Turnitin benefits
Turnitin is an anti-plagiarism detector that brings both disadvantages and benefits to users. The plagiarism tool helps instructors and tutors in universities check copied student essays. The foolproof plagiarism tool has sparked some legal controversy because the software itself gives the scanned research paper a score based on frequency of duplicate phrases found in the paper.
Catch those who cheat
Turnitin uses proprietary database for its extensive search on duplicate or copied content including analysis on public databases and websites. Although the software has been helping schools and universities catch students who copied content or cheated, it sparked controversy on the way the student’s efforts were being graded. Turnitin not only functions to find plagiarized sentences but also grades submitted research papers and essays for plagiarism check.
Unfair grading system
Universities subscribed to the service because it not only finds plagiarized sentences but also takes away the large amount of time and efforts spent by instructors to read and grade papers. One of the options is for students to submit their essays to the service for plagiarism detection and evaluation. The instructors normally upload the essays to the service directly. The students may upload their research papers through the University’s WebCT or webpage.
The plagiarism checker process
The software compares the student’s submitted essays first with their collection of essays within their database. Next, the software then runs a comparison across search engines. Lastly, the software grades the research paper according to the percent dupe or frequency of similar phrases.
How do you think a student trying to get good grades would feel about this?
Most students feel that their efforts in making a good paper is not being evaluated fairly. Just imagine making good research and putting quality content but the paper would only be graded based on percent dupe. Although the system practically helps instructors to spot copied phrases, it does not motivate students to perform in their writing assignments.