How to find and understand the Turnitin similarity report (classic view)

In this tutorial you will learn how to find and understand the Turnitin similarity report (classic view).

UM DLE FGB
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24 steps
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3 minutes

Turnitin

Maastrichtuniversity

Open the similarity report

To find a student's similarity report, go to 'Grades' in Canvas.

As soon as a student hands in the assignment, you see a coloured flag. This tells you the similarity report is created and what the percentage of similarity is: - 🟦 **Blue:** No matching text - 🟩 **Green:** One word to 24% matching text - 🟨 **Yellow:** 25-49% matching text - 🟧 **Orange:** 50-74% matching text - 🟥 **Red:** 75-100% matching text

An exclamation mark in the gradebook indicates that the file requirements were not met. Click the exclamation mark for more details.

Requirements: Turnitin will only accept files that can generate Similarity Reports. - **Files less than 100 MB;** - **Files with a minimum of 20 words;** - **File less than 800 pages;** - **Only [accepted file types](https://guides.turnitin.com/hc/en-us/articles/23929463501965-File-requirements).**

Click on the cell with the coloured flag.

Click the 'small arrow'. A sidebar opens on the right.

Click 'SpeedGrader'.\ In SpeedGrader you can annotate and grade as you normally do.

Click on the coloured percentage. The report will open in a new window.

The first time you open a report you must accept the End-User License Agreement (EULA). When you don't accept the EULA, you receive an error (error 431) when opening a similarity report in Turnitin.

The report - Submission Details

Notice that you can also switch to the new view. This has a few advantages. Read more on the[Turnitin](https://canvas.maastrichtuniversity.nl/courses/49/pages/turnitin-originality-plagiarism-check?module_item_id=525355) page in the UM Canvas training course.

Click 'Submission Details'

Here you find the submission details. The 'Paper ID' is useful as a reference when you have a question or experience a problem. You also find the 'Submission Date' and 'Word Count' here.

The report - Overall Similarity

Click 'Overall Similarity'. Here you find the overall similarity percentage. This is the percentage of the paper that is found in the Turnitin Database.

Click 'All Sources' to see not only the top sources, but all sources.

You can exclude a specific source by clicking on the eye.

When you click on a specific source you find more information about the source.

Click the wheel icon (settings) in the right corner.

Here you can exclude matches. You can exclude specific repositories, or parts of the submission like the bibliography, quotes, or citations. Small matches can also be excluded because they are often irrelevant.

Excluding the bibliography can be interesting because the similarity found here is often irrelevant. However, including the bibliography might also give information when references **don't** show similarity. This could be an indication references are made up by the student or by AI.

Find more information about the content of the databases of Turnitin on the website of Turnitin <https://www.turnitin.com/about/content>

The report - Flags

Click 'Flags' to find out about suspicious finds in the document. Always have a look at these flags. These are important warnings for manipulations in the document.

Click 'Replaced characters' to see which characters have been replaced.

Click "Hidden text" to see which text has been hidden.

The report - Document Details

Click "Document Details" to find more information about the document.

You find more information about the fonts being used in the document and about the words used in American and British spelling. These findings could give an indication of possible fraud.

The report - AI

After you click the 'AI' Writing tab in the report, you find which text has been determined to be generated by AI. If you want to learn more about how the AI writing detection works, you can find an [FAQ on Turnitin's AI writing detection](https://guides.turnitin.com/hc/en-us/articles/28477544839821-Turnitin-s-AI-writing-detection-capabilities-FAQ)

The AI writing score is divided into two detection categories: AI-generated only: This category detects qualifying text that was likely generated from a Large Language Model (LLM). Text of this category is highlighted in a cyan color in the submission breakdown bar and in the submission. AI-generated text that was AI-paraphrased: This category detects qualifying text that was likely AI-generated and then likely modified by an AI-paraphrasing tool or AI word spinner, such as Quillbot. Text of this category is highlighted in a purple color in the submission breakdown bar and in the submission.

For the AI Writing Detection to work the submission needs to meet the following requirements: - File size must be less than 100 MB - File must have at least 300 words of prose text in a long-form writing format - File must not exceed 30.000 words - File must be written in English - Accepted file types: .docx, .pdf, .txt, .rtf

What to do when you want a thesis to be checked on AI, but it exceeds 30.000 words? - You could ask students to submit the appendices as separate documents. - You could split the document yourself and hand both documents in via the Turnitin Originality web portal.

Student view of the report

When you made the similarity report available for students they will only see the Similarity (not the Flags or the AI).

If you have questions about Turnitin, visit the [UB Turnitin Support Page](//umlib.nl/turnitin)