Plagiarism and Turnitin

Plagiarism intentionally or unintentionally is unacceptable and the student is liable to be penalised. Purdue Online Writing Lab (n.d) states that "The key to avoiding plagiarism is to make sure you give credit where it is due." Further it goes on to say that anything that originates "somewhere outside of you" has to be credited. In today's era where plenty of information is available both in hard and soft form spread over the globe it is difficult for one to locate all information on a particular topic. In a situation like this tools like Turnitin are highly valuable in helping the students identify if we have failed to cite some of his/her references.

Coming to my experience on use of Turnitin and interpreting, its originality report so far has been good. I only wish that like in Week-1A of Module 1 we continue to have the opportunity of using the draft Turnitin link before final submission of the assignment, existed for every submission.

Turnitin, as it is now, is like a one-way street. There is no turning back. An assignment once submitted through Turnitin cannot be retrieved for making any changes or corrections based on the originality report. The originality report today helps me in learning where I could improve on citing or referencing the next time.

One thing about the originality report is, one should not conclude just on the basis of the similarity percentage figure it shows. This could be misleading. The report needs to be reviewed in totality i.e. each of the similarities shown by the report needs to be thoroughly reviewed and analysed before coming to any conclusion. For example in my previous assignment I had used the definition for virtual teams by one author (and also cited) whereas a similar definition existed by another author. However, the originality report showed similarity with the works of the second author. This illustrates that the one should not judge if the writer has plagiarised just on the basis of percentage similarity.

Even though I wish for a chance to review my draft submission through a Turnitin link and then make changes before final submission, the positive aspect of not getting a second chance is that one has to complete the assignment much in advance so that there is sufficient time for proof reading and ensuring that proper referencing and citing is done. This does exert positive pressure to meet the deadlines.

References:

Purdue Online Writing Lab (n.d.) Is it Plagiarising Yet? [Online]. Available from: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02/ (Accessed: 16 Feb 2012).