What is Quillbot?
Quillbot is a no-nonsense platform that paraphrases the text you enter. Granted, it has its own shortcomings. Some sentences might not make sense or might come off as broken. But overall, I like its performance. It is artificial intelligence and it will take time to refine itself.
It can be used by website owners who don’t want to generate their content. They can take the content of their competitor and run it through Quillbot. You’ll get exactly similar content that is paraphrased so well that it passes the plagiarism checkers.
It’s a paraphrasing tool so it cannot generate new content. What it can do is take old content and spin it so it passes plagiarism checks.
Quillbot services are divided into three main categories:
Writing tools
These tools include paraphrasing functionality, including summarizing, and plagiarism detection, etc.
Grammar tools
Grammar tools include a grammar checker, spell checker, proofreader, etc.
Citation tools
These include a citation generator, APA citation generator, and MLA citation generator.
While you can use Quillbot by opening its URL in your browser, you can also download and use its extensions. It provides extensions for Chrome, Microsoft Word, macOS, and Edge. You can also use it with Google Docs.
In simple terms, if the content you want already exists and you can access it, Quillbot can rewrite it for you.
So if you’re a student who wants to write an essay and that essay has already been written by someone else, you can post it on Quillbot and you’ll get a brand new essay with different words but the same meaning.
How Does Quillbot Work?
Quillbot works with Natural Language Processing (NLP). It reads words and suggests their synonyms and replacements. And since it is AI, it learns as more people work on it.
If it makes a synonym suggestion and a user ignores it, the AI learns that the suggestion might be useless in the given context. When enough users ignore that suggestion, the AI will discard that suggestion altogether. This is how it refines itself with each iteration.
As an example, Quillbot explains using the word, “sad.” If the tool suggests “pathetic” instead of sad and enough users ignore it, the tool will learn that “pathetic” is not the right replacement for “sad” and will thus suggest other words such as “sorrowful” or “depressed.”
If you want to learn more about the working process of Quillbot, here’s a link to help you.
Quillbot Pros and Cons
Quillbot is a unique paraphrasing tool that can take your text and spin it around to generate more versions of it. Let’s discuss the pros and cons of Quillbot.
Pros
Easy to use: Quillbot is super easy to use. Just sign up on its website and it will take you to its interface. You can simply enter the text in the text box and click on Paraphrase to start paraphrasing. It’s an effortless tool and creates a spin-off of your text in no time.
Available as a free version: When I look at decent AI services, they are often available as paid versions only. However, Quillbot can be used for free. It’s the extra services that will need an upgrade. The free account will not show you the paraphrasing history. It will not check for the tone of the text. It will also not check for plagiarism. For all that, you’ll need to upgrade.
Refund available: The premium package comes with a money back guarantee. If you don’t like the premium services, you can claim a refund within three days of ordering the plan.
Several features in one place: Quillbot comes with a paraphraser, a plagiarism checker, a summarizer, a citation generator, a grammar checker, and a translator – all in one place. This helps you get all writing tools under one roof so you don’t have to open several tabs for your writing projects.
Comes with an AI Detector: Quillbot offers an AI detector so you can test the generated content to see if it sounds robotic.
Extensions available: Quillbot is available as a Chrome extension. It is also available for MS Word, Edge, and macOS.
Cons
ChatGPT not available: It’s essentially a paraphraser, not a content generator. So you need to have original content you want to spin off. Compare this to ChatGPT which can generate content on its own (by going through online resources). In essence, it’s not a writer but a co-writer.
Needs manual paraphrasing: While it does generate a spin-off of the text you enter, you will still need to work on it. That’s easy though. The tool will show some suggestions and you can accept or discard them. To generate naturally-reading text, you’ll need to make manual changes.
Quillbot Top Features
When it comes to features, Quillbot is fully loaded. I’ll discuss all of them one by one in this Quillbot review.
Paraphrasing Tool
I entered my author bio in the first text box. The second text box shows the paraphrased text generated by Quillbot.
It doesn’t just rephrase it, it also gives more suggestions. For example, if you don’t like a given sentence, you can click on it and the tool will show other synonyms and suggestions that can be used instead.
If you don’t like a certain word, you can click on it and use a replacement. Let me show this by selecting the word, “maneuvers” from the generated output.
When you’re a free user, you get fewer change suggestions. You can upgrade to premium to increase the number of changes.
Premium users can also check the tone of the text. For example, the system will tell you whether the tone is casual, formal, friendly, or unfriendly. You can make the adjustments accordingly.
Paraphraser Modes
The Quillbot paraphrasing tool has multiple writing modes.
These writing modes are locked for the free user. But if you upgrade to premium, you can access them. Let’s take an example of the “Shorten” mode.
As you can see, the Shorten mode shortens the text while keeping the meaning intact. Here’s an example of the Academic mode.
It changes simple text to a more academic approach.
You can also generate text in two modes and compare both to see which output suits your needs the most.
Grammar Checker
The Quillbot grammar checker feature finds grammatical errors in the text and corrects them by providing suggestions. It also checks for spelling and punctuation errors.
You can either write text in their text box or upload a document. I wrote a simple sentence to see the output.
Now let’s accept all suggestions and see what it looks like.
Looks just about right. It’s pretty similar to Grammarly.
As you can see, it spots little mistakes and suggests easy fixes, making your sentences smoother and clearer. It’s not just about catching errors, it’s about making your writing sound natural.
Let’s take this example of broken English.
And here’s the output.
Hmmm…. Not exactly what I was looking for. It left many mistakes in my text. But before judging it harshly, we need to keep in mind that it’s AI and it will learn and refine itself. With each use, it gets better.
Let’s move to the next feature.
Plagiarism Checker
Plagiarism checker is a feature available only to Premium users. If you have some text and you want to know if it’s plagiarized, this tool can help you. It doesn’t just check for plagiarism, it also lets you attribute the authors of the content, using the right type of citations.
With the Quillbot plagiarism checker, you can get real-time reports. Plus, it can check for plagiarism in multiple languages. It’s a great tool for research paper writers. Quillbot will clearly tell you which sections are missing citations.
When you get the Premium subscription, you get 100 page scans per month. A single page consists of up to 250 words. You can paste the text or upload the file and the system will scan for copied text.
Summarizer
The summarizer tool creates summaries for your text by taking key sentences. If you have written a report and want to create a summary for it, just feed it to the summarizer and it will create a short summary of it.
As an example, I fed the Quillbot summarizer tool an essay of over 600 words, and it summarized it in about 150 words.
I think it did a good job of going through the entire text and finding the right parts to rephrase and include in the summary.
You can change the summary length by dragging the length slider given on top. Let’s make this shorter. It regenerated the summary in about 90 words.
Quillbot also lets you generate summaries in bullets. Just select the Bullet Points option from the top.
As you can see, the summary is divided into bullets that are easier to read. The summarizer is a great tool for creating quick summaries that include all the important parts of a given text.
Translator
The translator works pretty much like Google Translate. The advantage of having a translator in Quillbot is that you can rephrase and edit your text and translate it to various languages on the same platform.
Just like Google Translate, it automatically understood the language and translated it into English. You can also listen to the output text by clicking on the speaker icon given below.
The translator feature can translate to and from 45 languages.
Citation Generator
The citation generator will generate a citation for a URL, journal article, book, online articles, news reports, or other sources.
Let me show you how it works. I’ll paste a URL in the text box and see what it produces.
It works pretty much like other citation generators. If you’re writing a school report, this can be an amazing tool. With Quillbot, you get all writing tools under one roof.
Quillbot Flow
Quillbot Flow combines all features in one place. It comes with Smart Start that will help you begin your project easily.
Let’s say I want to write an essay on “The effect of cold weather on potato crops all over the world”
Here is the output I got:
It creates an entire outline of the essay for you. The SmartStart feature isn’t just for essays. It’s also for blogs and research papers. With the right outline, you get an idea of the kind of content you need to generate.
Quillbot Flow works with projects. You can create a new project and then paraphrase it, add citations, and check for plagiarism – all from one place.
Quillbot Pricing
Quillbot offers two plans: Free and Premium.
As a new user, the free plan will work for you. But if you need premium services such as paraphrasing big paragraphs, checking the tone of the text, getting paraphrasing history, or finding maximum change suggestions, you’ll need to upgrade to Premium.
There’s just one premium plan and you can pay for it on a monthly, semi-annual, or annual basis. The Monthly plan will cost you $19.95.
Quillbot comes with a 3-day money back guarantee. If you’re not satisfied with the premium features, you can ask for your money back within 3 days of ordering it.
If you’re looking for corporate features, you can get the Quillbot Team plan.
With the team plan, your costs can go down to $5.83/month/seat. Plus, you get a dashboard from where you can control the team features.
When to Use Quillbot
You should use Quillbot when you need to create spin-off text. Whether you’re a student, a blog writer, or a researcher, Quillbot can be a good tool for paraphrasing and grammar checking. It can be of great help for writing academic papers, thesis and dissertations. Since it comes with citation and plagiarism detection features, it makes things much easier for students.
However, if you’re a writer, the paraphraser tool is good for you only if you already have the text you need to rewrite. In that essence, it just copies and rewords the text you provided without adding any value to it.
If you’re using it for a thesis, it would be wise to invest in the Quillbot Premium version because the free one will not paraphrase more than 125 words. Besides, other features will not be available to you as a free user.
When Not to Use Quillbot
Quillbot is not a content generator. It’s not GPT. If you’re looking for new content for your blog or article, it’s best to use a GPT-based tool. Quillbot can only paraphrase whatever you feed it.
Also, sometimes, the text paraphrased by Quillbot does not read naturally and you’ll need to manually accept or decline suggestions. If you do not have the time to do that, it will not be a good tool for you.
You can use Quillbot for free but it’s only good for new users who want to paraphrase small bits of text. For larger paragraphs or pages, you’ll need to get the Premium version which will cost you $19.95 for a month.
Top Quillbot Alternatives
When it comes to paraphrasing, Quillbot is at the top. However, there are also some alternatives you’ll find online. Let’s discuss some of them.
1. Hypotenuse
Hypotenuse is an AI powered content generation tool that also offers paraphrasing. All you have to do is copy and paste your text in the text box and it will create a rewritten version of it.
It also lets you choose a tone for the output. For example, you can choose authoritative, conversational, enthusiastic, and other tones.
You can try Hypotenuse for free but you’ll need to upgrade for better features. The basic Individual plan costs $29/month, which is much higher than that of Quillbot. However, for this price, it offers several products and integrates easily with Shopify and WordPress.
2. Jasper
Jasper is another content generator tool that also offers paraphrasing services. It works on the GPT-4 model and can help you write blogs, websites, and other types of content. When you rephrase your text with Jasper, you can select the tone. For example, you can select serious or witty.
Jasper is a popular name in the world of content generation and it will not only rephrase your text but also generate new content if required. However, it costs $39/month as the most basic package. So if you’re a student who only wants to paraphrase some pages, it might be costly for you.
3. Copy.AI
Copy.AI is a content generation tool based on GPT-3. It is ideal for marketers who want to generate sales or marketing copy for their work. But it comes with a paraphrasing tool as well, so if you’re a student, it could be useful for you.
The paraphrasing tools are free and can rewrite your paragraphs in no time. But it offers rather barebone essentials. While it’s free, it will not come with a citation generator, plagiarism detector, grammar checker, translator, and other tools. Copy.AI offers a free plan, so if you want to test their other tools as well, you can.
