Guidelines
for
assessing
plagiarism
and
interpreting
Turnitin
originality
reports
As
a
general
institutional
policy,
there
is
no
acceptable
level
of
plagiarism
(zero
tolerance).
Any
identified
case
will
be
reported
and
subsequently
investigated
by
the
Academic
Conduct
Officer.
However,
any
paper
will
inevitably
contain
some
words
or
phrases
from
other
works
and
thus
produce
an
above
0
percentage
report.
As
a
guide,
a
figure
below
10%
could
indicate
that
plagiarism
might
not
have
occurred.
However,
if
the
matching
text,
even
if
below
10%,
is
one
continuous
block,
i.e.,
one
or
more
full
sentences,
this
should
be
considered
plagiarism.
It
is
the
marking
tutor’s
responsibility
to
decide
whether
the
matches
identified
by
the
software
are
indeed
errors
in
referencing,
whether
intentional
or
unintentional,
which
then
need
to
be
reported.
A
careful
reading
your
work
and
the
originality
report
generated
by
Turnitin
as
well
as
academic
judgement
determine
whether
a
paper
should
be
reported
for
suspected
plagiarism.
The
percentage
figure
on
an
originality
report
is
not
an
absolute
indicator
of
plagiarism,
and
a
simple
decision
based
on
the
amount
of
matching
text
is
not
a
reliable
indicator
of
academic
misconduct.
For
the
purposes
of
these
guidelines,
a
piece
of
assessment
is
a
written
prose
that
students
are
expected
to
submit
either
for
formative
or
summative
feedback.
It
can
be
a
home-‐
written
essay,
a
case
study
or
any
other
genre,
a
dissertation
or
an
open-‐book
examination
answer.
When
you
find
text
matches
in
a
paper,
you
will
want
to
ask
yourself:
• Have
you
submitted
someone
else’s
work,
word-‐for-‐word,
as
your
own?
This
is
definitely
considered
plagiarism.
• Have
you
lifted
significant
portions
from
a
text
from
a
single
source
without
alteration?
This
is
considered
plagiarism.
• Have
you
borrowed
generously
from
your
own
previous
work
without
citation?
Called
self-‐plagiarism,
it
is
considered
cheating
as
you
attempt
to
earn
credit
twice
with
the
same
effort.
• Have
you
changed
some
key
words
and
phrases
but
retained
the
essential
content
of
a
source?
It
is
considered
plagiarism.
Many
students
believe
that
changing
just
a
few
terms
constitutes
a
summary.
A
good
paraphrase
reflects
your
own
writing
style:
“how
you
would
have
written
it
if
you
had
created
the
idea”.
Such
paraphrase
must
always
be
indicated
by
indicating
the
author
of
the
idea
(in
other
words,
not
only
quoted
material
should
be
referenced).
• Have
you
referenced
the
source
in
Harvard
style
but
failed
to
indicate
quoted
material?
It
often
happens
that
students
indicate
the
author
of
an
idea,
borrow
(a)
sentence(s)
but
fail
to
use
quotation
marks.
Such
a
method
misleads
the
reader
as
it
suggests
that
the
author
has
internalised
the
contents
of
the
source
and
is
therefore
considered
plagiarism.
• Have
you
used
single
or
double
quotation
marks
for
direct
quotes?
Please
note
that
Turnitin
does
not
recognise
single
quotation
marks
or
longer
indented
quotes
as
appropriate.
These
will
be
considered
copied
text
but
should
not
be
considered
as
plagiarism.
• Have
you
borrowed
from
the
literature
review
of
a
published
article,
often
including
references
therein?
This
type
of
plagiarism
happens
most
often
in
dissertations.
Even
if
you
put
out
the
quotation
marks
to
indicate
that
these
are
not
your
words,
you
have
not
actually
consulted
the
sources
referenced
in
text.
• Does
the
reference
list
match
the
in-‐text
references?
While
any
discrepancy
between
them
may
be
a
sign
of
sheer
negligence,
it
could
also
indicate
borrowing
passages
with
references
in
them.
Only
the
sources
that
you
have
actually
read
should
be
included
in
the
reference
list
but
not
the
secondary
sources.
(Secondary
sources
in
text
should
be
indicated
by
using
an
“as
cited
in”
reference.)
• Is
the
reference
list
similar
that
of
any
source
shown
in
the
originality
report?
This
in
itself
is
not
an
offence
(in
fact
it
could
be
a
good
starting
point
for
research)
but
may
indicate
that
the
author
has
lifted
passages
from
a
source
text.
Important!
Apart
from
the
quality
of
referencing,
the
amount
of
quoted
or
paraphrased
text
must
also
be
considered.
If
the
relative
weight
of
the
student’s
own
text
as
compared
to
outside
sources
is
low,
even
if
properly
referenced,
this
must
be
reflected
by
a
low
mark
awarded,
or
in
extreme
cases
(direct
quotes
amounting
to
about
30%
or
more)
the
dissertation
will
fail.
Please
also
note
that
some
forms
of
plagiarism
are
not
detected
by
Turnitin
(e.g.,
the
student
copying
one
or
two
figures
from
sources
without
referencing,
etc.).
In
these
cases,
plagiarism
will
still
be
reported.
References
and
further
reading:
Carroll,
J.
(2004).
Deterring,
detecting
and
dealing
with
plagiarism.
Available
at:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsld/resources/plagiarism.html
(Accessed:
13
March
2013)
Oxford
Brookes
University
(2012).
Citing
your
references
using
the
Harvard
(Author-‐Date)
system.
Available
at:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/skill/skill1d.html
(Accessed:
13
March
2013)
Turnitin
(2012).
The
white
paper.
the
plagiarism
spectrum.
Available
at:
http://pages.turnitin.com/rs/iparadigms/images/Turnitin_WhitePaper_PlagiarismSp
ectrum.pdf?mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRokuq%2FAZKXonjHpfsX57uUqUaG%2Fiokz
2EFye%2BLIHETpodcMTsVkNq%2BNFAAgAZVnyRQFE%2FCUboFE8%2FJQGA%3D%3D
(Accessed:
6
March
2013)
