Turnitin

What is Turnitin?

Turnitin promotes academic integrity and encourages authenticity in student work by detecting possible instances of plagiarism in their submissions. It compares student work against a large database including WilmU and other institutions, websites, journals, and research sources to identify similarities and ensure originality.

When an essay is uploaded, Turnitin generates a Similarity Report that identifies and highlights phrases of text that are not properly cited. Turnitin also offers resources to help students understand plagiarism and proper attribution.

More information about academic integrity can be found in the Wilmington University Academic Integrity Policy. Students may also seek assistance from the Student Success Center or Tutor.com for additional APA and citations guidance.

How Does Turnitin Work?

Turnitin serves two primary functions:

  • Identify unoriginal content by detecting potential plagiarism issues.
  • Manage potential academic misconduct by highlighting similarities to a repository of internet, academic, and student paper content.

How Can Turnitin be Accessed?

Turnitin canbe accessed through an assignment submission in Canvas or through the online browser version of Microsoft Word via Draft Coach.

Canvas Submissions via Turnitin Draft Assignments

Instructors can create a Turnitin draft assignment in their course for students to submit and view a similarity report for a draft of their writing assignment.

Students should contact their instructor directly to request their instructor to set up a Turnitin draft assignment in their course to submit and view a similarity report for a draft of a writing assignment.

Draft Coach: Your Writing Companion

Accessible directly within their Microsoft Office 365 Word documents via the Word web app, Draft Coach offers a suite of powerful features aimed at enhancing the writing process. Reminder: Microsoft 365 is available for free to students using their WilmU email address.

With Draft Coach, students can:

  • Detect and address unintentional plagiarism from the early stages of drafting using the Similarity Check tool.
  • Hone their citation skills effortlessly using the Citations Check tool.
  • Polish their grammar with ease, catching and correcting mistakes as they write using the Grammar Guide tool.

To get started, check out our Turnitin Draft Coach - Student Access page on how you can access these tools.

What is a Similarity Report?

Turnitin uses certain colors to represent similarity percentages on a similarity report. The color of the report icon indicates the similarity score of the paper, based on the amount of matching or similar text that was uncovered. The percentage range is 0% to 100%. The possible similarity ranges are:

  • 🟩 Green: 0% matching text
  • 🟦 Blue: 1-24% matching text
  • 🟨 Yellow: 25-49% matching text
  • 🟧 Orange: 50-74% matching text
  • 🟥 Red: 75-100% matching text

Review our Tutorials for Students to learn how to access a Similarity Report.

Turnitin will NOT accept the following to generate Similairty Reports:

  • Password protected files
  • Microsoft Works (.wps) files
  • Microsoft Word 2007 macros-enabled .docm files
  • OpenOffice Text (.odt) files created and downloaded from Google Docs online
  • Document (.doc) files created using OpenOffice, as they are not 100% Microsoft Word equivalent
  • Apple Pages
  • Spreadsheets created outside of Microsoft Excel (i.e. .ods)
  • Text with visual effects

Learn more about accepted file types and sizes.

Tutorial for Students

Tutorial for Instructors