This past week, I worked with a couple of other members of the Writing Department at GVSU to prepare a position statement on plagiarism detection software. GVSU only recently acquired a subscription to Turnitin, and myself and the other teachers were concerned that teachers in other disciplines would be unware of the issues surrounding plagiarism detection services. The following is the full text of the statement which has been distributed on our campus.

Note: CCCC-IP has begun a resource page on plagiarism detection services.

Issues Raised by Use of Turnitin Plagiarism Detection Software

Overview

Recently, Grand Valley State University purchased a site license to plagiarism detection service Turnitin.com. Faculty members who use this service can require students to submit writing assignments electronically to Turnitin, which compares student texts against Turnitin’s database of Internet sites, academic journals index, and previously student submitted papers and prepares a report indicating where in the text plagiarism has been detected. Writing submitted to Turnitin is maintained in the database for comparison against future submissions by other students.

Scholars and teachers in the field of Rhetoric and Composition, as well as other academics, have discouraged the use of plagiarism detection services. We recommend that before using this service, faculty members consider several important issues raised by the use of Turnitin.