Every professor has different methods. Some professors use plagiarism checkers like Turnitin. Others might pull up a search engine and search for commonly used words and phrases in your paper. Some may look to see the check-lists found on academic databases.
Most institutions have an internal database of previously submitted student papers. Turnitin can check for self-plagiarism by comparing your paper against this database. If you've reused parts of an assignment you already submitted, it will flag any similarities as potential plagiarism.
If you have took an information from somewhere else, may it be your textbook or may it be from an website, but do not credit it properly, it is plagiarism. Looks like in your case, you have done it unintentionally. Confess your situation. Don't feel guilty; your professor's behaviour is not your responsibility.
Unusual phrasings, noticeable unevenness of style (some very sophisticated sentences followed by some amateurish ones), concepts that seem too sophisticated for the level of the class, unclear or incorrect sources listed in the bibliography, a writing style or diction choice in a particular paper that seems ...
Turnitin then creates an 'Originality Report' which can be viewed by both lecturers and students, which identifies where the text within a student submission has matched another source. Turnitin also stores a record of all submitted assignments on central database.
The Similarity Index percentage
Even a 1% score could potentially be plagiarised. There is no ideal percentage to look for. Students' work is bound to contain some words from other sources. The percentage will vary depending on the type and length of assignment and the requirements of the work involved.
As a guide a returned percentage of below 15% would probably indicate that plagiarism has not occurred. However, if the 15% of matching text is one continuous block this could still be considered plagiarism. A high percentage would probably be anything over 25% (Yellow, orange or red).
Provide your teacher with the outlines, notes or drafts, which were made for this particular paper as the proofs that you have made efforts to write the paper on your own. Provide the evidence that highlights your knowledge or skills (for example, previous essays) to prove that you didn't plagiarize in the past.
Sometimes plagiarism is described as a form of stealing or copyright infringement. It can be. However, it is always unacceptable to plagiarize, even if the author of the work says you can use it.
Of these students, only 20.3% were caught plagiarizing, which is higher than the catch rate for other cheating formats, but still quite low. 4 out of 5 students were left unpunished after the fact of their plagiarism.
This may or may not be considered as misconduct in itself depending on the rules set for your class or assignment. You need to ask them to show you which parts of your work they think you have plagiarised and prove it. Universities use a plagiarism checker routinely for everything that students submit.
Professors can identify essays that were bought and used or recycled. They see the same clever phrases in hundreds of essays sourced from essay-writing agencies. Often, the essays that are bought have no proper in-text citation or bibliography.
Even if you aren't breaking the law, plagiarism can seriously impact your academic career. While the exact consequences of plagiarism vary by institution and severity, common consequences include: a lower grade, automatically failing a course, academic suspension or probation, or even expulsion.
The main reason is to prevent plagiarism among students. Turnitin also allows teachers to provide greater feedback and grading capabilities for assessments. 98% of universities in the UK use Turnitin. An original report is a report generated by Turnitin after it has assessed a submitted work.
Plagiarism is a serious offense but often occurs accidentally. It's easy to do it unintentionally. Here are some of the most common examples of accidental plagiarism found in papers, essays, and articles: Not citing a source properly.
Often, the first time a student is found guilty of plagiarism or other forms of cheating, the consequence is assignment-specific. The instructor may simply give a zero for the work. In some cases, the student may be allowed to redo a written paper or report with a reduced grade.
Going by the convention, usually a text similarity below 15% is acceptable by the journals and a similarity of >25% is considered as high percentage of plagiarism.
Green means less than 24% of the paper matched an outside source. This is ideal if sources are integrated well and cited correctly. Yellow means 25% - 49% of the paper matched an outside source. If there is no plagiarism, this paper would likely benefit from more paraphrasing and analysis.
Too high? A score above 25% could indicate plagiarism, or it might just mean that the assignment has a long bibliography and a number of direct quotes. If small stretches of text are highlighted, just one or two words, it could be that these words are commonly found together in multiple texts.
Average similarity index – up to about 50% of matches
It is quite normal for an essay to have up to 50% of matches to other items; or even more. This does not mean you are guilty of plagiarism.
According to convention, a text resemblance of 15 percent or less is deemed acceptable by journals. However, a text-similarity of 25 percent or more is considered a high degree of plagiarism.
FAQs: Turnitin FAQs
Saying this, having too high a similarity score, while not meaning a student has plagiarised, may mean a student is relying too much on direct quotes or secondary sources. As a guide, somewhere between 15-20% might be considered a good score to aim for.