Had a non-Christmas this year, preparing a couple of papers for early January submission. I've put one draft through the Turnitin system, received a 3% score for content matching existing published material. My interpretation of this score is that it's level of originality is acceptable, but cannot find any guidelines that indicate the tolerance thresholds. Any advice/experience with Turnitin? Even their online helpsheets give no information about acceptable parameters. Thanks.

My experience of Turnitin is viewing essays and reports undergrads I have tutored have submitted through it, but to be honest I have never submitted anthing myself to Turnitin. Viewing Turnitin essays has been giving me problems this year but from memory does Turnitin not produce originality reports around a colour system of red, amber and green (think traffic lights)? 3% to me seems more than acceptable and to be honest I think amber last year was somewhere over 24%.

I have just viewed the Turnitin resources guide online and you're right, it is as clear as mud! However page 20 of the student handbook seems to detail the colour system. Blue means no matching words which would be bad as this would imply that you didn't utilise any references for your work. Green seems to go up to 24% similarity. Actually I think 24% is pretty high but 3% to me seems spot on.

Is this the resource you were looking at? http://turnitin.com/resources/documentation/turnitin/training/en_us/Student_Manual_en_us.pdf

A

Hi Ady,
Good to hear from you. Yup, I've had to take one MSc Social Research Methods module as a compulsory requirement for the MPhil/PhD route, - hence having to submit a couple of papers for January. As you've found, the green band seems to cover 0-24% range, so I'm happy with 3%, and have to say I've been meticulous about citing, as I've had no previous experience of that particular software. Bit less stressed, and thanks for getting in touch, A.

I think it depends on the University and what they specify as the threshold but at my university I think the cut off is 10%.

It depends entirely on what and where - I have had essays that had a high percentage but were Ok because it was quotations, key phrases and the reference list. Similarly I have had essays which came in at 8% but that 8% was a total copy from a single source and so was not acceptable.

Turnitin is really used for guidance on which bits of a piece of work are smilar to other work - it's more suitable for student essays and dissertations than for journal submissions.

Generally oonce you start getting into 30+ you need to worry...

Update: so stressed. I've just submitted my final draft of the compulsory Social Research Methods coursework via Turnitin, and the initial 3% score that I notched up for the second part of the paper, has now leapt to an overall 17% for the full 5000 words. I'm hoping this just relates to the 40 book bibliography, as I've been ultra careful to cite accurately. Such a disappointment after all the graft. I'm a whole week ahead of the deadline, but have no indication whether redrafting and resubmitting may improve the Originality score, as there's no analysis for the mark given.

Ok, so it's me again: Just found my way through to the report system, and the software has highlighted every singe quote I've made, even though it's referenced following Harvard to the letter. My entire bibliography is also highlighted. Really hacked off now.

Really not sure why you are hacked off?

Turnitin is a tool to guide on referencing - if only the bibliography and direct quotations are the highlighted bit then you are absolutely fine. The point of turnitin is to highlight areas which MAY cause concern - it is a blunt instrument (hence my previous comment about something that had 8% being dodgy but something with 30% being Ok) but it does point out things you might want to look at again- if you are looking for a 0% score then you will be disappointed. I tell my students that if I see something with a 0 score I will be unimpressed as it suggests no engagement with existing literature.

Try changing the options (there are some which say things like exclude direct quotations) - can't remember how you do it but there is somewhere where you can set options; why not run trunitin the paper without the bibliography?

also in your originality report you should be able to see where you have matched (if at all) with internet sources, publications and other student papers. I agree that if it's only your quotes and bib that are highlighted your paper is fine. Your originality score still seems well within acceptable parameters. Also it's more than likely that your paper will be marked from the hardcopy and the turnitin reports for yours and the rest of the class only spot checked. It's the people in your class who have far higher percentages than you who should be worried.

Thanks guys. I've added the filters for the bibliography and quotations, and the similarity report has now dropped to just 4%. It's been a long haul to get this done in the lead up to Christmas, with 3 kids under the age of 10. I'm off to get some sleep. Stars all round when I've had a few zzzzz.