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The Oxford English Dictionary defines plagiarism as the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.
The University of Stirling adds that plagiarism is the reproduction in a submitted assignment of another’s work without due acknowledgment,
since the writer is presenting as original work what is in fact derivative.
When the assignment is submitted for assessment, plagiarism is the equivalent of cheating in an examination.
Students are encouraged to write assignment work in an appropriate academic style.
Inevitably, this requires referral to key texts and sources of information to support statements and arguments.
This is fine, as long as references are made to the source materials and that students avoid plagiarising other people’s work, either by
deliberately copying it or by failing successfully to state where the ideas or theories were originally published.
Plagiarism is viewed as a form of cheating and is taken very seriously, regardless of any reasons students may give for why they have resorted to
Plagiarism is viewed as a form of cheating and is taken very seriously, regardless of any reasons students may give for why they have resorted to
plagiarising other people’s work.
Turnitin is an online plagiarism awareness-raising service which you can access through Succeed.
The University of Stirling has signed up for this service, and it is available for all staff and first year students.
For other students, please check with your module tutor or refer to your module handbook.
It allows educational institutions to carry out electronic comparisons of students’ submitted work against other electronic sources.
These sources include databases of electronic journals, the internet, and other students’ work submitted to Turnitin, including at other academic
institutions. In this way Turnitin acts as a form of electronic plagiarism detection service.
It is also used to raise student awareness of the issue by notifying students that staff have tools at their disposal to check submitted work for
plagiarism. Students are less likely to plagiarise if they know it is highly likely they will be caught doing so.
To upload and submit an electronic assignment using the Turnitin online service through Succeed,
first ensure your electronic assignment is saved in one of the following formats:
Microsoft Word document, WordPerfect document, PDF, HTML, Rich Text format or plain text.
To submit a paper to Turnitin, go to your module in Succeed.
Navigate to the Turnitin submissions folder. If you do not have one, ask your tutor for the location of this assignment.
Navigate to the Turnitin submissions folder. If you do not have one, ask your tutor for the location of this assignment.
All assignments will have the Turnitin logo. Select View/Complete.
You are taken to the assignment inbox.
You are taken to the assignment inbox.
From here you can view information relating to your assignment.
From here you can view information relating to your assignment.
You can show further details, and then hide those details.
The status of the assingment is displayed here
Also, the due date is clearly displayed.
Click submit to add your assignment.
The upload process may be done in one of two ways. The default option is the single file upload, which is a two-step process.
On the step one of two screen, ensure the choose a paper submission method pull down menu says single file upload.
Your first name and last name will automatically have been picked up from Succeed, and should be in place in the relevant text fields underneath.
Type the submission title of your assignment in the submission title box.
Next, alongside the browse for the file to upload box, click the browse button. A choose file to upload box opens.
Next, alongside the browse for the file to upload box, click the browse button. A choose file to upload box opens.
Next, alongside the browse for the file to upload box, click the browse button. A choose file to upload box opens.
Navigate to find the file concerned and click the open button.
This returns the file path and the file name into the text box alongside the browse button.
If you have selected the incorrect file, merely click browse again and navigate once more to find the file required. Click the Upload button.
Turnitin then takes you to an intermediary page on which it shows you the text of your assignment, stripped of all its formatting, in a box on the
screen. This is step two of the two-step process.
Turnitin is only interested in the text of your assignment, and it is not interested in the formatting, so it removes it.
Do not worry about this, your original file saved on your computer remains unaltered.
Do not worry about this, your original file saved on your computer remains unaltered.
If you are happy with what you are about to submit, click the submit button. Your assignment is now submitted to Turnitin.
Originality reports provide a summary of the matching text found in a submitted paper.
Turnitin uses a colour coded scale to represent the amount of matching text which could be perceived as potential plagiarism in a submission
Starting with blue for no plagiarism, moving through green, yellow, orange & red to indicate greater instances of plagiarism
Your Turnitin originality report for your first submisssion should appear almost instanlty.
Your Turnitin originality report for your first submisssion should appear almost instanlty.
Your Turnitin originality report for your first submisssion should appear almost instanlty.
Although this depends on the level of demand on the Turnitin server at the time of submission.
So its possible that you may have to wait minutes or even sometimes hours to get your originality report back.
Please note that for susequent submissions that there is a minimum time delay of 24hrs that may be longer still if the demand is high.
To view your Turnitin originality report navigate to the same area in your module that you navigated to to upload your assignment for submission to
Turnitin.
The status has now changed to show that submission is complete, alongside the status click on the show details link
The page expands to show the presence of your originality report.
This example shows that a high level of plagiarism is suspected as indicated by the red band.
In this example the colour is yellow and the possible matches are 25%.
Click the per cent score. This opens up a new window which shows you your submissions originality report in detail.
Click the per cent score. This opens up a new window which shows you your submissions originality report in detail.
If this window loads blank then chances are you are not using an up-to-date enough version of your web browser
and you will need to upgrade to view the originality report in full.
If you can see the full report, down the left hand side of the page is the text of your assignment.
Parts of it will be highlighted with numbers alongside them.
These are the sections of your assignment for which the Turnitin service thinks there maybe plagiarism issues.
In the right hand column the numbered links relate to the numbering of the main body of the text on the left.
Please note that the percentage score and the colour coding of your originality report do not reflect Turnitin’s assessment of whether a paper
has or has not definitely been plagiarised.
Originality reports are simply tools to help you identify where sources contain text similar to that in your submitted paper.
The decision to deem any work as having been plagiarised will be made carefully by academic staff after careful consideration of both the
suspected submitted paper and the original sources.
The originality report is simply a tool that is available, both to students and to modules tutors to help gage the possibility of plagiarism having
taken place by finding sources that contain text similar to papers submitted by students.
Students are expected to use the originality report feedback to highlight areas where their submission may need further work.
For example, a properly referenced and genuinely attributed quotation in an essay may have been picked up by Turnitin.
In such an instance that part of the originality report can be ignored as long as the submission makes it clear that a work is being quoted and the
source is properly referenced.
In situations where students do engage in plagiarism however, module tutors can use the originality report as a tool to help them uncover
this and to find the original source material from which the work has been lifted.