Turnitin.com
Some of you may have used turnitin.com in the past. If you haven’t, I will show you
exactly what it is and how I will use it. Some students get nervous when they have to
submit their work to this site; I will do everything possible to calm your nerves.
Turnitin.com is a website that does several things. One thing it does is checks the
originality of your work. For example, if you decide to copy an essay from the
internet, it will detect that. It will also detect when you quote an existing source.
Some students think that when a sentence or sentences are highlighted on
Turnitin.com, it means you have plagiarized. This is not true.
Turnitin.com checks for existing material on the internet or papers previously
submitted to the site for matching phrases or sentences. I review the report to see if
it’s:
1.
A coincidence. For example:
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States and is best
known for the Emancipation Proclamation.
It is entirely reasonably that many people would come up with that exact
order of words. How many other ways can you say that?
2.
3.
A quote you have correctly incorporated into your paper. If a sentence or
paragraph is highlighted, but you have quotation marks and a citation, guess
what? You are completely fine! That’s what you are supposed to do.
Remember, it doesn’t detect “plagiarism,” it detects “originality.”
Something I need to examine more closely. Let’s follow up on example 1
above. Pretend that sentence was followed by:
Lincoln led the United States through its greatest constitutional, military,
and moral crisis—the American Civil War—preserving the Union, abolishing
slavery, strengthening the national government and modernizing the
economy. Reared in a poor family on the western frontier, Lincoln was selfeducated, and became a country lawyer, a Whig Party leader, Illinois state
legislator during the 1830s, and a one-term member of the United States
House of Representatives during the 1840s.
What are the chances that you and the author of the Wikipedia entry on
Lincoln decided to use ALL of those facts in that exact order, described using
the same exact words? And yes, I have gotten papers with hyperlinks still
included…
In other words, I use the information given in the report, combined with
common sense and experience to identify plagiarism.
(TURN OVER)
After you submit your work, you will be able to access your originality report. I will
show you how to read this. If you forgot to cite a source, this will help you fix it. You
will be able to resubmit your work before the due date. In order to take advantage of this,
YOU CAN’T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE. One thing to remember is that you
will have to wait 24 hours for a new originality report.
Turnitin.com also allows for easy peer review. One of the drawbacks of peer review is
that people feel self-conscious about other people reading their work. Turnitin.com
allows for anonymous peer review, so your classmates will not know whose paper they
are reading. I also use it for targeted feedback, which I have found to work very well. I
don’t use it for every assignment you submit to Turnitin.com, and I will tell you in
advance if an assignment will be peer-reviewed.
Turnitin.com also allows for me to grade your papers very quickly, while providing more
feedback than I would typically be able to do efficiently. I’ll show you this during class
on either the first or second day of class. I am confident you will like this better than
trying to read my valiant attempts at handwriting.
Another positive of this system is that you don’t have to print out papers. So you know
how your printer decides to break the night before a paper is due? No more worries! You
just upload it to the site. If for some reason you can’t upload it to the site, you can email it
to me as a last resort, and I can upload it for you. Unfortunately, this takes away many
students’ favorite excuse…
I will go over all of this in class. If you still have concerns, please let me know. I can’t
help you if all you do is complain in the hallway to your friends.
Please ask your parents or guardians to read this and return a copy with their signature to
me the next time our class meets.
Sincerely,
Mr. Flynn
I have read this sheet and understand how Turnitin.com will be used to both help and
evaluate my student _______________________ . If I have any questions, I will contact
Mr. Flynn.
Print name
_______________________________________________
Parent/Guardian Signature
__________________
Date