs, we have come up with this brief list:

Paraphraser.io is a great free paraphrasing tool. It comes with a free version that users can enjoy indefinitely without signing up or registering.

The main reason why we are mentioning this tool at the top of our list is because of its human-like functionality.

We mentioned earlier that there are a lot of tools online that jumble the meaning of the given text and make it mean something completely different than what was intended.

However, Paraphraser.io runs on an exceptional algorithm that allows it to replace certain words with proper synonyms while retaining the original context.

You also get the option of choosing between two different modes (three, if you are a premium user), which include: Fluency, Standard, and Creative (premium only).

Key Features

• Free to start
• Different modes available
• Human-like functionality
• Multiple integrated tools

Prepostseo.com is not only a paraphrasing tool. There are a lot of different utilities related to content optimization and SEO that you can use with it. And luckily for us, they also have a paraphraser tool that is available for free.

There are a lot of excellent features on this app as well. For one, it has four different modes, all of which can be enjoyed by free users.

They include Simple, Creative, Advanced, and Fluency. These different modes essentially decide the number and type of changes that will be made to the given text.

The process is quick to complete, and the results can easily be copied.

If you want to use some other tools, like 'Check Plagiarism,' 'Checker Grammar,' and 'Summarize Content,' you can easily do it by clicking on the buttons in the bottom bar.

Key Features

• Free to use all the way
• Extra tools available, i.e., plagiarism checker, grammar checker, etc.
• Completely web-based
• Quick conversion

Plagiarismremover.net has, like the two other tools discussed on this list, multiple utilities that you can use. Their 'Article Rewriter' tool is an excellent paraphraser that is available for free.

We copied some text from a website and paraphrased it using this tool. After paraphrasing, the resulting content did not get recognized as plagiarized.

Plagiarismremover.net offers a decent number of file uploading and language options. As for the process itself, it was fast and only took up a few seconds.

Key Features

• Quick to work
• Gave plagiarism-free results
• Integrated plagiarism and grammar checking tools
• Multiple languages supported

Conclusion

Paraphrasing any content properly can take time, but it is worth it. Keep in mind that you must give credit through a citation for the author's original idea when paraphrasing.