Turn-it-in

Turnitin Explained

 

You may have some assignments that will be submitted in Blackboard via Turnitin. This is a way of checking your submissions against online material and fellow students work… I know, it sucks right?

 

This site is going to explain how turnitin works, how to use it to your advantage and how once you understand how it works as a system, it is actually a really useful tool to check your Harvard Referencing. For the professional benefits to customers more info can be found by going to:

 

https://www.turnitin.com.

 

For the students amongst us dreading our submission deadlines on the way in January or if your lucky May 2013, below is turnitin explained;

 

What is Turnitin?

 

SIMPLE! Turnitin is a software program that checks submissions for originality. It provides a report to your tutor indicating if the content is likely to be original and if any may not be. Remember, it is up to your tutor to make a judgement over whether they believe it is original, turnitin is just a tool of illustration.

 

How does it do this?

 

We won’t lie, it’s pretty good at checking stuff so please don’t think you’ll be the genius student who outsmarted Turnitin, using upwards of 20 Billion web pages to check against it’s fair to say the odds are definitely against us students… Sorry mate. But understanding the process of it checking your work against web pages (anywhere on the web) is the first step in getting your head around turnitin.

 

Why do University’s use it?

 

Turnitin makes life easier for tutors so this is probably the fundamental reasoning behind university’s adopting the tool, however, as increased use of the web as a source for research, a tool is necessary to check students are writing their own work. It avoids Joe Bloggs at Newcastle University submitting a Nobel Prize standard of work for his First Year Biology degree, and accepting the praise for his work. It also is introduced at a level of education where we should know how to paraphrase, use quotes, properly cite sources, and express our own thoughts and opinions. That said, of course it can be easy to have unintentional errors, to think that we’ve paraphrased only to realize that it’s very close to the original author’s statements, this is where the judgement call between originality and Plagiarism is to be made by your tutor, squeaky bum time!

 

If all goes to plan it is used as an educational tool.  If so, you will be able to submit your papers, and often within minutes, receive and read an originality report. If you are not happy with the results, you will be able to revise and resubmit the assignment as often as you’d like up until the final due date/time. Your instructor will view your final reports after the due date. IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE ON THIS PAGE READ THIS AGAIN! You can submit your work before the submission date, review the originality score, and re-submit with improved referencing, THIS AVOIDS PLAGIARISM GUYS!!

 

(NOTE: The first time you submit a paper, you may receive your report within minutes. When you submit a revision, it will take at least 24 hours to receive a new report. Translated to student terms, if you dealine is 20^th February 12.00, don’t submit it at midnight on the 19^th thinking you will receive feedback, PLAN IN ADVANCE!

 

How do I submit a paper using Turnitin?

 

Pretty easy but here goes, log into Blackboard, or your University’s equivalent intranet system, go to your module folder for the required submission. Often there will be a folder “Assignments” (shocking I know), for your to be forwarded to the link to turnitin. Your home screen will look like this:

 

 

Give the “view/complete” link a cheeky click. You will then be in your “assignment inbox”, well done you! Here you will see a little icon (paper and arrow) under the heading “submit” (Queue the massive red arrow we’ve put on to help). Click on that icon. On the next screen, you should see your name already entered.

 

From here you should be able to click the drop-down menu that reads “Submit a paper by” and select “File Upload”. Then you will then enter the submission title, Browse to locate and add the attachment, and click “Submit” (Note that the Submit button is at the top, not at the bottom of the screen!).

 

Finally, the next screen will provide a preview of your paper so that you can verify that it is what you intended to submit and not your weird documents you keep under the personal file on your USB, we all know. You can either click “yes, submit”, or “no, go back” to add a different attachment. Once you submit, you will receive a confirmation receipt, ID number, as well as an email from Turnitin alerting you that your paper was submitted.

 

 

How do I review the originality report?

 

To see the results that Turnitin provides, you will return to the same place where you uploaded it.

 

You’ll be back in your “assignment inbox”. This time, you will see the title of your assignment (if you click on it you will see the text of your paper) and you will see a bar graph. The bar graph will include a percentage from 0 – 100. (If no bar graph appears, then it hasn’t had time to process. It can take a little as a few minutes to a day or so depending on the size and format of your paper as well as how busy their system is. Remember that for a resubmitted paper, it will take at least 24 hours.)

 

Hit the graph you see on your page and you should be looking at your originality report. It will open in a new screen, and depending on your results, provide a colorful report that points out areas where it objectively thinks your text may be the same or very similar to someone else’s. (See sample below.)

 

 

Don’t poo yourself if you smash a 98% originality and think expulsion is definitely on the cards, all it means is you will need to have a really strong bibliography with all the areas shown in the report above referenced. Do this and you will sail through turnitin and straight on to the pub.

 

A WORD OF WARNING: Don’t try to copy a website, paste some of the sentence into google in the hope a Google books result will roughly relate to your “own” ideas, turnitin will find the correct source and if you have tried to pass it as from a book, be ready to prove this if you are caught out by the system.

 

Finally…

 

Please do remember that this program provides only an objective matching. It is up to you and up to your tutors to make the final subjective decisions about the substance and originality of your work. If you have some concerns or difficulty in getting your paper to a percentage where you are satisfied, be sure to contact us for assistance!