Academic Skills Advice
Infosheet
Better Writing with Turnitin
What is plagiarism?
Using information and/or ideas from any external source within your work, without
giving the original source credit (through citations and referencing), is known as
plagiarism.
This includes (but is not limited to);
 quotation, summarising or paraphrasing of the source without citation
 copying the exact words from the source, without quotation marks – even if it
is cited
 use of another’s ideas without citation
 use of statistics, figures, illustrations etc. without citation
 submitting work obtained from others (e.g. buying or copying essays)
 submitting group work as your own.
What is paraphrasing?
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Rewriting the source using your own words, based on your own
understanding.
It goes beyond merely changing a few words from the original source (this
would still be plagiarism).
Approximately 90% of the overall words in your work should be your own.
What is Turnitin?
This is a text matching software used by the University;
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It provides a similarity index which shows how much of your work matches
sources in its database.
Turnitin does not ‘detect’ plagiarism – whether you have committed
plagiarism or not depends on how you have presented the matching text in
your work.
It helps your markers to identify plagiarism but can also help you to avoid it.
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Academic Skills Advice
Interpreting Turnitin reports activity
Look at the examples below. Ask yourself, is this plagiarism?
Example 1; 16% similarity index
In this example each section of matching text shows subject-specific vocabulary that
would be very difficult to phrase in another way (this often happens in scientific or
technical subjects). This is not plagiarism.
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Academic Skills Advice
Example 2; 25% similarity index
In this example there are large chunks of text which have been copied directly from
the original source. Although in one instance quotation marks have been used, there
is no indication of the source/citation. This is plagiarism.
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Academic Skills Advice
Example 4; 5% similarity index
Although this example has a low similarity index it clearly shows word-for-word
text matching, with no source attributed. This is plagiarism.
Summary
Turnitin can be used to help you avoid inadvertent plagiarism and improve your
writing;

Remember, it is not the similarity index score which is most important but
how you have cited the matched material

Use it to identify excessive quotations – the marker is interested in your
understanding of the source

Use the similarity index to guide you in paraphrasing and summarising
material better.
E: [email protected]
T: 01274 236849
@UniBradSkills
Has this resource helped? Find more at www.brad.ac.uk/academic-skills