Chapter 10. Globalizing Plagiarism and Writing Assessment: A Case Study of Turnitin (2024)

Plagiarism is regarded as a heinous crime within the academic community, but anecdotal evidence suggests that some writers plagiarize without intending to transgress academic conventions. This article reports a study of the writing of 17 postgraduate students. Source reports in the student-generated texts were compared to the original sources in order to describe the relationship between the two. Interviews were also conducted with the student writers and their supervisors. The student writing was found to contain textual features which could be described as plagiarism, but the writers’ accounts of their work and the textual analysis strongly suggest absence of intention to plagiarize, thus providing empirical verification of similar suggestions in the literature. Implications of these findings are discussed and include a recommendation that the focus on preventing plagiarism be shifted from post facto punishment to proactive teaching.

There does seem to be a fundamental agreement that plagiarism has become a “serious and endemic problem ” (Hart & Friesner, 2004; p89). Despite HE institutions providing students with clear guidelines as to what plagiarism is there is a body of literature that suggests that simply informing students about plagiarism is not enough (Barrett & Malcolm, 2006; Stefani & Carroll, 2001; PAS, no date). Consensus seems to be that, in the first instance, students are taught about the rules surrounding plagiarism and then once they have this knowledge they should be given the opportunity to complete discipline specific tasks to enable them to apply what has been taught. Turnitin provides this opportunity as the very nature of this software allows the student to see exactly where they have incorrectly cited or referenced and affords them the opportunity to amend their practice accordingly. When considering key experiential learning theories, for example Kolb’s Cycle (Kolb, 1984), it can be argu...

Journal of Academic Language and Learning

The text matching software Turnitin is now used in one form or another by over 90% of Australian universities. Unfortunately, both educators and students commonly view Turnitin as a plagiarism detection tool. We argue that this focus limits the effectiveness of Turnitin by contributing negatively to staff and students’ anxiety and may incongruously lead to poor academic practice. In line with emerging research, we advocate a literacy approach to using Turnitin that harnesses its potential to develop students’ academic writing. However, unlike this research which has tended to focus on discipline-specific courses rather than academic language and learning courses, our study developed teaching resources and activities designed for use by students of all disciplines and programs. The resources were evaluated in month-long preparatory academic skills programs with 46 international students. Our approach not only reduced students’ anxiety; importantly, it assisted students to develop their authorial voice and better understand appropriate citation practices. Our results demonstrate that Turnitin has potential to assist students with their writing, particularly if it is primarily viewed as a tool that is inextricably connected to academic writing, and intersects with timely and constructive academic learning resources.

… Across the disciplines. Interdisciplinary perspectives on …, 2005

Student plagiarism occurs in all academic disciplines, and so, for those of us involved with Writing Across the Curriculum and Writing In the Disciplines programs, the first thing we have to admit is: yes, it is our problem. It's everybody's problem, at bottom, of course, but WAC/WID directors are ideally positioned to offer both new conceptual perspectives and new practical initiatives: nobody else on campus is concerned with writing in every department and discipline, and at all levels. Faculty are going to look to us to provide campus leadership on the plagiarism issue, and we need to be ready both to present a more nuanced idea of what plagiarism is, and to develop a coordinated and effective campus-wide plan to address its underlying causes, and thus help to stop it before it happens.But is there a specifically WAC/WID approach to plagiarism? I believe that there is, and that if we construct university policies on this basis, we will be able to reduce plagiarism, to help students incorporate sources into their writing effectively and honestly, and to improve learning. The essence of this strategy can be expressed in four basic principles:I: Prevent plagiarism through pedagogy.II: Foster a serious ongoing campus dialogue about plagiarism as an intellectual concept and a social phenomenon.III: Get students involved in developing anti-plagiarism activities. Help faculty, administrators, librarians, and tutors understand the student experience of plagiarism and incorporate that perspective into their interactions.IV: When prevention fails, make the plagiarism intervention not only an occasion for punishment, but also an educational opportunity, a way to prevent the next plagiarism.

Second language (L2) writing instructors have varying tools at their disposal for providing feedback on students' writing, including ones that enable them to provide written and audio feedback in electronic form. One tool that has been underexplored is Turnitin, a widely used software program that matches electronic text to a wide range of electronic texts found on the Internet and in the program's massive repository. While Turnitin is primarily known for detecting potential plagiarism, we believe that instructors can make use of two features of the program (GradeMark tools and originality checker) to provide formative and summative feedback on students' drafts. In this article, we use screenshots to illustrate how we have leveraged Turnitin to provide feedback to undergraduate L2 writers about their writing and use of sources. We encourage instructors who have access to Turnitin to explore the different features of this tool and its potential to create opportunities for learning.

PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies, 2009

Educational Philosophy and Theory, 2021

Proceedings of the 4th Plagiarism Conference, 21-23 June, 2010, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Studies of Changing Societies: Comparative and Interdisciplinary Focus, 2019

The role of writing centers in the formation of the academic writing skills and preventing academic plagiarism among students of American and European universities is researched, the experience of writing centers in Ukrainian universities is characterized, the prospects of their activity are determined in the context of the formation of the quality system of higher education in Ukraine. Based on the analysis of the websites of university centers of writing, their structure and forms of work with students of different educational levels are revealed. Defining a wide range of tasks of the writing centers, the authors focus the attention on the methods of preventing academic plagiarism in student works. The article presents the experience of well-known American writing centers with students, specifies online resources that provide a significant amount of methodological materials for the formation of the culture of scientific speech.

Conference Program for the Eighth International Writing Across the Curriculum Conference at Clemson University May 18 - 20 2006

As one of the negative impacts of technology development, the easy access to any information on the internet creates a new problem on academic integrity, in which the students take other’s works and claim as theirs. This phenomenon is termed as plagiarism which is against the academic ethics and honesty. Many universities have fought back the plagiarism cases and used plagiarism detection software as their tools in detecting plagiarism. Turnitin, as one of plagiarism detection software widely used in many universities, has been claimed as effective software in detecting plagiarism. However, prior studies have also revealed its inaccuracy in dealing with plagiarism cases. Reflecting from the both views of Turnitin, students’ view on its utilization may bring an essential consideration on the existence of Turnitin in detecting plagiarism. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the utilization of Turnitin based on students’ perspective and explored their responses and perceptions t...

As a tutor of academic writing in a university committed to widening student participation, I frequently assist students in making sense of the feedback they have received on their essays. Students simultaneously have to learn how to improve their knowledge of their subject whilst also understanding the general conventions of academic writing in their area. It is an emotional as much as intellectual process (van der Hulst et al. 2014). Combining qualitative data from staff and student focus groups with quantitative data from the Turnitin system, this action research report provides a series of practical resources rooted in practice reflections and current debates, as a possible way to tackle this pedagogical problem.

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 2007

It has been observed that plagiarism is a problem across specialities and professions, and it is probably becoming more rampant than ever in this electronic age. Based on a body of literature primarily in applied linguistics, this review focuses on textual plagiarism and antiplagiarism in second language academic writing. Following a conceptualization of plagiarism and an examination of some terminology employed in the literature to address the complexity of the issue, a number of perspectives taken upon plagiarism in the literature are examined. These include a cultural interpretation, a developmental perspective, a disciplinary perspective, student beliefs and practices, faculty perceptions, and a focus upon antiplagiarism pedagogy. The challenge and opportunity involved in dealing with plagiarism is then highlighted by reviewing work that has analyzed the problem in connection with the Internet, by exemplifying some antiplagiarism detection devices, and by relating these to John Sinclair's “idiom principle” of linguistic structure. The article ends by suggesting a few lines of future research on plagiarism.

Journal of Academic Ethics

Student plagiarism has been prevalent in academic discourse. This paper investigates through a questionnaire and interviews the use and effectiveness of Turnitin, a major plagiarism detection system, in Chinese university students' EAP writing in a Sino-foreign joint institute in Shanghai. The study finds except for its online marking tool GradeMark, Turnitin has been well-received by most students. Two most welcomed features are the similarity report and its convenience in submitting assignments. Besides, most students perceived Turnitin as an effective tool in reflecting and reducing plagiarism in their writing. However, the study also shows although students' general understanding of the Western concept of plagiarism has been greatly improved, some students may still have misconceptions, and lack sufficient knowledge of what constitutes plagiarism, which can be a major factor contributing to the high similarity rate in their writing on Turnitin. Based on these findings, t...