Turnitin

As you all know, we recently completed a Web 2.0 assignment which we had to submit to Turnitin. Turnitin is a site which compares your assignment against content from internet sources such as student papers and other published works within its database for similarities and so detects plagiarism as well as improper quotation and citation.

Here are some tips I found from: "How to Avoid Unintentional Plagiarism on Essays" by Luke Arnott, (2009). Retrieved from http://studyskills.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_to_avoid_unintentional_plagiarism_on_essays
I've inserted a hyperlink to the site. I hope it works.

What constitutes plagiarism:
1. Failure to attribute sources properly - not stating where a direct quotation, indirect quotation, or idea came from.
2. Failure to list sources – not listing sources used in the essay in the bibliography as well as adding sources in bibliography that were not cited in essay.
3. Handing in someone else's work – even if you paid for it.
4. Handing in a previous assignment - Unless a paper on the same topic is substantially different, this constitutes self-plagiarism.

How to Lessen the Chances of Unintentional Plagiarism
1. Research broadly and start early - Read up on your topic from a variety of sources. If your instructor requires a minimum number of sources, exceed it.
2. Cite everything you learned - Cite the source of anything that you yourself learned in the course of writing your essay.
3. Use the right essay citation style, and use it consistently - APA
4. Write papers on a variety of subjects - Even if all your essays are in the same department or program, write about different things. You'll avoid the temptation to recycle your own material or mistakenly switch citations between papers.