Turitin Score Lowering (1)

How to Lower Your Turnitin Scores 1. If you did not do so already, you should review the section on ethical standards and practices from the Northcentral University catalog that is available at this link http://catalog.ncu.edu/content.php?catoid=9&navoid=2027&hl=integrity&returnto=search 2. At Northcentral University, and in fact that most online universities, academic integrity is assessed using an online service called Turnitin. Nearly all assignments at NCU are automatically submitted to Turnitin as part of the grading process. Turnitin then issues an originality score that indicates what percentage of the assignment duplicates online sources. A score above 25% from Turnitin is bad news and indicates 25% + of the content of the assignment has been copied from various sources and indicated as the student’s own work. A score of 0% is as good as it gets but is very rare. Most students have scores well below 10%. Usually, a score under 25% is acceptable depending on a careful analysis of the similarity report. If your assignment includes a reference list, those same references are probably all over the Internet and Turnitin will indicate they have been copied. However, they are not considered any kind of an academic integrity issue and we eliminate them to determine if academic dishonesty has taken place. Instructors look in the body of assignments to see which parts are duplicated somewhere else on the web. With references excluded your Turnitin score is over 80%. To learn more about how to interpret Turnitin originality reports, click this link. https://help.turnitin.com/new- links.htm See your Turnitin report returned in the drop box. 3. You can usually lower your similarity score by avoiding direct quotes and relying on paraphrasing. As an emerging scholar you need to learn how to paraphrase the work of others. There are two important thoughts to keep in mind. Dr. Northern from the Academic Success Center recommends the use of the 4 Rs when paraphrasing. Using the 4 R + 1 Approach to Insure Proper Paraphrasing “ Read ” the passage for understanding. Click the links below for good articles on how to read challenging sources. The first article makes several good points on its own and also introduces the SQ3R approach to reading ( S urvey, Q uestion, R ead, R ecite, and R eview - This should not be confused with the 4 R ’s of proper paraphrasing.) You should at least read the first article. If you find it helpful, read the next two as well. http://gradschool.about.com/cs/reading/a/sq3r.htm https://in.nau.edu/academic-success-centers/sq3r-reading-method/ https://www.ucc.vt.edu/academic_support/study_skills_information/sq3r_readin g-study_system.html “Restate” the important points in your voice. You can only do this effectively after you deeply understand the passage. Most students find it helps if they make preliminary notes as they apply the reading strategy suggested above. Of course, if the passage is not overly complex you might not have to use the full force of SQ3R but notes are still helpful. Once you know you understand the passage you are ready to restate it in your own words. Most students find it is best not to look back at the passage when they do this although they might look at their preliminary notes about the passage.