First and foremost, Turnitin.com is not a silver bullet. It will not stop plagiarism in your classes. Let me say that again: it will not stop plagiarism in your classes. It is, simply, a tool. And in that sense, it's no different than the spell check tool on a word processor. What it will do, however, is help your students learn how to use their sources appropriately in their writing.

Right now, our students compose their writing assignments for us, using sources as best they can given their sometimes rather limited experience using them, and submit them. We evaluate them and, hopefully, hand them back with comments. If we, as instructors, suspect that there is a problem with citation, we can run the suspect passages through Google and see if anything turns up. If we're particularly diligent, we might check the online databases. And that's about it. If we do find that the student has an issue with citation (however broadly we might interpret that), we are put in the position of deciding whether or not the student simply didn't understand the principles of citation and attribution—or the student is attempting to cheat.

This is where Turnitin.com comes in. Yes, the system does the work of checking against Google and various academic databases for us, and so if the student is attempting to cheat, the system will, odds are, turn something up. But it is our hope that this is not how the system will be used. It is our hope that the system will be used to help students learn how to cite, attribute, and paraphrase better than perhaps they can at present.

In the best implementation of the system, we hope that students and instructors will use it as a part of some drafting process. Ideally, before the student turns in an assignment, an instructor will ask (or require) each student to submit it to Turnitin.com to generate an "originality report," which the student could then use to ensure that the document is cited as appropriately as is[omit] possible.

In other words, we encourage instructors to use Turnitin.com as a part of the writing process—and therefore as part of the learning process—and not as some final way to "catch" the student. In fact, we hope that Turnitin.com would never be used as a trap.

However, we cannot ignore the simple fact that instructors’ consistently having problems with plagiarism in their classes, may say less about the students than it does the instructors. Or, rather, the instructors' assignments. There are, we must admit, certain assignments that beg for problems. If, as an instructor, you do not change your writing assignments regularly—or ever—you must recognize that the result of this behavior is a large number of essays floating about this university, and others, that match your specs. If, as an instructor, you ask your students to write about topics in ways that do not tie them specifically to your courses—for instance, if you don't ask them to incorporate specific ideas or readings from your class—this can cause problems. If, as an instructor, you ask your students to write about the standard set of hot-button topics—such as abortion, gun control, gay marriage—you must recognize the sheer number of essays on these topics that exist out there on the internet for free, and so a serious evaluation of the kinds of writing your students do may be merited.

And so we're left with three points to take away from this so that we can all use Turnitin.com in ways most beneficial to the student: first, recognize that Turnitin.com isn't a silver bullet--it's just another tool at your students' disposal; second, recognize that Turnitin.com is best implemented as a part of the writing process, not as an endgame or a gotcha; third, and finally, recognize that you as an instructor may need to take a good, hard look at the kinds of writing you assign in your classes.

Respectfully,
Dr. Scott Rogers
Director, WSU Composition Program