Dans cette vidéo, je vais vous expliquer comment fonctionne le logiciel de vérification de l’originalité et vous donner quelques conseils clés sur l’interprétation …
Hi there, in this video I’m going to be explaining how originality checking software, such as turnitin, works. I’m also going to be giving you some key advice on how to interpret originality reports to ensure that your work meets the expected standards when it comes to academic integrity.
A sound work in knowledge of things like citation quotation and referencing combined with appropriate study practices are often more than enough to prevent inadvertent plagiarism from occurring within your work. However, accidental slips and oversights can still occur. For example, you might inadvertently forget to properly identify and delineate quoted content
Within your work and then not pick up on this when you’re proofreading your work. Originality checking software, such as turnitin, can help you scan your work for any instances of inadvertent plagiarism. It can also help you improve your paraphrasing. Such software has become increasingly common in universities across the world,
But unfortunately research indicates that students are sometimes confused about how to interpret the outputs from originality checking software. This can cause students to overlook instances of plagiarized text or misclassify appropriate text as being plagiarized. So, let’s clear up some of the myths and misconceptions about
Originality checking software and how to interpret the outputs that they produce. Originality checking software works by comparing the work that you’ve submitted with an extensive database of work submitted by other authors. It then generates a report that highlights areas of
Overlap between the work that you’ve submitted and the work that’s already in its database. It also generates a score that indicates the percentage of non-original content within your work. Here’s an example of an originality report. This one happens to be from turnitin simply because
That’s the originality checking software that i have access to. In the top right hand corner of the screen you will notice the 19% figure. This represents the percentage of non-original content that the originality checking software has found expressed as a proportion of the
Complete document submission. Notice that some of the text on screen has been highlighted. This indicates that the originality checking software has seen that text before in a source that’s been submitted to its database previously. Finally, notice that on the right hand
Side of the screen there is a list of sources that have been color coded to give the reader an idea of where non-original material featured within the document may have been taken from. You may have heard originality checking software being referred to as plagiarism detection software. This is very misleading and completely inaccurate.
Plagiarism and non-originality are not the same thing; it’s perfectly possible for something to be legitimately non-original. For example, if you were to include a quotation within your work that was properly acknowledged this would show up as non-original content but it would
Still be perfectly legitimate (i.e not plagiarism). However, if you were to use the same quotation but not acknowledge it properly, that would be plagiarism. Originality checking software cannot distinguish between legitimate non-originality and plagiarism, it can only tell you if it’s seen the text before. This is a key distinction that you must understand
In order to appropriately interpret the results of originality reports. A key consequence of the fact that originality checking software cannot distinguish between legitimate non-original content and plagiarism is that you cannot base decisions about the academic integrity of your work on the percentage of non-original content
That the originality checking software identifies is present within your work. It’s not the amount per se that’s been highlighted that’s an issue as much as WHAT has been highlighted. We can illustrate this with an example. Let’s say you’re looking at two pieces of work. Each
Piece of work has a 20% non-originality score, but upon closer inspection that 20% non-original content in the first piece of work is entirely accounted for by the reference section. Well, i hope you’d agree with me that that wouldn’t be a problem. References, by their very nature, cannot be original: they consist of particular
Information (for example the names of the authors the names of the publication in a particular order). Therefore, it’s no surprise or anything to worry about if originality checking software identifies references as something that is seen before.
On the other hand, if we look at the second piece of work which also attracted a 20% non-originality score and found out that this score was entirely accounted for by a passage of text that had been taken from another source without acknowledgement then that definitely would be plagiarism.
There isn’t a percentage non-originality score threshold above which work would automatically be considered plagiarism because, as we discussed, non-originality and plagiarism are not synonymous. Similarly, there isn’t a percentage of acceptable plagiarized content. Another limitation of originality checking software that you need to be aware of is that
Originality reports can only tell you if the words being used are original. It can’t tell you if the ideas being expressed are original. This is a really important distinction because, as i’m sure you’ll recall, academic integrity is all about giving other authors credit
For their intellectual property (for example their ideas) as well as for their words. If you paraphrased the work of another author, but didn’t cite them for their work the originality checking software would be none the wiser and wouldn’t highlight the offending section of text.
But, the tutor marking your work would likely spot you’d plagiarized the work of another author. You have to remember that just as highlighted text does not necessarily mean plagiarism, non-highlighted text does not necessarily mean the absence of plagiarism.
I’ve provided advice on acceptable paraphrasing in another video that i’ll put a link to in the top right hand corner of the screen. In this video i made the point that students sometimes struggle to determine whether they paraphrased other sources adequately.
So, you might submit your work to originality checking software and note that the originality report contains areas of patchy but not verbatim overlap with previously submitted sources. You might then wonder whether you’ve done a good enough job in paraphrasing those sources.
The fact that originality checking software highlights areas of overlap between your work and other sources can make it a bit easier to determine whether you’ve acceptably paraphrased those sources. Simply read out the piece of text in question aloud but omit anything that’s been highlighted. Then, ask yourself the question: does what you’ve read
Out, absent of any overlap with previous sources, still say anything intelligible? If the answer is: ‘yes what remains after any overlap has been removed is still intelligible’ then it’s very likely that you’ve acceptably paraphrased the source or sources in question because your composition stands independently of those sources.
If the answer is: ‘no, what remains after any overlap has been removed no longer says anything intelligible’ then your composition does not stand independently of the source or sources concerned and would likely be considered lazy paraphrasing, which is a form of plagiarism.
If you like, you can pause the video at this point and have a go at applying the process that i’ve just described to the short passage of text that appears on screen. Having done this, i think you’d agree with me that what remains once you’ve removed any overlap no longer says anything intelligible,
So the text that appears on screen would be a good example of text that’s been lazily paraphrased. You should remember that in order to fully benefit from an originality report, you must submit your work in good time before the applicable deadline.
This then gives you enough time to examine and to act upon any overlap identified by the originality report between your work and other sources that is not simply legitimate non-originality. This is really important because hopefully by now you’re beginning to understand
That academic integrity cannot simply be reduced to a simple percentage non-originality figure. Interpreting an originality report is a time-consuming process in which you have to apply what you’ve learned about academic integrity to what is and what isn’t being highlighted in the report and use this as part (but not all) of your judgment
About the legitimacy of the work you’ve submitted. For example, your originality report might point to very little or perhaps even no overlap with previous sources but that would amount to very little if you’d failed to use citation to adequately acknowledge the work of other authors
That you’d paraphrased or the ideas of other authors that you might have used. Remember, originality checking software is not a substitute for academic judgment and the responsibility for ensuring the academic integrity of your work ultimately always lies with you.
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