The MSM Program and Turnitin

PROFESSORS KNOW (Just like Mom & Dad)

Even without looking at a Turnitin Originality Report, some things are obvious when it comes to plagiarism…

Changes in Syntax

By about the second week in a course, professors get to know their students’ syntax (writing styles, including grammar, punctuation, and spelling) from their submitted documents, discussion board posts and responses, class discussions, and e-mails

Changes in the syntax of a student’s document is quickly evident to the professor and can indicate several things

o Too much material is quoted and not formatted as a quote or cited, o Material is quoted, but periodic words have been changed to avoid Turnitin identifying quoted text, and o In the worst case, someone else has written the paper for the student

As a professor, I reserve the right to question situations such as this and discuss them with the student

Again, my intent is not to “catch” a student, but to assist him/her in learning how to write, paraphrase, and improve skills

Special thank you to Dr. Karen Smola who contributed a number of resources to this portion of the course.