Students writing at tables in the Starr Reading Room.

Writing With Turnitin

Before submitting your paper, check that you’ve cited your sources fairly and accurately.

At a Glance

  • The Poorvu Center provides every Yale student with access to Turnitin.
  • Turnitin’s similarity reports can help you identify instances of source misuse in your writing.
  • Using Turnitin along with the Writing Center’s resources can help you improve your source usage.
A student smiles at their laptop while sitting on a bench outside.

Accessing Turnitin

Before you submit a course paper, journal article, or academic manuscript, use Turnitin to review your references to the ideas and words of others. Turnitin compares papers against a wide range of sources that have been published electronically. When you upload a paper, Turnitin generates a Similarity Report that highlights passages possessing phrasing similar to published material, allowing you to catch mistakes before your reviewers do.

The Poorvu Center enables any Yale student to access Turnitin by joining a Canvas course where the service is enabled. Simply submit your paper to an Assignment in the course and then open the Grades page to access your report. You’ll find more detailed instructions on Canvas. You can also view a Yale Help Guide for illustrated directions on how to access your report. Additionally, Turnitin provides a guide to help you interpret your Similarity Report. 

Need help finding sources?

Yale Library empowers students to find and access scholarship through group workshops, research consultations, subject guides, and more.

Yale Library Help and Research Support

Improving Your Use of Sources

If Turnitin flags passages in your paper as too close to the language of your sources, you can review strategies for summarizing and paraphrasing your sources’ ideas for help understanding how to address any instances of source misuse.

Many students who have trouble balancing their own voices with their sources also confuse the purpose of academic writing, which in brief is to add to an existing conversation rather than to generate entirely original ideas. The Poorvu Center website has a very full discussion of Using Sources in your research, which we strongly recommend that you read. Please also review this guide on Avoiding High-Risk Situations to help you use sources robustly. 

While Turnitin can help you understand whether you’ve cited your sources fairly, it can’t offer feedback on the work your sources are doing to advance your argument. For help using sources to develop your ideas or to highlight your paper’s contribution to a scholarly conversation, visit the Writing Center.