Turnitin Software, an Aid to the Detection of Plagarism
Turnitin is a text-matching tool which checks a document against over 800 million websites as well as other students´ work already submitted to it and creates an originality report highlighting matches between the student´s work and any source material.
The software does not detect plagiarism in itself but can provide evidence that a piece of work may have been plagiarised. As well as aiding plagiarism detection, the software can also act as an effective deterrent. It can also be used with and by students to help them learn about referencing and academic writing in general. However the software is used, it should be emphasised that it is not infallible and any final decision as to whether a piece of work is acceptable or not will always come down to academic judgement.