A Letter from the Founder
Dear researchers, students, lecturers, and academic leaders,
If you have ever submitted a paper, thesis, or dissertation, you know the anxiety that comes with the similarity report. You have spent months—sometimes years—pouring your intellect into a piece of work. Then, a single percentage point on a plagiarism checker threatens to undo all of it. You ask yourself: Did I cite everything correctly? Did I paraphrase well enough? Will my supervisor believe that this was unintentional?
We built Citewall to answer those questions before they become accusations.
Today, after an intense period of research, development, and testing with real academic documents from universities across Zambia, Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Botswana, Namibia, Ethiopia, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, India, Brazil, Australia and beyond, we are officially opening Citewall to the world.
Why We Built Citewall
The idea was born in a university library in Lusaka, Zambia. A Master student—bright, hard?working, and exhausted—had just received a similarity report that flagged properly cited quotes as plagiarism. The software could not tell the difference between a copied sentence and a referenced one. Her supervisor was not impressed.
That moment crystallised a problem we could not ignore: most plagiarism checkers are unintelligent about citations. They treat every matching sentence as a crime, even when it is properly attributed. They punish good academic practice. And for many students and researchers in Africa, the cost of accessing premium checkers is simply out of reach.
Citewall changes that.
What Makes Citewall Different
1. Citation Aware Detection
Citewall is the first plagiarism checker that actively looks for in?text citations and quotation marks before deciding whether a match is problematic. If you have written "…as demonstrated by Smith (2021)…" and included the source in your reference list, Citewall recognises that as proper academic practice—not plagiarism. Our engine categorises every match into one of four Turnitin style groups: Cited & Quoted, Missing Quotation, Missing Citation, or Not Cited or Quoted. This means your similarity report is not just a number—it is a meaningful, actionable analysis.
2. AI Detection Built In
Since ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and other large language models entered the scene, academic integrity has become more complex. Citewall includes a built?in AI detection engine that analyses sentence structure, word choice, and statistical patterns to identify AI?generated content. Every report shows you an AI probability score and highlights specific sentences that may have been machine generated.
3. Turnitin Style Reports at a Fraction of the Cost
If you have ever seen a Turnitin report, you will feel right at home. Citewall presents your similarity score in a large coloured circle, breaks down matches by source type (Internet, Publications, Student Papers), and shows you exactly which sentences match which sources—with colour?coded highlights directly in your document. The best part Your first two checks are completely free. After that, you can pay per check (K25) or subscribe monthly (K150) for unlimited access. No institutional licence required. No hidden fees.
4. Built for African Academia—Open to the World
Citewall was built in Africa, by Africans, with the challenges of African researchers in mind: intermittent internet, limited institutional access to expensive tools, and the need for a system that understands diverse academic writing styles. But the platform is global. Our corpus already contains over three million academic documents, including papers from African repositories, international journals, preprint servers, and the open web. Whether you are writing a PhD thesis at the University of Zambia, a research paper at the University of Ghana, or a dissertation at Oxford, Citewall has you covered.
5. Progressive Web App—Install It Anywhere
Citewall is a Progressive Web App (PWA). That means you can install it on your phone, tablet, or desktop with one click—no app store required. It works offline for reading reports, loads in seconds even on 3G, and looks and feels like a native application. Whether you are in a lab, a library, or a remote field station, Citewall is there with you.
What You Can Do with Citewall Right Now
- Upload a PDF, DOCX, TXT, or MD file—or paste your text directly.
- Choose whether to exclude quotes and bibliography from the check.
- Enable web search to compare your document against the live internet in addition to our corpus.
- Receive a detailed similarity report in minutes, with colour?coded highlights, source breakdowns, and match groupings.
- Verify your citations against academic databases to see which ones are real, questionable, or missing.
- Download or print your report as a PDF with all colours preserved.
Pricing That Respects Your Budget
We know that for many students and early?career researchers, every Kwacha counts. That is why Citewall offers:
- Free Tier: 2 checks per month, up to 1,000 words per check.
- Pay?per?Check: K25 per check—no subscription, no commitment.
- Pro Plan: K150 per month for unlimited checks, priority processing, and advanced features.
- Institutional Plans: Custom pricing for universities, colleges, and research centres that want to provide Citewall access to their entire community.
All plans include AI detection, citation verification, and full colour PDF reports.
A Word to University Administrators
If you are a Dean, Head of Department, Librarian, or Quality Assurance officer, we would love to talk. Citewall can be deployed as an institutional tool with class management, assignment submission, bulk upload, lecturer dashboards, and student enrolment codes. It integrates into your existing academic integrity workflow and gives you campus?wide visibility into plagiarism trends. Contact us for a demo and custom pricing.
What Is Coming Next
This launch is only the beginning. Over the coming months, we will be rolling out:
- Reference list generator—extract and format citations automatically in APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard styles.
- Side?by?side comparison view—see your document and the matched source text next to each other.
- Plagiarism?free certificates—downloadable certificates that verify your document has been checked.
- API access—integrate Citewall directly into your Learning Management System (LMS) or research portal.
- Mobile money integrations—more payment options for users across Africa.
Our Commitment
Citewall is more than a product. It is a commitment to academic integrity, accessible technology, and the belief that every student and researcher—regardless of their institution or income—deserves access to tools that protect their hard work. We will never sell your data. We will never share your documents. And we will keep improving based on your feedback.
Try Citewall today. Your first two checks are free.
— Kebby Zumani, Founder & Lead Developer, Citewall
Lusaka, Zambia | July 2026