Review on Turnitin

Gabriel Herrera Dominici

Foundations in Grad Study in Psych

12/31/16

According to the Turnitin student guide (2006), Turnitin is a document database that compares large amounts of papers/assignments that have been submitted by other individuals (p. 7). The idea of Turnitin is that is will check submitted assignments for plagiarism, giving the the paper a percentage, or similarity report. The similarity report breaks down the sources used in the assignment based on how often they are used. With that being said, a high similarity percentage does not necessarily mean plagiarism, while a low percentage does not necessarily mean no plagiarism (Turnitin, 2006, p. 7). The similarity report varies depending on the assignment, for example, a research paper might have a high similarity percentage, but that is because the sources were cited properly and those come into formula when calculating the originality report.

For our assignment on week two we had to write one paragraph that is fact followed by another that is opinion. I chose the controversial topic of bull running. My first paragraph was my fact paragraph which contained several factual citations from a scholarly source. When reviewing my Turnitit similarity report I realized I had gotten zero percent. The reasons for this can be because of the fact that this is completely and purely my own words, the sources have not been used in other papers, the assessment was not lengthy, the assignment contained opinions, or it was a paraphrasing exercise.

Being that my similarity report was zero, I can not asses which is my source with the highest match with my written work.Therefore I have used this review as a learning experience. I have learned that a zero perecent is not bad (at first I thought I had done something wrong) if the assignment is not so lengthy. If I were to change something from my paper I would have added more sources to visually see how the similarity report breaks down the sources used into colors and percentage. To conclude, the knowledge that I have learn by writing this review can allow me to use turnitin in the future effectively. The fact that turnitit reviews plagiarism raises my alertness as to properly citing my sources. The feedback from these reports can allow me to see what I am doing right and wrong, allowing me to change what is needed.

Reference

Walden University. (2015b). ASC TurnItIn: Reading the Turnitin originality report. Retrieved from http://academicguides.waldenu.edu/ASCtii/ASCtiioriginality