Turnitin is a prevention and plagiarism detection service that looks into any ones writing for improper copying and any citation errors. Turnitin compares your work to texts that have been saved in its vast database of other students’ work, books, and websites when you submit it.

The Turnitin co-founders were students at the University of California, Berkeley, when they came up with the idea for Turnitin.

The software is used by more than 12 million students worldwide. Turnitin recently partnered with Elsevier to build an open-source document comparison tool.

Turnitin Connect, an online tool that allows firms to compare papers against its submissions repository rapidly, was recently introduced. To improve its similarity score technology, Turnitin employs machine learning approaches.

As you can see, Turnitin provides many tools and services for many different people. As part of their service, Turnitin assigns a score between 0 and 100 to each paper it compares against its database.

This number gives the investigator an idea of how much the paper is original. The Turnitin algorithm is constantly updated with new data to provide the most accurate score possible. The threshold for a copied document can vary depending on the institution or company using Turnitin.

Who Can Use Turnitin?

AMU and APU classrooms have incorporated Turnitin. In other words, when a student uploads their work to their classroom for grading, the work is automatically uploaded to the application’s repository, and there will be no need to check in to Turnit.com individually.

A similarity report is then generated to aid in the detection of probable plagiarism.

For this reason, Universities have purchased and installed Turnitin software to be used by instructors in conducting online grading and feedback using a grade book. Instructors can also determine how much of a student’s work is original when using the software.

When a student tries to submit a dissertation paper, they must check the box saying they agree to participate in this process for submitting their papers.

If an instructor chooses, they may use plagiarism detection as part of grading assignments (i.e., informal or formal writing assessment). It can be detected through style (grammar and spelling), idiom (word choice), structure, or syntax.

Can you Use Turnitin for Free?

Unfortunately, Turnitin is not available for free to students. Turnitin’s software is only offered to universities and other higher education institutions. Only university administrators and representatives are allowed to acquire the program. Typically, the purchase is made by contacting Turnitin’s sales department.

In general, there are a variety of options available online for students. Scribbr, Grammarly, Dupli Checker, and Plagiarism Checker X are only a few of them. The cost of using any of the above tools varies depending on the size of the document and the corporate software’s regulations. However, some plagiarism checkers, such as Dupli Checker and plagiarism Checker X, do include a free version. But grammarly software can only be used if you purchase the premium version.

Read more: Grammarly Vs Turnitin: Which is the Best?

What if I turnitin my paper and turnitin says it is plagiarized?

Turnitin is an automated system, which means the software uses predefined rules to identify possible examples of plagiarism. For the most part, it works well, but occasionally certain types of paraphrasing will trip up the program. If you think Turnitin has identified a section of your paper as unoriginal, ask your instructor before re-submitting your work for grading. This way, you can avoid extra inconvenience and assignment loss.

What is a Good Percentage on Turnitin?

When using Turnitin, what percentage of similarity should I expect? The average range of similarity with Turnitin is between 10%-20% (Turn it In, “What’s the average score?”). While this might seem like it would be devastating to turn in a paper with such similarity, researchers have found that Turnitin is helpful to students by showing them their problem areas and helping them improve those areas (Campbell, “Is Turnitin Helpful?”).

What is the Acceptable Percentage for Turnitin?

The acceptable percentage for Turnitin is up to a maximum of 30%. However, if you are submitting a paper for a class, always check with your instructor to see their specific requirements.

Some professors may require a higher Turnitin score, while others may be satisfied with a lower percentage. No matter the requirement, it’s crucial to ensure that your paper is as original as possible. Using a plagiarism detection service like Turnitin can help you do just that.

Nevertheless, there may be cases where Turnitin flags a paper as being plagiarized when it is not. Additionally, Turnitin may not flag all instances of plagiarism. Therefore, as mentioned above, carefully check your papers for potential plagiarism before submitting them.

What is a Good Similarity Score on Turnitin?

While Turnitin is a great tool, it’s not perfect. There have been cases where students have successfully appealed Turnitin scores. In some cases, the similarity score may be inaccurate because of differences in fonts, margins, and other formatting choices.

Also, if a student includes a bibliography or reference list, these papers will be compared against all of the sources listed, which can artificially inflate the similarity score. Despite these drawbacks, Turnitin is still the most widely used plagiarism detection tool available.

So what is a good similarity score on Turnitin? Well, that is not easy to say. It depends on the institution or company and the level of plagiarism they are willing to tolerate.

Generally speaking, a score below 0.05 is considered safe, but it’s best to consult with your instructor or supervisor to get a more specific answers. No matter what, Turnitin is a valuable tool that can help you avoid plagiarism and maintain academic integrity.

Is 5% Similarity in Turnitin Bad?

There is no definitive answer as to what constitutes terrible similarity on Turnitin. Some professors may consider anything below 10% satisfactory, while others may require a lower percentage or even 0%. It largely depends on the assignment and the professor’s individual preferences.

That said, it is generally advisable to strive for similarity levels that are as low as possible. After all, you want your work to reflect your original ideas, not those of someone else. Plus, Turnitin can be used to detect plagiarism, and submitting a paper with high levels of similarity could lead to penalties.

If you’re concerned about how your paper measures up in terms of similarity, turn to the Turnitin feedback tool for help. It gives you an in-depth report on the paper, including areas of high similarity and tips for rewriting certain sections to make them more unique.

When doing research, turn to Turnitin’s resources section for help. It contains links to works cited pages already formatted correctly, thus saving you time when writing your paper.

How to Read and Interpret Turnitin Scores

As earlier mentioned, the instructor can see where the submitted paper matches other works that have been submitted to Turnitin or other web sources.

To discourage plagiarism, Turnitin provides information on how well you understand your source material. After being run through its database, each source match found in Turnitin is given a percentage score to reveal what percentage of your essay was found in Turnitin.

This percentage score is not a measure of how much of your essay was copied verbatim from another source, but rather how much of your essay was similar to the material that has already been submitted to Turnitin.

For this reason, it is essential to remember that a high Turnitin percentage score does not necessarily mean that you have plagiarized your work. An essay can have a high Turnitin score because it quotes extensively from a single source or uses a few common phrases. In these cases, the Turnitin percentage score would not indicate academic dishonesty.

On the other hand, a low Turnitin percentage score can indicate plagiarism if the paper contains substantial similarities with previously submitted materials. This number can be misleading if students do not understand Turnitin metrics.

How Does Turnitin Percentage and Scores Work?

When a student submits a paper to be graded through turnitin.com, their work is scanned against billions of web pages, published academic papers and journal articles, as well as proprietary Turnitin databases. A percentage score and list of potential plagiarism sources are generated for the instructor to review.

The Turnitin score reflects how much of the student’s paper has been copied from existing sources. A score of 0% indicates that no text in the student’s paper was found in any of the Turnitin databases. A 100% score means that the student’s paper was identical to at least one source in the Turnitin database.

Most instructors use the Turnitin percentage score to indicate how much plagiarism may be present in a student’s paper, but the score does not necessarily reflect how much of the paper was copied. For example, if a student paraphrased another author’s work without properly citing it, their Turnitin score would be lower than if they had copied and pasted the text into their paper.

Instructors can also view a list of potential sources of plagiarism that Turnitin detected in the student’s paper. The list includes web pages, academic papers, and journal articles that were similar to the student’s work. Instructors can use this information to help students properly cite their sources.

The Turnitin percentage score and list of potential sources of plagiarism are helpful for instructors who want to prevent plagiarism, but Turnitin is not an efficient system for catching students who turn in papers written by someone else.

This is because Turnitin has no way of differentiating between sources the student used and sources their instructor provided to them. Also, Turnitin can only detect text, so it cannot catch students retyping entire works verbatim or reformatting their paper without adequately citing their source.

Read more: How to Cheat Urkund Plagiarism Checker

Turnitin Colors and What They Mean

This Turnitin tool highlights whatever words it finds similar to a preexisting source and underlines them differently.

The colors Turnitin uses are blue for matched text, pink for exact matches, orange for sub senses, red for sub senses that have been altered but still the same meaning, purple for sub senses that have been changed and no longer have an identical purpose, green if there is no match found in its database of preexisting sources. Any text that Turnitin can’t find any match to is left untouched.

Note that Turnitin is not meant to be used as a plagiarism detector, just as an aid for the teacher.

The student can then delete the words Turnitin matches or revise his work to avoid Turnitin’s matches.

Turnitin leaves comments on the side of the document with the original text Turnitin found if it was similar to part of the student’s work.

However, Turnitin cannot compare new documents that were never submitted before. New documents must be submitted at least once every six months; otherwise, Turnitin will flag them as previously submitted materials (including any material that has been revised). Turn-ins may vary depending on how many classes Turnitin was used in and how many students Turnitin has ever compared.

How to Reduce Similarity in Turnitin

1. Cite your sources: Every academic article should include in-text citations and a reference, bibliography, or works cited page. This is true for papers that must be formatted in the APA or MLA style.
2. Avoid using excessive quotes: If you use too many quotations, it indicates that you did not devote enough time to your work. Turnitin has more odds of similarity if you use too many quotes, especially from comparable sources.
3. Paraphrase your work: You should not replace words with synonyms. Paraphrasing means explaining what the original text is trying to say in your words.
4. Don’t copy word to word: More minor matches of 5 to 8 words should be excluded. This works for bibliographies, widely used words, and quotes in the Turnitin settings. This, however, will only apply to students who have been instructed to do so by their instructors.
5. Use quotation marks: Turnitin will flag the borrowed material as plagiarism if you don’t use quotation marks.

 In Summary

The instructor is the final decision maker as to whether your work is up to standards. It is however recommended to keep the Turnitin similarity score as low as possible. Always cite and reference your sources properly as per the guidelines of your instructor.