For students who have sat and stared at a page trying to rephrase a complex idea for an assignment, you know that the struggle is real. In this situation, Ref-N-Write promises to help you rephrase your words and improve your papers.
With tons of writing assistants out there, from QuillBot to Grammarly and beyond, where does the Ref-N-Write paraphrasing tool actually fit?
In this review, we’re breaking down what you need to know about Ref N Write and whether it is accurate.
Let’s dive in.
Key Takeaways
- Ref-N-Write is a paraphrasing software that excels at traditional academic writing.
- The software works in Microsoft Word and Google Docs and offers plagiarism checking.
- The Ref N Write paraphrase feature is geared at maintaining a formal tone. Despite this, it can produce awkward results compared to newer AI-powered alternatives.
- While Ref-N-Write recently added AI detection via Copyleaks, the results aren’t consistently reliable across different detection platforms.
What Is Ref N Write?
Ref-N-Write is an academic writing assistant that researchers and students who need help writing their scholarly papers use.
This platform doesn’t work like general writing tools. Rather, the Ref N Write paraphrasing tool focuses on a couple of things, such as paraphrasing, structuring arguments, and maintaining the academic tone in your papers.
Despite all it does, you can’t expect this tool to write your papers for you as that’s beyond its capabilities. It works best as your writing companion that understands academic conventions.
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With this mindset, you’ll get a tool that helps you express complex ideas more clearly as you’re working on your first undergraduate thesis or your latest journal article.
Key Features of Ref N Write
You get a couple of key features when you download this software, and they include the following:
Academic Phrasebank
This feature sets Ref-N-Write apart from other AI tools. As a user, you get immediate access to over 20,000 academic phrases that have been sourced from published papers.
This phrasebank makes it possible for you no longer need to worry about racking your brain for more formal ways to write “this study shows.”
The phrasebank has you covered with discipline-specific language that sounds natural in scholarly writing that you can adapt into your work.
Paraphrasing Tool
The Ref-N-Write paraphrasing tool does what you’d expect by taking your sentence and rewriting it in different words. But the selling point here is that it’s calibrated for academic writing.
As a result, you’re not getting the awkward, overly casual rephrasing that some general tools spit out.
Plagiarism & AI Content Detector
Ref-N-Write recently added an AI content detector alongside their plagiarism checker. With ChatGPT and other AI tools everywhere now, universities are cracking down hard on AI-generated content.
This built-in checker scans your text against academic databases and flags potential AI patterns, which gives you confidence before submission. Better to catch issues yourself than have your professor do it.
How Ref-N-Write Works
The Ref-N-Write software primarily works as a Word add-in or Google extension that you have to install to use.
After installation, it works in the sidebar of your writing layout as you write. From there, it can have the AI paraphrase for you and suggest phrases as well.
The tool is quite intuitive, giving you multiple rewritten versions of your sentence. Each paraphrased output has slightly different wording. You can pick the version that fits your paper’s flow. If not, you can merge parts from different suggestions.
For plagiarism, Ref-N-Write uses Copyleaks as its detection engine. This AI system also serves as an AI detector, making Ref-N-Write share the same pros and cons found in Copyleaks.
With Copyleaks API, it is able to scan billions of web pages and academic databases to catch matching text. When you run a check, it highlights any area that matches existing sources and gives you a similarity percentage.
Who Can Use Ref-N-Write?
Ref-N-Write markets itself as an academic writing tool. Which means it has automatically cut out non-academics.
Since the features are designed with specific users in mind, let’s take a look at people who can use Ref-N-Write.
- Undergraduate Students
Ref-N-Write is helpful for students who are working on their first research papers or thesis. The academic phrasebank provides you with stock phrases majorly used in academic writing.
This will help you improve how to introduce counterarguments or your present findings.
Also, if you’re using Microsoft Word, you get over 20,000 example phrases for your papers. Any of these phrases will help you figure out the intricacies of writing professionally.
More so, we’ve found that the Ref N Write paraphrasing tool is also useful when you’re merging sources to avoid accidental plagiarism.
- Graduate Students and PhD Candidates
This is one of Ref-N-Write’s core audiences. When you’re writing dissertations, theses, or preparing manuscripts for publication, Ref-N-Write helps you save time.
Although, as a graduate student, you already know how to structure your academic arguments, the software can speed things up for you.
More so, you can use the paraphrasing tool when you’re working with complex source material that needs careful rewording. Since you’re producing longer formal documents, you’ll have to become a paid user to enjoy the platform better.
- Academic Researchers and Post-Docs
As a regular publisher, the Ref N Write paraphrasing tool and phrase library can streamline your workflow. Writing journal articles means hitting very specific stylistic expectations and having quick access to discipline-appropriate language.
The plagiarism checker powered by Copyleaks is valuable here too, since publication requires absolute originality. That said, many researchers at this level have already developed their own writing systems and might not need the hand-holding.
How Accurate Is Ref N Write AI?
So far, we’ve looked at the features and capabilities of Ref-N-Write. The kicker here is whether it’s accurate enough to be trusted and used extensively. The best way to find out is through a test, which is exactly what we did.
We proposed using the industry-approved testing framework by ZDNet to test 10 AI detectors. This test found our AI detector to have an accuracy rate of 100%. But unfortunately, Ref-N-Write plagiarism and AI detector is not accessible.
Users would have to pay upfront to access it.
On the other hand, the paraphraser was accessible. So we had Ref n Write paraphrase an excerpt of an academic text for us. It gave us three paraphrased options.
Then, we ran each paraphrased result through our AI detector to check Ref-N-Write’s accuracy.
Our AI detector showed that every output from the Ref N Write paraphrasing tool had a high AI percentage, with the first two having over 80% AI, and the third one 77% AI.
This means that Ref-N-Write’s paraphrasing capabilities cannot bypass good AI detectors like ours, and academics would easily be caught if they used this tool to paraphrase their work.
The best solution to this is to use our AI Detector and Humanizer to first verify that your work appears human, and if not, you can adequately humanize it with our tool, so no part of your work gets flagged as AI.
Pros and Cons of Using Ref-N-Write
Ref-N-Write has useful features for academic writing, but it also has limitations that might be dealbreakers depending on what you need.
| Pros | Cons |
| The phrasebank and paraphrasing are tailored specifically for scholarly writing | It lacks academic contextual awareness when paraphrasing texts |
| It has integrated Copyleaks’ API into its plagiarism and AI checker | The UI feels a bit dated compared to sleeker competitors like QuillBot |
| Over 20,000 academic phrases means you’ll rarely get stuck on how to phrase something formally | Sometimes the suggestions are great, other times they’re just odd |
| Users get multiple paraphrase options and several versions to choose from | The free trial is pretty restricted, so you can’t fully test it before subscribing |
Ref N Write vs Undetectable AI
Ref-N-Write is a traditional academic writing assistant that’s been around for years, focused on helping you write scholarly papers with phrase banks and paraphrasing.
Meanwhile, Undetectable AI is a newer player that is designed to help you work with AI-generated content. It ensures your work is undetectable and original to readers.
That’s not all, it also offers a full suite of tools that make it more versatile for modern academic needs.
| Ref-N-Write | Undetectable AI |
| Ref-N-Write offers paraphrasing for academic works to help maintain a scholarly tone. The results can sometimes feel stiff or awkward. | Undetectable AI uses advanced algorithms to produce more natural and human-sounding rewrites for academic papers. |
| Ref-N-Write uses Copyleaks integration to scan academic databases for plagiarism | Comprehensive plagiarism scanning with detailed reports that help you identify and fix matching content quickly |
| Recently added AI detection as universities started cracking down on AI-generated work | Built from the ground up with highly accurate AI detection tested against multiple tools like Turnitin and GPTZero |
| No humanization tools since it’s designed for manual writing from scratch | It specializes in rewriting AI-generated text to sound genuinely human. This is perfect if you use AI for research or drafting |
| The software works as an extension in both Microsoft Word and Google Docs. | This web-based platform works on any device and online writing platform |
| Offers 20,000+ academic phrasebank, and a knowledge hub with templates and writing guides | Provides multiple education-focused AI tools designed to help students and researchers through various writing challenges |
| Requires subscription with a pretty limited free trial, hard to fully evaluate before committing | More flexible pricing options with better testing capabilities, giving you better value on a student budget |
Can Ref N Write Detect AI-Edited or Paraphrased Text?
Yes, it can, since Ref-N-Write recently integrated AI detection through Copyleaks API, which theoretically should catch AI-generated or AI-edited content.
But the results aren’t always reliable, as even tools powered by Copyleaks struggle with false positives. The detection accuracy just isn’t consistent enough to fully trust.
Nevertheless, if you’re working with AI-generated or AI-assisted content, you need it to pass detection reliably. All you need is our AI Paraphraser to rewrite your text so it genuinely sounds human.
Additionally, our AI Stealth Writer takes this even further by helping you write blogs and more that evade AI detection.
Use our AI Detector and Humanizer right in the widget below!
FAQs
Is Ref-N-Write Free to Use?
No, Ref-N-Write is not free to use. However, they offer a limited free trial for you to test it out, yet this version is quite limited for most of their useful features. Therefore, you’ll need to be a paid user to consistently use premium features.
Does Ref-N-Write work with Google Docs?
Yes. Previously, it couldn’t but now it is available on the Chrome Web Store for users to add to Google Docs. However, if you aren’t using the supported platforms, you’ll need to switch platforms. Which can be quite inconvenient if you’re used to a platform’s ecosystem.
Can Ref-N-Write Detect if I used ChatGPT?
It can try with its AI detector powered by Copyleaks. So, it will flag any text that looks AI-generated, which leaves your work prone to false positives.
Also, since the detector isn’t strict, AI content might slip through. So, passing Ref-N-Write’s checker doesn’t guarantee you’ll pass Turnitin and any other AI detector your school uses.
How Does Ref-N-Write Compare to QuillBot?
You should understand that QuillBot is web-based and can work on any writing platform you use when comparing Ref-N-Write vs QuillBot. Ref-N-Write is more of a paraphraser and plagiarism checker that improves academic writing.
But in terms of performance, QuillBot is faster and more affordable. Still, Ref-N-Write stands out with its specialized academic phrasebank.
Will Using Ref-N-Write’s Paraphraser Prevent Plagiarism?
No. However, Ref-N-Write’s paraphraser can help you reduce the probability of plagiarism on plagiarism checkers.
Since this is not foolproof in eliminating plagiarism, we suggest that you always cite your sources properly. Better yet, use a better paraphraser so your work isn’t flagged for plagiarism.
Conclusion
So is Ref-N-Write worth it? If you’re into traditional academic writing and want access to that massive phrasebank, it’s a solid tool.
The Ref-N-Write paraphrasing tool does what it promises for scholarly work, and the Copyleaks integration gives you decent plagiarism checking.
But Ref-N-Write’s paraphrasing tool isn’t reliable enough to stake your grade on.
Rather, you should use tools like our AI Detector and AI Humanizer to ensure your work passes detection while still sounding authentically human.
For more reliable results, polish and verify your work with Undetectable AI before you submit.