Q. What is Plagiarism?
Q. How significant is the problem?
Q. What are term-paper mills? What are digital term-paper mills?
Q. If I submit a paper for one class and then submit the same paper again for another class, can I correctly be accused of plagiarism?
Q. Who is allowed to use Turnitin?
Q. Are uploaded papers from individuals or from courses confidential?
Q. How do I avoid plagiarism?
Q. What are the advantages of using Turnitin?
Q. What are the consequences of plagiarism for students?
Q. Where can I get support?
Q. How are papers uploaded?
Q. How does Turnitin work?
Q. Does Turnitin check against newspaper articles and books to ensure that students have not cut-and-pasted from them?
Q. What is an "Originality Report"?
Q. How long does a check take?
Q. What is the size limit for uploading documents into Turnitin?
Q. I am a faculty member. What should I do if I believe a student is guilty of plagiarism?
Q. If an assignment receives a high similarity rating does it mean the student plagiarized?
Q. What is Plagiarism?
A.Plagiarism is the improper use of another person's writing or ideas. It can be as subtle as the inadvertent omission of quotes or proper references when citing a source or as blatant as knowingly copying an entire paper verbatim and claiming it as original work. (For more info, visit our new companion site Research Resources.)
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Q. How significant is the problem?
A.Very significant. According to a 1998 survey by Who's Who Among American High School Students , four out of five college-bound high school students admit to cheating on schoolwork, and a recent Center for Academic Integrity study reports that 80 percent of college students admit to cheating at least once. Additionally, the latest polls from the Gallup organization indicate respondents consider a crisis in education and a decline in ethics to be the top two problems facing America today.
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Q.What are term-paper mills? What are digital term-paper mills?
A. Term-paper mills are organizations that either sell or give away pre-written term papers for use by students. Digital term-paper mills are sites that exist on the Internet for the same purpose. These online groups are not constrained by the need to generate revenue by selling their manuscripts; the free sites typically receive their money from advertising.
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Q. If I submit a paper for one class and then submit the same paper again for another class, can I correctly be accused of plagiarism?
A. If you do not properly reference yourself and the content extracted from your previous paper, then you are recycling work. This could be considered plagiarism in some cases. (Please see Research Resources for more info.)
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Q. Who is allowed to use Turnitin?
A. Current SPC students and instructors are allowed to use Turnitin.
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Q. Are uploaded papers from individuals or from courses confidential?
A. Yes. Protection of student privacy is one of our highest priorities. Turnitin will not release any student information or paper to any third party without specific consent. For full details, please see our Privacy Pledge.
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Q. How do I avoid plagiarism?
A.Learn more about plagiarism by visiting the Plagiarism Tutorial. It is important to cite sources correctly so one avoids unintentional plagiarism. Read more about Plagiarism at the Student Resources web page. If you have any more questions ask your instructor about citing sources correctly.
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Q. What are the advantages of using Turnitin?
A. The software encourages academic honesty since most instances of plagiarism can be easily detected. It is unfair for students that cheat to receive credit when the majority of students invest lots of time and effort into writing original term papers.
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Q: What are the consequences of plagiarism for students?
A. Please view SPC Academic Honesty Policy for more information about the consequences.
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Q : Where can I get support?
A. Please visit the Turnitin 's Training Materials Section to view the tutorials and handbooks. Contact Turnitin by email at helpdesk@turnitin.com.
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Q. How are papers uploaded?
A. The process is simple. Students or faculty log into their Turnitin account, find the appropriate class, and then either: a) copy-and-paste their paper into a text box and click "submit", or b) browse for a file, just like they would an e-mail attachment, and submit it. We accept file uploads in a number of formats, including MS Word, plain text, RTF, PDF, and Postscript. If the paper does not already exist in digital format, it can be scanned with OCR software and then uploaded by either of the two above methods. Top of Page
Q : How does Turnitin work?
A. All work submitted to Turnitin is checked against three databases of content: 1) a copy of the publicly accessible Internet (more than 2 billion pages updated at a rate of 40 million pages per day); 2) millions of published works (including ABI/Inform, Periodical Abstracts, Business Dateline, and tens of thousands of electronic books); and 3) every student paper ever submitted to Turnitin. Then, a originality report is created. Take a look at a sample report. Top of Page
Q. Does Turnitin check against newspaper articles and books to ensure that students have not cut-and-pasted from them?
A. Yes, the majority of the world's newspapers, ebooks and periodicals reside on the Internet. Manuscripts are also checked against the billions of pages on the Web. Top of Page
Q. What is an "Originality Report"?
A.Originality Reports are exact duplicates of submitted papers, except that any text either copied or paraphrased from the Internet appears underlined, color-coded, and linked to its original online source. Take a look at a sample report. Top of Page
Q. How long does a check take?
A.The actual analysis takes seconds. Instructors can choose to have reports generated immediately or after the assignment's due date. If immediate report generation is chosen, reports will show up in the instructor's in box just seconds after papers are submitted. The after due date option allows students to resubmit a paper as many times as they wish within a 24-hour window, giving students the ability to correct any errors or omissions that they may have made. Top of Page
Q. What is the size limit for uploading documents into Turnitin?
A.The file size limit for uploading documents is 10 MB. Top of Page
Q: I am a faculty member. What should I do if I believe a student is guilty of plagiarism?
A.View SPC's Academic Honesty Guidelines (BOT Rule 6Hx23-4.461). Top of Page
Q. If an assignment receives a high similarity rating does it mean the student plagiarized?
A. No. There are a number of perfectly legitimate reasons for a paper receiving a high similarity rating. For example, a properly cited paper with numerous references may show a high similarity. Likewise, a paper previously submitted to Turnitin by the student for self-checking prior to final submission (if an instructor allows that capability) will show a high similarity. A high similarity rating simply indicates to an instructor that this paper should be reviewed for possible plagiarism. The determination whether or not a paper is plagiarized is still left of to the judgment of the instructor.
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