Turnitin: Your Guide to Academic Integrity

Turnitin is a tool that your professor may choose to use for written assignments in your course(s). Its purpose is to ensure the originality and integrity of your academic work. It does more than just detect potential plagiarism; it also compares your writing to a vast database of academic papers, websites, and past student submissions, highlighting any similarities that may require additional citation.

Benefits of Using Turnitin

• Learn Proper Citation: Turnitin helps you understand how to correctly cite your sources, a critical skill in academic writing.
• Improve Your Writing: By pointing out areas where your writing might be too similar to existing sources, Turnitin encourages you to develop your unique voice and ideas.
• Receive Feedback: Some instructors use Turnitin to give you valuable feedback on your writing style and originality.

How Turnitin Works

When you submit an assignment through Canvas using Turnitin, a similarity report will be generated. This report shows any text in your work that matches content in the database. Your instructor can then look at this report to assess the originality of your submission.

Important Things to Remember

Privacy Matters: Your submissions are protected according to the university's strict data privacy policies and are not used to train any Artificial Intelligence (AI) and/or Large Language Model (LLM).
Focus on Learning: Turnitin is a learning tool intended to help you better understand academic integrity and responsible citation.

Using Turnitin Effectively

Before submitting an assignment, carefully review your work to make sure all sources are cited correctly. If you have any questions about using Turnitin in a specific course, ask your instructor what their expectations are for your use of the tool. 

When Your Instructor Creates a Turnitin Assignment

Your instructor has two options when setting up a Turnitin assignment:

• Institutional Repository: Student submissions are stored in a PSU-only database and will NEVER be shared with outside institutions that use Turnitin.
• Do Not Store Papers: Assignments will be compared against the database but won't be saved in any repository.

This is not a setting that students are able to control, but if you would like clarification about which option is being used in a course and why, you may ask your instructor for more information.

When Submitting Your Assignment

Before you submit assignments in Canvas, you'll see this message:

By checking the box, you acknowledge that:

• Your paper will be shared with Turnitin to create a similarity report.
• Your paper may be stored for future comparison against other PSU submissions, as decided by your instructor.
• Turnitin will not own any copyright or intellectual property rights to your paper's content.
• You are required to accept the Turnitin’s End User License Agreement to submit to this assignment.
• The EULA agreement is between you (the user) and Turnitin (the company). We recommend that you thoroughly review the EULA before every submission as the terms may change.
   

Additional Resources

• The Writing Center at Portland State University has great resources on writing and citation: https://www.pdx.edu/writing-center/
• If you’re having trouble submitting an assignment in Canvas, email help@pdx.edu.

Remember, Turnitin is here to support your academic success. Use it to improve your writing, strengthen your understanding of academic integrity, and practice ethical scholarship.