Turnitin

Turnitin is set up by your tutor and is embedded in your assignment submission within MyLearningSpace. For each assignment, you are given the opportunity to submit draft versions of your work to Turnitin, so that you can use Turnitin to identify and address any issues with citing, referencing, and paraphrasing before you submit the final version for assessment.

At Abertay University, you can submit and receive your Turnitin report three times within 24 hours. After this, you can still resubmit for a report, but only once every 24 hours. All submissions and resubmissions need to be done prior to the assessment deadline.

Turnitin will analyse your submitted work to identify text matches with other sources. For each piece of submitted work, Turnitin provides two things:

• A similarity index, which indicates the percentage of the submitted paper that Turnitin has identified as being matched against other sources.
• An originality report, which shows each of these matches in more detail, including the source(s) that Turnitin has found. These can be websites, books, journals, or work that has previously been submitted through Turnitin.

Look at all the text matches that Turnitin identifies and decide what changes you might need to make to address them.

Turnitin similarity scores and originality reports can be viewed by both you and your tutor. Your tutor will only consider your final submission report.

When viewing your assignment submission in MyLearningSpace, you will see the ‘Turnitin Similarity’ index score (in the form of a percentage) to the right of your submission file. By clicking on this percentage icon, your Originality Report will open. 

When you open the Originality Report you will see your coursework in the larger left-hand frame and the Match Overview in the smaller right-hand frame. At the top you will also see your Similarity Index score – this will be the same as the percentage that appeared in your submission history screen on MyLearningSpace>Assignments.

Similarity Index

Your Similarity Index score tells you how much of your submitted work has been identified by Turnitin as matching other sources:

• Periodicals
• Journals
• Publications
• Websites and webpages (including archived)
• Other student papers at Abertay and other universities around the world

Similarity does not mean that your work is plagiarized. If you have used quotes, then it is highly likely that these will show up in your score, particularly if you have used single quotation marks (see tips for improving your writing below). If you have cited and referenced them correctly you will not have committed plagiarism.

There is no fixed number to receive as a score. However, in general:

• A high similarity score means that very little of your paper is your own writing.
• Zero similarity means that you are not including any source-based evidence, a requirement for many assignments. So, this is not necessarily a good thing.
• Some similarity is usually expected.

Whatever your similarity score, you should then review your work in more detail by using the Originality Report.

Originality Report

If a match between a submitted piece of work and an existing work is found, Turnitin will highlight the matching text and provide a summary on the Originality Report.

The Originality Report will open as a large window. Your assignment will be shown on the left-hand side. Within your assignment, you may see selected blocks of text, each with its own number and colour.

On the right hand side, you will see the Match Overview.  This gives a breakdown of all the matches that have been found in the paper. It includes a list of the suggested original sources and the percentage of text that has been matched against each source. The matched text is highlighted and number/colour coded for easy reference. Click on the score box (circled in blue) to see the Match Overview list. To see the source of a match, click on the appropriate number in the Match Overview list. This will open a further Match Breakdown, identifying each source match as it is found in your submission.

You can view the source that Turnitin has identified by clicking on the relevant number in the Match. This will open a further Match Breakdown, identifying each source match as it is found in your submission. Clicking on the source will open the website or identify the book or journal article. If a match is shown as being another student’s piece of work, you will not be able to view it as this would break the original author’s copyright. Note that the same piece of text can appear in thousands of places on the internet, and Turnitin cannot possibly know which original source was used. It will give its best guess.

The Filter option (circled in green) allows you to exclude direct quotes (contained within “double quotation marks”), reference lists, and short matches of only a few words in length.

A few key things to remember:

• Turnitin does not make decisions about the intention of work it identifies as unoriginal, nor does it determine if unoriginal content is correctly cited or indeed plagiarised. It simply highlights sections of text that have been found in other sources.
• Your Similarity Index score is not necessarily proof of plagiarism provided that you have correctly cited and referenced your sources.
• There is no ideal score and no pass mark; all Similarity Index scores and Originality Reports need careful interpretation.
• Regardless of the Originality Report, academic staff will still be looking out for cases of suspected plagiarism. They are experts in their subject areas and are familiar with students’ writing styles and abilities, so can recognise when something is not your own work.

As well as identifying matches with other sources, the Originality Report can help you improve your academic writing skills by highlighting:

• Your use of quotations, citations, and referencing: Quoting from other sources is allowed, but you must use quotation marks, and cite and reference the source correctly. You also need to decide when and how much to quote, and when it would be better to summarise or paraphrase. If you would like help with quoting, paraphrasing, and citing, please see our Study Guides.
• Your ability to summarise and paraphrase: Rewriting something in your own words demonstrates that not only have you identified a suitable source, but you have understood it sufficiently to be able to repurpose it into your own words to support your argument. For help with paraphrasing, please see our Paraphrasing Study Guide.
• Your use of punctuation: Turnitin recognises quotations in “double quotation marks,” but some students use ‘single quotation marks’ instead. ‘Single quotation marks’ will not be picked up by Turnitin, so this could affect your Similarity Index score. You may want to consider changing to double quotation marks if your assignment brief allows for this. In the same way, if you miss out on one of the sets of quotation marks around your quote, then Turnitin will not recognise it as a proper quote.
• Your understanding of the terminology of your discipline: The Originality Report may highlight words and phrases that you are certain you did not copy. This is probably because all academic writing about your topic uses similar terms. You would not be accused of plagiarism for including appropriate terminology.

Top tip: Don’t leave your draft submission to the last minute! Turnitin can take up to 24 hours to process a report, so you need to take this into account. You also need to plan in enough time to read the report, to look at every text match that it has identified, and to change your text where necessary before you submit your final version.

Once you have received your report, review all the matches to ensure that each of them, where necessary, is properly and appropriately referenced. To do this, scan through your assignment looking for blocks highlighted in red and numbered with a ‘1’ – these are contributing to your largest match. If a highlighted block is a quotation, check that you have used quotation marks, and included the reference at the end of the quotation.

Repeat this process for your second largest match, marked with the number ‘2’. As you continue the process, you may find that you have some matches that do not need referencing. These might include common expressions in your discipline and your reference list or bibliography. As you continue, you will eventually find that the matches are very short and comprise common expressions and phrases. At this point, you can stop.

If you have questions about your assessment, the brief, and its requirements, please contact your tutor for clarification. If you feel stuck or overwhelmed by your report and/or would like some additional support, please contact studyskills@abertay.ac.uk. We offer one-on-one appointments to help students work through assignments and build their academic skills.

We also offer a number of StudySkills Guides to help you in navigating your assignments, specifically writing and referencing.