TurnItIn - Part 3

Turnitin Part three.. a beginners guide

DMU have their own guidelines on how to use TurnItIn - Here's the link:
https://vle.dmu.ac.uk/dmu_common/notices/turnitin.html

Time for a users guide/what to expect from it!

I submitted my essay at about 1pm on Friday, I checked it right up until midnight and then went to bed (i'm not that dedicated to the cause!) but in the morning, about 8.30, there was my essay, and next to it was a green box (this is good) and '10%' - I instantly thought both 'phew' and 'well where the hell did it get 10% from!' I wasn't sure about the sensitivity of TurnItIn, i was worried it would be VERY sensitive, and basically accuse me of copying the whole thing, or not at all.

Turns out it's an odd mixture of the two. There were quotes in the essay (it includes quotes :-/) that it picked up, and others that it didn't, the ones that it did, it identified the text or the website they were from, which i was quite impressed with, tho saying that, over 10+ hours, most people could probably do the same thing manually with google... but whatever, this is easier, and i'd much rather go to bed and let a programme do stuff for me.

It might be worth mentioning the typo... someone has put the letter b in 'assignment' but since i can't spell for toffee i quite like this b, and think it adds character to an otherwise boring page.

So enough vague summary and some proper explaining i think:

Here's what it looks like when you get your essay back, my essay doesn't look like black fuzz, i just don't want it plagiarised innit.


Down the left and side is the essay, and it highlights the bits it has found match other documents. On the right hand side, it lists the places it found bits of essay. For example, it picked up on a quote from an online article, and called me up on it. Luckily, it's a properly referenced quote so it can stfu. It also finds some really random things to tell you off about, like the following sentence: (or part of a sentence)

"have a positive effect on the relationships between members of the youth cafe and"

the words in bold were 'similar' to words in another essay, handed in at another university 3 months ago.

this gives me the feeling that as the database of essays submitted grows, the chances of this sort of thing popping up are going to get higher and higher. There are only so many ways to write a sentence. take a sentence from this blog entry and put it into google, it will come up with this blog, but that wont be the only thing it drags up, unless i write something truley fantastic and original. which i probably wont.

Ergh, written loads already, i think i'll have to cover this in 4 posts.

TurnItIn - Part 2

Ok so i checked this morning for signs of life from turnitin, and it has decided my essay is not plagiarised! (bargain! - but whether it will pass or not is another matter.. ) but yeh just a little warning, IT TOOK AT LEAST 10 HOURS TO DO!!

Now time for a quick run through of how to use it, and what to expect.

1. go to ur module on blackboard, down the left hand side underneath the discussion boards link is a link to turnitin.
2. once you're in, you should see a page like this:

Next to where it says "TPCD turnitin" on the left there is a tiny button, this is the 'upload your essay' button, clcking this will take you to a screen where you will be given the chance to browse the files on your computer and find your essay. Hit submit, and it will ask you to verify that you are the author, and because you are logged in though blackboard, it should know who you are.

When it has successfully uploaded, it will send a receipt to your DMU email accunt - this will contain some or all of your essay in plain font. Any images in your essay will be replaced by "[pic]" and tables will probably be distorted beyond recognition. This is fine, it's only interested in the words you wrote. (so you can plagiarise images and tables???)

anyway, once it's all set, log into turnitin again, the link will still be where it was, on the left hand side of the page.

What you are waiting to happen is for the box on circled in red with the "--" inside it to change, and a colour to come up.

Don't press refresh on your browser, it's annoyingly long winded - it will take you back out to the module guide again. Instead I have circled the refresh button that's there for you to use!

Now wait about 10 hours (i kid you not!)

I'll put the rest in my next post

TurnItIn -Part 1

Am currently experimenting with the new 'turnitin' feature of bb. Hopefully this will make no sense whatsoever to most people, cuz this blog entry is for my course peoples only.

TurnItIn is the exciting new plagiarism checking device that universities up and down the country are either using, or thinking of using.

It has the capacity (IRRC) to compare YOUR essay to all sort of other writings, such as
*blackboard posts
*online journal articles
*the content of news websites
*pretty much the whole damned internets
*the books we might have used
*other peoples essays (at any university i think)

It searches for direct matches (outright nasty plagiarism) and similarities, like where you take a sentence straight out of a book and change a couple of words around.

This worries me greatly, as even if you *know* you haven't done this, there are only so many ways you can explain one thing (or not, if the word 'community' is considered...) and you are bound to at some point write something that's been written before. Again, that's something i'll be able to update you on once my essay has come back.

The check takes ages. I've heard it's based on how busy it currently is, but earlier I submitted my TPCD essay on it and I still don't know what it's doing. Hopefully I will know before work!! But anyway there's warning to anyone who thinks they will 'just quickly whack it through TurnItIn' before they post it off... i'd consider leaving it overnight.

Later on i'll post a bit more about my general worries, and what happens if you forget one of these: "

Exciting stuff!