e-Submission of CourseworkUsing the Turnitin Originality Report Fruitfully

1. What is a Turnitin Originality Report?

Turnitin is an internet-based text-matching service developed by a commercial company. It is used, under license, by most UK Universities including the University of East London.

Work that is submitted to Turnitin generates a Turnitin Originality Report or ‘similarity index’. It does this by comparing the submitted paper with a vast number of sources (including all of the web from 1990 onwards, over 200 million papers already submitted to Turnitin and about 100,000 journals and books) and it highlights where there are text matches between the submitted paper and the Turnitin database.

Note that what Turnitin generates is a similarity and not a plagiarism index (i.e. an Originality Report of 20%, say, does not mean that the work is 20% plagiarised). UEL’s Turnitin policy clearly states that an Originality Report “should never be advanced as the sole reason for suspecting that a piece of work is plagiarised because the judgement as to whether work is plagiarised must always be an academic judgement”. However, Turnitin Originality Reports will sometimes assist in the identification of plagiarised work submitted for assessment.

The most important use of Turnitin’s Originality Report at UEL is self-submission by students in order to check that they haven’t committed plagiarism by accident through errors with referencing. It is for this reason that UEL’s Turnitin policy says that “All students will be given the opportunity to make multiple submissions of their written work to Turnitin”. By submitting to Turnitin throughout the assignment writing process, students can use it to help identify referencing errors and to correct them. You will therefore find a Turnitin link in Moodle for your assignment well in advance of the ‘due date’ (the cut off for submission) which you can use to check your work.

2. Students submitting to turnitin

What is UEL’s policy on using Turnitin and how do students know if they need to submit an assignment to Turnitin?

You can access the full UEL Turnitin policy at Institutionally, Turnitin is set up only for those assignments which are primarily text and it will say in the Module Guide if you have to submit an assignment via Turnitin.

How do students submit?

Blow by blow instructions on how to submit can be found at:

When do students submit?

Turnitin submissions (in line with the UEL Turnitin policy) are set up so that students can submit any number of times up to the ‘due date’. The last submission before the ‘due date’ is the only one that will be marked. The ‘due date’ for Turnitin submissions is in the Module Guide.

Please Note:

  • On the first submission to Turnitin, it may take much less than 24 hours to receive the Originality Report (sometimes as little as 15 minutes). Every subsequent submission willtake 24 hours to generate the Originality Report (but the ‘digital receipt’ will still be produced on submission).
  • Where students only need to produce evidence of submission, the last opportunity to submit is exactly the same as the physical hand-in date and time.
  • Where students are submitting electronically and being marked via Turnitin, the submission to Turnitin is the only thing that they need to do.

What ‘evidence of submission’ is there?

When students submit successfully, a ‘digital receipt’ displays with a unique Turnitin submission ID. Only the first page of the student’s submitted document is shown in the receipt.

Please note: Once a submission has been made, a student still has evidence of submission in the form of the Turnitin submission ID which can be found by clicking on the ‘Information’ icon in the bottom left corner of the Originality Report/Turnitin Document Viewer. In addition a PDF copy of the digital receipt can be obtained by clicking the ‘Printer’icon in the same screen and choosing the ‘Download PDF of digital receipt for printing’ option.

Once a student has submitted a paper and viewed their receipt, the ‘My Submissions’ page displays.

For a member of staff submitting to Turnitin, the display is slightly different. Once they have successfully submitted a paper and viewed the receipt, they are taken to the ‘Submissions Inbox’.

The tutor /marker can see the title, similarity index, paper submission ID and date of submission.Most Turnitin links are set up to be anonymous (the marker cannot see the name of the person who submitted the assignmentand they will not be able to see the students’ names until after the ‘Post date’ – ie. the date when all marking has been completed and feedback can be released to students. The ‘Post date’ is 20 working days after the due date (so 4 weeks if there is no holiday within that period). At the ‘Post date’ a student will see their mark when they click on the Turnitin link and the person who marked the assignment will see the names and who got what mark.

3. the Originality Report

How do students access the Originality Report?

Instructions on accessing the report are also at

What are the different parts of an Originality Report?

  1. This is the Primary Source View panel; all matching sources are listed here by percentage and are referenced (by colour and number) in the main body
  2. This highlighted text means that Turnitin has found a matching source in its database. The number and the colour of the highlight relate to the Primary Source View panel on the right of the page.

So in the image above, No. 5 in the right-hand box shows that 1% of the assignment matches an internet site called mparadise.tag.uk and the words that match are also coloured green with a green No.5 above.

This is probably the most important part of the Originality Report. You need to look at each of the matches and ask yourself e.g. “Is this a small coincidental match or is it actually a quotation from another writer that I have not quoted and referenced properly?” If it is that you haven’t shown that it is a quotation but made it look like these are your own words, then that is plagiarism and you need to correct this.

  1. This icon will give you information about your assignment (Assignment No, word count, date submitted etc) and information regarding the originality.

Remember that you can look up the date and time of submission here as well as the submission paper ID if you need to provide evidence of successful submission.

  1. This icon will allow you to print your Originality Report.
  2. This icon will allow you to download your Originality Report.
  3. Use this slide bar zoom in and out of the text for your assignment and make the text larger or smaller.
  4. These two icons allow you to change the view of the Primary Source panel to Overlapping Source which enables you to see if Turnitin has found multiple sources that match the same section in your assignment.

Change to ‘overlapping source’ if you see a match but not the one that you expected and want to reference.

  1. This icon allows you to filter out your Bibliography and quotations that may be increasing your Originality score.

So you can see more easily if there are parts of the main text that you haven’t referenced properly. It also lets you filter out ‘small matches’ (two, three or four words, commonly so small a match that they are not worth considering).

What does the % similarity index indicate?

The % similarity index shows how much text in the student’s paper is matched in Turnitin’s database. This % needs to be interpreted with reference to the Originality Report to see if there is anything significant there - such as an unattributed reference or a referencing error.

A low % similarity index does not suggest that there is nothing that needs correcting and a high % similarity index should not be interpreted as implying that the work is highly plagiarised; matching words does not necessarily mean copied work. Most submitted work will have some degree of similarity with Turnitin’s sources because students’ work necessarily refers to the work of others.

There is no ‘magic number’ above which work may be presumed plagiarised and below which it is definitely not. Different subject areas or assignments may also naturally generate a higher or lower similarity index. For example, work discussing case law will usually have a relatively high similarity index because it draws heavily on published text but, in contrast, a piece of personal reflection may draw on very few external sources and therefore generate a relatively low similarity index.

What does the colour next to the % similarity index indicate?

Colour / Percentage
Blue / no matches
Green / 1 -24% matching text
Yellow / 25– 49% matching text
Orange / 50 – 74% matching text
Red / 75 – 100% matching text

As a very rough guide, anything that is coded blue or green (under 25% similarity) will probably not suggest that there should be concern that the work is plagiarised.

This does not mean, however, that it does not contain such things as referencing errors which should be corrected.

What can students do to get the most from the Originality Report?

  1. USE THE ORIGINALITY REPORT RIGHT THE WAY THROUGH THE ASSIGNMENT WRITING PROCESS

Students should be submitting multiple times in order to check their references and correct errors, not just once on or near the ‘due date’ in order to obtain ‘proof of submission’.

  1. USE TURNITIN TO TRACK ANY SOURCES THAT YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN

Sometimes when we’re taking notes and writing drafts, we lose the source of a quotation or reference that we want to use. If you put your draft through Turnitin, it may well identify the source in order that you can reference it properly.

  1. START WITH THE ‘DIRECT SOURCE COMPARISON’ ON THE ORIGINALITY REPORT

This is the view that will show the Primary source and % on the right with the colour-coded match of the text on the left. Most people start by checking the higher percentages first to see if there is anything that needs changing. If you want to see the matching text from an internet source in context, click on the web link.To move on to another source click on a new block of matching text in the submitted text.

  1. ‘FILTER’ YOUR RESULTS: FILTER OUT ‘SMALL MATCHES’

If you’ve got a high similarity index, it may be helpful to filter your results. You can have a relatively high similarity index because of a lot of short strings of words – usually those that commonly occur repeatedly when discussing a particular subject. It is possible that your Module Leader set up the Originality report for a particular assignment to ‘exclude small matches’ but you can do this too.

Click on the filter and enter the number of words that you’d like to exclude as a ‘match’. 3 – 5 is usually a good number to screen for ‘small matches’.

  1. ‘FILTER’ YOUR RESULTS: FILTER OUT YOUR QUOTATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Again, with a high similarity index you can filter out the properly referenced quotations and bibliography. This may drop your similarity index a great deal so that you can concentrate on looking at the remaining matching text to see if anything needs correction.

  1. CHECK THAT YOUR SIMILARITY INDEX IS NOT TOO LOW

A very low similarity index (before ‘filtering’) means that it does not contain many quotations or references. This could be an alert that you need to be quoting and referencing much more if you are producing a quality piece of work.

G.CHECK THE BIBLIOGRAPHY

If you have used common reference works in the bibliography but they are not showing up as matches, then you haven’t referenced them correctly.

  1. KNOW WHAT PLAGIARISM IS AND HOW TO AVOID IT

If someone were to take a chunk of text off the Internet and incorporate it in a work as their own words by changing the odd word or group of words from the original, it will show up as a series of ‘short matches’ with the same source – so as obvious as a whole chunk that has been being pasted in. And this is plagiarism. If you are in doubt about what plagiarism is, then do consult “Academic Integrity – Resources for Students” site on UEL Plus. There is a clear resource there called “Plagiarism and Collusion: A Guide for Students”. Also a quiz that lets you check your understanding of plagiarism and the processes at UEL should you commit plagiarism.

What resources are there to help students to correct referencing errors?

UEL uses the Harvard referencing system. The Library’s ‘Info skills’ resources are the main source of help:

There is a short Guide to Harvard referencingwithin the Info skills resource as well as a series of quizzes that help to improve referencing skills. (N.B. if you are a student in the School of Psychology, it’s possible that you won’t be using the Harvard system).

Your main reference support work is ‘Cite Them Right’ - a very comprehensive referencing guide that covers even very unusual sources and describes exactly how they should be cited. The online version is searchable. For further information, see or go straight to the book via the Cite Them Right link at You’ll also find the link on the ‘Welcome to Moodle’ site.

How do I get my mark and feedback?

If you log on after the ‘Post date’ (aboutfour weeks after the assignment submission date) you can access your mark and your feedback online. For more information see ‘Accessing Feedback via Turnitin Grademark’.

SOME STUDENT FAQS

Should I try to get 0% on the Originality Report?

This is really difficult to achieve and probably pointless. Just use the Originality Report to make sure that your referencing is correct. But do look at your highest %s first.

What if I can’t submit even though I have tried several times?

Your main source of help for all technical problems is the IT Helpdesk. If you’re on-campus, you might try just logging on to a different computer first though.

What if Turnitin isn’t working when I make my last submission before the due date?

Turnitin is a site external to UEL, so we don’t have any control over it should there be a problem. However, there is very rarely a problem and, on the few occasions when Turnitin hasn’t been accessible, all students have been given a generous extension by the Director of Learning and Teaching. Do not assume that there is a problem with Turnitin if you can’t submitas it’s not likely and you may end up with a 0% non-submission if you just email your tutor to say you can’t submit. There has to be evidence of a Turnitin failure before any extension is given.

But this highlights two things:

a)If you have been submitting draft assignments to Turnitin right the way through, you will have a _recent_ version, if not your _final_ version on the Turnitin system already. So if your home computer crashes, you have a back-up and not a disaster.

b)Always plan for your final submission about 24 hrs before your due date to give yourself time to get the last Originality Report and make a final check. But if you submit for the last time just one minute before the cut off, you’ll still have a digital receipt of submission even if you don’t have time to receive the Originality Report.

I’ve submitted before successfully and just tried to submit again but it won’t let me. What’s wrong?

This is probably due to the setup of the Turnitin link and a simple mistake on the part of the person who set it up. There is a choice between ‘any number of submissions up to the due date’ and ‘only one submission’ and the wrong one was selected. If you email your tutor, s/he can edit the link to correct the mistake.

Can I use part of an essay I wrote last year and submitted to Turnitin in an essay this term?

Not unless you formally quote yourself, no. Any essay previously submitted to Turnitin by yourself or anyone else will be picked up and highlighted. In this case the source will be ‘Student paper University of East London’. So it will look like plagiarism but actually be self-plagiarism – which is also not allowed.