Have you ever wondered how some students manipulate the plagiarism detection tool Turnitin to reduce the similarity score? In these slides, Alison Black shares the 'tricks' that students use to fool Turnitin. Turnitin does not detect plagiarism, but instead checks the student's work against a database for similarity to other students' work and flags it for the marker to review. Alison also highlights the need for a culture that sees Turnitin as an educative tool that can help students improve their writing, for example, paraphrasing, rather than a punitive tool, and shares marking criteria and lesson ideas with this approach in mind.

1. “Tricks” that students may use
to fool Turnitin
Alison Black
Hawthorn Melbourne

2. Outline
• Recognising possible plagiarism on Turnitin
• Assessment practices to support Academic Integrity
• Lesson ideas using Turnitin
• References and Links to further resources

3. Turnitin Originality report

4. Turnitin Originality report
Hyphenation:
found in ‘Layout’
in Microsoft word document

5. Turnitin
Originality report:
Spelling errors or synonym
change

6. Back translation
• https://translate.google.com.au/

7. Turnitin Originality report: Back translation

8. Turnitin
originality
report:
Creating
fake spaces.
place an ‘x’
between words
or before /after
full stops then
white out

9. Turnitin originality report: Changing the
document format

10. • “The best way is to synonymize the third word in a sentence. For
example in the previous sentence “You can fool Turnitin robots by
synonymizing the keywords within a sentence” can be synonymized to
“You can cheat Turnitin algorithms by changing the key phrases within
a sentence.” (paperperhour, n.d.)
Turnitin originality report: changing synonyms

11. • “Swap the Letters: Another way to easily cheat Turnitin is by swapping or
replacing the letters in a word with those from another language. For
instance, instead of writing ‘house,’ you can write ‘ⱨouse.’ Turnitin will
not be able to detect similarities in the above two words because of the
difference in letter h.” (paperperhour, n.d.)
Turnitin originality report: replacing the first letter
of a word with another language

12. Contract cheating
Most available
topics:
-Marketing
-Business
-English
-History
-Health

13. • Restrict type of submission: avoid submission of.pdf / .jpeg /.png files
• Choose ‘Student repository’ in all assignments.
• Include reference list in originality report ie should not be 0% at all if a
reference list is included.
• Marking criteria awarding response to Turnitin.
• Culture of :
• - giving ownership/responsibility back to student ie show the relationship
between ethics and academic integrity
• -demonstrating progress and response to feedback in assignments
• -avoid focussing on the % but more the content
• -responding and reporting of the breach
Assignment & assessment
preferences
LESSON IDEA

14. BACK

15. When creating a Turnitin assignment choose
‘Student repository’
1st draft added to
“No student
repository”
Final draft added to
“student repository”
BACK

16. Turnitin
Originality
report:
comparisons
BACK

17. Lesson
idea

18. Lesson idea continued

19. Lesson idea continued..

20. Assessment Design to support
Academic Integrity
• Cleary (2012) states that ‘Students are less likely to plagiarize if they feel
connected to a school through bonding with fellow students and teachers’.
• Allow Ss to choose a topic based on a theme but make sure it is not too general
• ( i.e. found on the internet) (Cleary, 2012)
•
Ensure Ss are able to understand the question – allow in class time to unpack &
understand assignments.
• Allow Ss time to respond to feedback and redraft assignments.
•
Use Turnitin as an educative tool. i.e. include workshops in class on how to use
the originality report to better paraphrase ideas and / or acknowledge sources.
Dinneen, Kendi & Black (2018)

21. Link to resources on tricking Turnitin
• How to Fool Plagiarism Detection Software https://howtobeatturnitin.wordpress.com/
• Forum on fooling Turnitin https://www.quora.com/Is-there-a-way-to-fool-Turnitin
• Can students “Trick” Turnitin? https://www.turnitin.com/blog/can-students-trick-
turnitin
• Website for free or paid essays https://www.ukessays.com/essays/
• Six Proven ways to cheat Turnitin in 2018 https://paperperhour.com/2017/08/04/six-
proven-ways-cheat-turnitin-2018/

22. Link to resources on Academic integrity
• Academic integrity workshop by Alison Black, Cara Dinneen and Juliana Kendi https://learningandteaching-
navitas.com/playagain/academic-integrity-workshop/?_sf_s=Academic+integrity
• Academic Integrity: Shining a light on the world of plagiarism and ghostwriting by Ann Wilson 21 February 2018
https://learningandteaching-navitas.com/playagain/academic-integrity-shining-a-light-on-the-world-of-plagiarism-
and-ghost-writing/?_sf_s=Academic+integrity
• How do we ensure teachers are giving students the same messages about academic integrity? by Jocelyn Robinson
Aug 30, 2017 https://learningandteaching-navitas.com/teachers-students-messages-academic-integrity-
curtin/?_sf_s=Academic+integrity
• Contract Cheating-How do I identify it in student work? By Ann Rogerson , Director of Academic Integrity &
Assessment, Faculty of Business, University of Wollongong October 16 2018
• https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/4159632101957500675
• TEQSA Guidance to Academic Integrity https://www.teqsa.gov.au/latest-news/publications/guidance-note-
academic-integrity
• L&T Framework: academic integrity by Learning and Teaching at Navitas · Feb 13, 2018
https://learningandteaching-navitas.com/articles/lt-frameworks-academic-integrity/?_sf_s=Academic+integrity

23. Question & Comments