Writing with Turnitin
Many student writers struggle to balance their own ideas with those of their sources. The Poorvu Center discussion of Using Sources [1], as well as our various tutoring services [2], can help you improve this balance, beginning long before the assignment is handed out.
But when you have a nearly finished draft, Turnitin can help identify places in the paper where the sources are crowding out your voice. By comparing your paper against a wide range of sources that have been published electronically, Turnitin generates a similarity report that highlights passages in the submitted paper that have phrasing similar to published material.
On this page, we organize resources to help students use Turnitin to improve their writing. You can use Turnitin to see patterns of source use and misuse, and these patterns can help guide revised writing and revision practices. Please use the links below to learn more about using Turnitin, and contact us at askpoorvucenter@yale.edu [3] if you have further questions.
(1) Accessing Your Similarity Report [4]
(2) Making Sense of Turnitin Reports [5]
(3) Categories of Source Misuse, and How to Address Them [6]
Unattributed Sources and Multiple Submission (Self-Plagiarism) [7]
Too-Close Paraphrase [8]
Strategies for Paraphrase [9]
Strategy 1: Set the Source Aside [10]
Strategy 2: Condense [11]
Strategy 3: Replace Jargon [12]
Strategy 4: Emphasize Your Argument [13]
Strategy 5: Revise Syntax [14]
(4) Writing Strategies that Improve Source Use [15]
(5) Turnitin Feedback [16]