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.
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