6 Using Turn It In Reports PDF

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Using Turn It In Reports A student messaged me about a 3% similarity score received from our academic integrity tool, Turn It In (TII). You can see your own TII reports by clicking on the colored tag to the right of your submission in your Grades page. This student’s 3% TII score was inspired by a sentence which was found to match other sources with the capitalized text: DID YOU KNOW THE HUMAN BODY CAN SURVIVE three WEEKS WITHOUT FOOD, but ONLY three to four DAYS WITHOUT WATER? This demonstrates a weakness of Turn It In and other such systems. All it can do is identify things that appear similar to other available sources and that MAY be plagiarized. Writing something innocuous like "The sky is blue today" will certainly result in a false positive in that many sources contain exactly this content though the writer neither stole it nor looked at any sources containing the expression. It is a common expression that does not need quotation or citation. This student’s TII report IS a false positive, but the example shows why even such TII reports remain valuable. Every similarity marked in TII is worth looking at for a variety of reasons.  It may point to a quote that needs proper citation.  It may point to a paraphrase or summary that is too close to a quote and needs rewording (and citation).  It may point to facts that are widely recognized but that would be stronger when corroborated by quality sources and citations (this applies to the ‘days without water and food’ situation above).  It may point to an overuse of common expressions that need variety and support. If a professor says, "You have a 25% TII score, so you plagiarized," you can simply use the report to show how you properly integrated and cited quality source content into your own writing. Some papers, like literature reviews, may include even 40% source content. If properly integrated and cited, this is NOT plagiarism. If a professor says, "You have a 1% TII score, so you didn't plagiarize," that may be a fallacy in that the score may indicate a brief but direct copying of source content without citation, which IS plagiarism. A low score may also indicate inadequate research support and integration. TII also contains grammar and writing features you may enjoy. Explore your reports! Bottom line: 1. You are responsible for properly integrating and citing any source content. DO NOT just move stuff around to reduce your similarity and TII score. 2. You and professors have the responsibility to use the TII report as a tool to help properly integrate and acknowledge sources.

3. You also have the responsibility to go beyond judging based merely on the score by examining the details of the report. Professor Michael Dufresne...