Introduction
If you are a college or university student, chances are you have wondered how to submit your assignment on Turnitin and check for plagiarism. This is because most written assignments at university are submitted on Turnitin. However, if you haven’t used Turnitin before you won’t know how to do both properly, especially to check for plagiarism. It is very important to learn how to do this so that you don’t end up in an unintended plagiarism situation. Also, because of plagiarism, it is possible to fail an assignment and end up having to do it all over. Knowing how to check for plagiarism will help you avoid this. Instead, you are able to correct the parts of your work that should have resulted in plagiarism before the final solution.
How To submit your Assignment on Turnitin
The first step is to identify the submission link. This will be in your university virtual learning environment (VLE). The learning environment normally goes by different names such as VLE, Moodle, Blackboard or Canvas. It is called iLearn at Arden University. Your lecturer will show you this link or how to access it. Once you click on the submission link, it will take you to the Turnitin page that is embedded within the VLE. Then, once on the page, click where it says to “Submit Paper”. In some VLE you will have the upload button or icon. Although there are different variations, the submission page will normally look like the image below:
The next step is to drag your written assignment into the circled part with the number one. You would have done the assignment on Microsoft Word or PowerPoint already. And saved a copy on your computer. Learn how to do your assignment on Microsoft Word and PowerPoint here. After you drag and drop your assignment, you must add a title where it shows the number two and click on “Add Submission”, which is number three.
How to Check for Plagiarism on Turnitin
Besides using Turnitin to mark your assignment and give you feedback, it is used to check for plagiarism. However, to use Turnitin to check for plagiarism, it should be during draft submission. Alternatively, submit your work in the final submission link a good time earlier than the deadline. Then, check for plagiarism and submit it again after corrections. You should check with your lecturer if multiple submissions are allowed before the final submission. If multiple submissions are not allowed, you can’t use the final submission link to check for plagiarism. The steps and images below will guide you on how to use Turnitin to check for plagiarism.
After you submit your assignment, the following page will show in your submission inbox:
Under the heading that says “Similarity”, the extent to which your submission is similar to other resources on the internet, student submissions in other universities and previously submitted work will show in percentage. In our example, it is 100%. This means that the entire submission is similar to either a source on the internet or a previously submitted work. To find out more on the next page, click on the similarity percentage and it will show the following page:
Beneath the 100%, it shows that this is a previously submitted work. In the following example, 41% of the work is similar to online sources and a previously submitted work:
After opening the similarity percentage, when you click on the red similarity tool (1) and the similarity percentage (2) as shown below:
You will see the following:
This shows the different sources that parts of the work is similar to and the extent to which it is similar to them (%).
When the similarity percentage is because your submission is similar to a template, heading, references or in-text citation this is acceptable. It is not a problem. However, when the similarity percentage is because of the assignment answer that you have written it can be plagiarism. This means that the part of your answer with the similarity percentage is the same as either a previous submission or sources on the internet. The lecturer will click on each to view the source.
How to check lecturer feedback
To view the feedback that the lecturer gave you, click on the blue pen and paper as shown below:
It will open the following comment box shown below:
In addition to the similarity percentage and feedback tabs discussed the other tabs are useful in a variety of ways. For example, the download button is used to download your work after checking similar parts to edited them in your Word copy. Also, the recent AI tab is used to check the extent to which a submission is written by artificial intelligence such as ChatGPT. Check out more tips on how to use Turnitin from London School of Economics here
Conclusion
Using Turnitin to check for plagiarism has many factors to consider. It is always best to speak with your lecturer about these factors. An important one is the similarity percentage that becomes plagiarism. It is not straightforward to determine a specific percentage that constitutes plagiarism. A rule of thumb is to reduce the similarity percentage as much as possible, especially for the part of your submission that is your answer. Once you learn how to check your work for plagiarism and do the corrections, you will never be at risk of submitting a plagiarised work unintentionally.
