Turnitin Draft Coach's Citations Check

The Citations Check tool in Turnitin's Draft Coach helps students make sure to properly cite sources. It finds any missing references in a draft and shows students where to add citations, helping improve their writing and avoid plagiarism. Students have unlimited Citations Checks using Draft Coach with the specific Word document in use.

  1. With your Word document opened in Microsoft 365 online, navigate to the Turnitin tab and select Draft Coach.
    Turnitin option on the Microsoft Word ribbon
  2. A new window on the right side will slide open. At the top of the window are four tabs of the tools within Draft Coach, along with the ability to select further down the window. You can select Citations Check in this window or click the Citations tab at the top of the window.
    Selecting Citations Check from Turnitin Draft Coach Side window
  3. Either option will lead you into the Citations tab, where you will have the option to Run Citations Check via the button at the bottom of the screen.
    Image of Run Similarity Check button
  4. Once you click Run Citations Check, Draft Coach will begin, and you may be prompted to not alter any text while the check is still running. Be sure to allow ample time to run the report as needed.
    Image of Citations Check loading
  5. When the Citations Check is completed, you will receive Your Citations Report, which notes the number of citations detected, number of references detected, and the citation style detected. Notice in the example below, the first image detected the Turabian citation style. Wilmington University uses the American Psychology Association (also known as simply APA), so we must review our citations and reference page to ensure correct citations.
    After visiting the Student Success Center and meeting with an English tutor, our example student learned about correct in-text citations: this paper was missing the comma following the author's name in an in-text citation, i.e., (Kluger 2010) should be (Kluger, 2010).
    Image of Citation Check noting Turabian formattingImage of Citations Check noting APA formatting
  6. Below this section will list any issues the Citations Check found. There are two types of issues Citations Check will find. Citations Check will list any citations without a reference because every citation should be listed on your reference page. Citations Check will also list any references without citations in your paper because any reference listed in your reference page must be used in your paper. Our example shows this student may be missing a reference in the paper, so this student must review and revise this paper to ensure all references listed are used in the paper or remove the source from the reference list.
    Image of Citations Check Issues
  7. Citations Check also provides helpful notes such as "What should I do with this report?" and "How should I use these checks?" that can help guide you as you make revisions based on this specific similarity check before running a new Citations Check.
    Citations Check's helpful hints