Reading a Turnitin assignment originality report

Quick guide for Instructors

Note: Turnitin originality reports are tools to help locate potential sources of plagiarism in submitted papers. The results in no way reflect Turnitin's assessment of whether a paper has or has not been plagiarised. The decision to deem any work plagiarised must be made carefully, and only after thorough examination of both the submitted paper and the suspect sources.

Open a Turnitin assignment originality report
Compare matching text and sources
Refine your search
Print and save reports
Refresh reports

Open a Turnitin assignment originality report

1. Click on the Teach tab.

2. Go to the Turnitin assignment and click on its icon or title. You will then be taken to the assignment inbox.

3. Click on the all papers tab.

4. Click on the coloured icon under report view detail for the paper you wish to view. The report will open in a new window. The colour of the report icon indicates the overall similarity index of the paper, based on how much matching text was found.

   The originality report has three main sections:

   • Paper information: the report header shows information about the submitted paper including title, author, the date the report was processed, ID and word count.

   • Paper text: the left side of the report shows the text of the submitted paper. Matching text is highlighted in red and numbered to correspond with sources to the right

   • Matching sources: the right side of the report lists the sources of matching text

Note: You can change the appearance and behaviour of reports by clicking preferences in the report header.

Compare matching text and sources

Direct Source Comparison lets you quickly compare matching text to its source.

1. To activate Direct Source Comparison, click a block of matching text. The source of the matching text will open to the right.

2. If the source you are viewing contains multiple segments of matching text, navigate between segments using the up/down arrows. The text in the paper will automatically line up with the source for easy comparison.

3. To view matching text from a web source in its original web context, click the show in web page link (if a matching web link has been found).

4. Click the close link to return to the list of matching sources or click on a new block of matching text to jump to another source.

5. By default, the report shows only the highest percentage matches. It is possible that smaller matches are obscured by larger matches and are not shown. To see an exhaustive list of sources, click the mode drop-down list at the top right of window and select show matches one at a time. To view the matching text for a given source in this mode, click on the circle next to a source.

   To show only matching text and source links without the source view, select quickview (classic) report from the mode drop-down list.

   Note: If a source is from Turnitin's database, student papers will show up next to the source.

   In addition to searching a copy of the active web, Turnitin also searches a copy of the archived web, which includes an extensive number of web pages that are no longer available. If a match is found in the archive, internet (archive) will appear next to the source.

Refine your search

1. Click on either or both of the exclude quoted or exclude bibliography links toward the top of the page to exclude material that is quoted (ie within double quotation marks) and/or from a source that is listed in the paper's references. When you exclude material, the Originality score on the report and in your inbox is updated to reflect the exclusion of this matching text. These functions are approximate and you can re-include excluded material by clicking the include quoted or include bibliography links.

2. To exclude a source from the show highest matches or quickview mode of your report, click the cross icon to the right of the source. Excluded sources will still appear if you select the show matches one at a time mode. You can restore excluded sources by clicking the plus icon to the right of the source.

3. For each segment of matching text, you will need to decide whether the student has plagiarised or the match is just to commonly-used phrases.

4. You may also need to decide whether the plagiarism is intentional or merely sloppy referencing.

Print and save reports

1. Click the print icon in the report header. The report that is printed will list the sources before the paper text.

2. To download and save a copy of a report in HTML format, click the download icon in the report header. You can then choose where you want to save your report.

3. Close the window to return to the assignment inbox.

Refresh reports

You can generate a new report for a document at a later date to see if there are any new matching source documents. When you refresh a report, your current report is deleted and a new report is generated. The time taken for the originality report to appear for second and subsequent submissions will be at least 24 hours.

1. Click on the Teach tab.

2. Go to the Turnitin assignment and click on its icon or title. You will be taken to the assignment inbox.

3. Click on the all papers tab.

4. Click on the coloured icon under report view detail for the assignment submission you want to view. The report will open in a new window.

5. When you are in the report window, click the refresh icon at the top of the window.

6. A pop-up window will ask if you wish to continue, reminding you that a new report will be generated.

7. You will be returned to the assignment inbox.

For information on ways to manage plagiarism and collusion, including teaching and assessment strategies to minimise the temptation for students to plagiaries, see the Institute of Teaching and Learning Dealing with plagiarism in assessment website.

back to top