• What does turnitin look
like?
• How does turnitin work?
• What material is
checked?
When work is submitted to turnitin, markers get back a list of students with a colour coded
originality report. Red means that a lot of the text in the assignment matches web sources or
journals .
From the list, the marker can click on the individual assignment to display the assignment (on the
left hand side of the screen) and a list of the sources used (on the right hand side).
Scrolling through the assignment, text is highlighted in a colour which matches the source.
The text on the left here matches text in a 2003 article by Heming.
The marker can click on the highlighted text on the left to display the source text on the right. Here,
someone has copied material, word for word, from Heming.
(Giving the Twycross and Wilcock reference as Heming had – and not citing Heming – is also a problem!)
The system also highlights when source text has been copied but then altered a little bit.
It also highlights when source text has been crudely paraphrased or reordered.
All web source text can be identified – even wikipedia and similar sites.
It also checks against the work of other students.
Here someone has given a reference earlier in the paragraph but should still have used quotes
when using verbatim text (especially as it was in quotes in the original).
So what you do to avoid these problems?
 Take care over your notes for assignments – always make sure that you know what is
copied text and what is your personal note.
 Check your school referencing guide carefully for how to reference different types of
material.
 Make sure that you reference all source material – generally in quotes with names/dates
in the text. (A general footnote or mention in the bibliography is not enough.)
 Citing all material means that – and includes dictionaries, wikipedia, newspaper articles
etc etc. If in doubt give a citation. Remember that we need to assess your work.
 Work through the on-line tutorial at www.ncl.ac.uk/right-cite
 Check out other guidance material at www.ncl.ac.uk/right-cite
 Ask your tutor for help if you are still unsure what to do.