Paraphrasing tools, language translation tools and plagiarism: an exploratory study

In short

Odd synonyms for medical terms turned up in essays on one course. Running the essay prompt through free paraphrasing and translation tools, the authors report paraphrasers swapped standard terms; translation largely kept them.

What it looked at

After noticing similar, oddly worded essays in an undergraduate Health Sciences pathway course, the authors ran the essay prompt text through six free paraphrasing tools and six rounds of translation through an online translation tool. They compared how medical terms came out.

What it means for teaching

Suggests unusual wording in place of discipline terminology may be a clue worth a conversation, from one exploratory test.

Limits

An exploratory test on one seed text from one course, so the pattern may not hold elsewhere. Whether the students used these tools was not established.

Cited 114 times by other papers, as counted by OpenAlex in November 2026. A count measures attention, not quality.