In science writing you will naturally get replication of words because
of literature cited and sometimes the methods section - for standard
procedures there are a limited number of ways to say it. Taking this
into account, I would be suspect of student reports that rise above 20%
similarity to other works, and certainly those that are over 30% are
likely to have plagiarized. As you mention, phrases or sentences of more
than 8-10 words that are not part of the methods or literature cited
sections were most likely copied from other sources.
Mitch Cruzan
On 2/2/2018 7:02 PM, Jorge A. Santiago-Blay wrote:
Using Turnitin in science classes
Dear Colleagues:
Finally, I have decided to begin using Turnitin in some of my science
classes, including environmental sciences. As a beginning user of
Turnitin, I have received valuable feedback on some of the technical
settings. However, I have not received feedback on what I considered
to be areas where the proverbial rubber meets the road (listed below):
1. How long a string of words do you allow to be OK.? I was suggested
8 words (no scientific rationale behind that was provided).
2. What percentage of similarity is considered to be enough to trigger
reporting a work to the superiors for "dishonesty" (or whatever it is
called in your schools; after checking with the filters, etc.)
3. Any sliding scale for smaller "offenses" re. percentage of similarity
If you have something constructive to communicate pertaining what do
you do in your courses or what is the policy at your institution,
please, feel free to email me directly:
blayjo...@gmail.com <mailto:blayjo...@gmail.com>
Apologies for potential duplicate emails.
Sincerely,
Jorge
Jorge A. Santiago-Blay, PhD
blaypublishers.com <http://blaypublishers.com>
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--
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Mitch Cruzan
Professor of Biology
Portland State University
PO Box 751
Portland, OR 97207 USA
Web: http://web.pdx.edu/~cruzan/
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