Understanding Your Turnitin Report Presented by: Maria LaFrance, Ph.D. Turnitin is a website Turnitin is a repository for papers Turnitin is a database Turnitin compares papers with thousands of websites and papers Turnitin generates a similarity report Turnitin is a tool used by instructors and students to reduce instances of plagiarism What is Turnitin? Turnitin: What is the process? Students submit their papers to the dropbox and a Turnitin report will be generated. Students may submit as many times as needed prior to the due date of the assignment. Check the dropbox for Turnitin similarity reports—the first submission will usually take less than 1 hour; subsequent submissions can take up to 24 hours. Turnitin: What is the process? A Turnitin Originality Report will be generated every time a paper is submitted as an attachment in the dropbox. The most recent submission is displayed on this screen. Click on the colored icon to view your Turnitin report Turnitin: How do I evaluate the report? Click on the color for details—this will show the exact matches to the original sources Turnitin: How do I evaluate the report? Check to see if the words in the paper are exact—no original words inserted Check to see if quotation marks are missing Turnitin: How do I evaluate the report? Important information is indicated in the Similarity Report Check the overall percentage Check the breakdown Click on the color for the original source text Click on the grey circle with white arrow to see other sources the highlighted text matched Determine the issue Did you forget the quotation marks? Did you try to paraphrase, but there are still too many words similar to the original source? Did you copy/paste from a resource? Turnitin: Interpreting the Report What if I see this in the dropbox? Turnitin: What ifs The red “error” icon indicates an error occurred in conducting the evaluation. Hover your mouse over the error icon to find out what the error is. If you get this icon frequently, contact Student Support. The blue “in progress” icon indicates that turnitin is in the process of evaluating your paper. Please check back later for your report. If this icon remains longer than 24 hours, contact Student Support. Should I worry about this? Turnitin: What ifs Words found in course/program templates (i.e. headers, title pages, table of contents) will show on the Similarity Report. Instructors and students should ignore these types of matches. What if the similarity index percentage is high and the report shows content matches? Turnitin: What ifs You should use the Originality Report and the APA Manual to correct APA and wording errors that cause Turnitin to match the words in the paper to sources held in the database and the repository. Put direct quotations in quotation marks and cite Paraphrase by putting the entire sentence into your own words and cite You should resu ...

1. Understanding Your Turnitin Report
Presented by: Maria LaFrance, Ph.D.
Turnitin is a website
Turnitin is a repository for papers
Turnitin is a database
Turnitin compares papers with thousands of websites and papers
Turnitin generates a similarity report
Turnitin is a tool used by instructors and students to reduce
instances of plagiarism
What is Turnitin?
Turnitin: What is the process?
Students submit their papers to the dropbox and a Turnitin
report will be generated.
Students may submit as many times as needed prior to the due
date of the assignment.
Check the dropbox for Turnitin similarity reports—the first
submission will usually take less than 1 hour; subsequent

2. submissions can take up to 24 hours.
Turnitin: What is the process?
A Turnitin Originality Report will be generated every time a
paper is submitted as an attachment in the dropbox. The most
recent submission is displayed on this screen.
Click on the colored icon to view your Turnitin report
Turnitin: How do I evaluate the report?
Click on the color for details—this will show the exact matches
to the original sources
Turnitin: How do I evaluate the report?
Check to see if the words in the paper are exact—no original
words inserted
Check to see if quotation marks are missing
Turnitin: How do I evaluate the report?
Important information
is indicated in the
Similarity Report

3. Check the overall percentage
Check the breakdown
Click on the color for the original
source text
Click on the grey circle with white arrow to see other sources
the highlighted text matched
Determine the issue
Did you forget the quotation marks?
Did you try to paraphrase, but there are still too many words
similar to the original source?
Did you copy/paste from a resource?
Turnitin: Interpreting the Report
What if I see this in the dropbox?
Turnitin: What ifs
The red “error” icon indicates an error occurred in conducting
the evaluation. Hover your mouse over the error icon to find out
what the error is. If you get this icon frequently, contact
Student Support.

4. The blue “in progress” icon indicates that turnitin is in the
process of evaluating your paper. Please check back later for
your report. If this icon remains longer than 24 hours, contact
Student Support.
Should I worry about this?
Turnitin: What ifs
Words found in course/program templates (i.e. headers, title
pages, table of contents) will show on the Similarity Report.
Instructors and students should ignore these types of matches.
What if the similarity index percentage is high and the report
shows content matches?
Turnitin: What ifs
You should use the Originality Report and the APA Manual to
correct APA and wording errors that cause Turnitin to match the
words in the paper to sources held in the database and the
repository.
Put direct quotations in quotation marks and cite
Paraphrase by putting the entire sentence into your own words
and cite
You should resubmit a corrected paper to the dropbox (before

5. the assignment deadline) to generate another Turnitin Similarity
Report.
Turnitin: Suggestions for Students
Minimize the use of quoted material (no more than 10% of a
paper should be direct quotations)
If quoting, use the exact words—even if errors are in the
original – put quotation marks around the quotation and cite.
Do not copy/paste from sources—even your own work
previously turned in for credit
Use the thesaurus in the Word program to assist you in
paraphrasing
Read, verbalize, then write to begin the paraphrasing process—
You can’t paraphrase well what you don’t understand
Place the citation after the sentence quoted or paraphrased
Turnitin: Suggestions for Students
1.10 Plagiarism and Self-Plagiarism (pp. 15-16)
References the APA Ethics Code (Standard 8.11)
Discusses the need to credit sources that are used AND that
authors need to also reference the source of concepts and
written words.
Self-plagiarism
6.01 Plagiarism
6.02 Self-Plagiarism

6. Limitations of Turnitin
Turnitin only highlights text matches, it does not look for
citations
Turnitin only ignores direct quotations if they are between
double quotation marks: “…”
Missing quotation marks
Single quotation marks (‘…’)
APA format block quotations
Papers may contain plagiarism even if the Turnitin report is 0%
if quotations and paraphrases are not cited
Academic Dishonesty/
Plagiarism Policy
Argosy University seeks to foster a spirit of honesty and
integrity. Any work submitted by a student must represent
original work produced by that student. Any source used by a
student must be documented through normal scholarly
references and citations, and the extent to which any sources
have been used must be apparent to the reader. Argosy
University further considers resubmission of a work produced
for one course in a subsequent course without the expressed
written consent of the instructor, or the submission of work
done partially or entirely by another to be academic dishonesty.
It is the student’s responsibility to seek clarification from the
course instructor about how much help may be received in
completing an assignment or exam or project and what sources
may be used.
Students found guilty of academic dishonesty or plagiarism
shall be subject to disciplinary action up to and including
dismissal from Argosy University.

7. What is Plagiarism?
Presenting word for word information from a resource without
the use of quotation marks, even if correctly cited
Paraphrasing information from a resource without the use of
citations to indicate the original source of the information
Using your own previously submitted work without
quoting/citing yourself properly (self-plagiarism)
Is this Plagiarism?
Is this Plagiarism?
No, this is not plagiarism.
This is an APA format block quotation which has been
presented correctly per APA format.
Is this Plagiarism?
Turnitin found no text-matches in this passage.
Is this Plagiarism?
Turnitin found no text-matches in this passage.

8. Yes, this is plagiarism. While there are no text-matches in this
passage, there are also no citations. This passage contains
information that was paraphrased from a resource and as such
the sentences must be cited.
Is this Plagiarism?
Is this Plagiarism?
Yes, this is plagiarism.
While paraphrasing was attempted here, there is far too much
word for word text to be an appropriate paraphrase.
Is this Plagiarism?
Is this Plagiarism?
Yes, this is plagiarism. While the resource has been cited, the
information is presented word for word from the resource
without the use of quotation marks.
Is this Plagiarism?
Turnitin found no text-matches in this passage.

9. Is this Plagiarism?
Turnitin found no text-matches in this passage.
No, this is not plagiarism. The information from the resource
has been put into the author’s own words, and the information
has been cited back to the original resource.
Helpful Resources
Turnitin Resources:
http://www.turnitin.com/en_us/training/student-
training/viewing-originality-reports
http://www.turnitin.com/en_us/training/student-
training/student-user-manual
Plagiarism Resources:
http://www.plagiarism.org/
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/01/
Helpful Resources
APA Format Resources
APA Learning Center available through Campus Common
Smarthinking Tutoring Services available through each
assignment page in your classrooms
Purdue OWL APA Formatting and Style Guide
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/1/
APA Style
http://www.apastyle.org/

10. Future Psychology Club Meetings
March – Online Therapy and Other Alternative Therapies
April – no meeting – please attend the 4th Semi-Annual Virtual
Psychology Research Conference on April 11, 2014 at noon
Eastern
May – Resume Types
June – Creative Arts to Enhance Diversity
All meetings will be held on the third Tuesday of the month,
alternating day and evening times (June: 1pm Eastern; March,
May: 9pm Eastern). Watch the Connections group for more
information.