Issues Raised by Use of Turnitin Plagiarism Detection Software

Issues Raised by Use of Turnitin Plagiarism Detection Software

This past week, I worked with a couple of other members of the Writing Department at GVSU to prepare a position statement on plagiarism detection software. GVSU only recently acquired a subscription to Turnitin, and myself and the other teachers were concerned that teachers in other disciplines would be unware of the issues surrounding plagiarism detection services. The following is the full text of the statement which has been distributed on our campus.

Note: CCCC-IP has begun a resource page on plagiarism detection services.

Issues Raised by Use of Turnitin Plagiarism Detection Software

Overview

Recently, Grand Valley State University purchased a site license to plagiarism detection service Turnitin.com. Faculty members who use this service can require students to submit writing assignments electronically to Turnitin, which compares student texts against Turnitin’s database of Internet sites, academic journals index, and previously student submitted papers and prepares a report indicating where in the text plagiarism has been detected. Writing submitted to Turnitin is maintained in the database for comparison against future submissions by other students.

Scholars and teachers in the field of Rhetoric and Composition, as well as other academics, have discouraged the use of plagiarism detection services. We recommend that before using this service, faculty members consider several important issues raised by the use of Turnitin.

Turnitin Discourages Good Pedagogical Practices Concerning Writing

Because Turnitin compares student writing against a database of articles, previously submitted student writing, and web pages, it’s most easily used as a plagiarism detection service. Such use emphasizes the policing of student behavior and texts over good-faith assumptions about students’ integrity, and can shift attention away from teaching students how to avoid plagiarism in the first place. In “Defining and Avoiding Plagiarism: The WPA Statement on Best Practices,” the Council of Writing Program Administrators urges teachers to “use plagiarism detection services cautiously,” for they should “never be used to justify the avoidance of responsible teaching methods.” We recommend that teachers work toward implementing the WPA’s best practices as a long-term solution to eliminating plagiarism and building a culture of responsible participation in the creation and circulation of academic knowledge. The Writing Department and the Fred Meijer Center for Writing will be happy to host a workshop on sound pedagogical practices for eliminating plagiarism.

Turnitin Can Be Ineffective for Detecting Plagiarism

Experimentation by researchers and instructors has indicated that Turnitin can be ineffective in catching student plagiarism of Internet sources or can produce otherwise inaccurate results (e.