Thread: Does anyone here have access to turnitin.com? please help me!!!!

If you properly formatted any quotations and didn't actually plagiarize anything, you will be fine.

Exactly. If you didn't plagiarize, you have nothing to worry about...

Originally Posted by Pan

Exactly. If you didn't plagiarize, you have nothing to worry about...

Don't say that. Improperly formatted quotations can actually fuck people over.

Do you think you accidentally wrote chunks of essay verbatim that have been written before? :/

Yes, as long as you make sure any quotations are identified as such... there is no problem.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Don't say that. Improperly formatted quotations can actually fuck people over.

Do you mean forgetting to close a quotation or something? Not sure what exactly you mean.

Originally Posted by Pan

Do you mean forgetting to close a quotation or something? Not sure what exactly you mean.

As Xei said, if you use a quotation, without properly informing the reader that it's a quotation, it can be considered plagiarizing.

Originally Posted by Marvo

As Xei said, if you use a quotation, without properly informing the reader that it's a quotation, it can be considered plagiarizing.

Oh well, that's obvious.

Originally Posted by Pan

Oh well, that's obvious.

You'd be surprised.

Yeah, that stuff gets slipped up all the time. It's usually not the writer's fault.

For example (with MLA at least), if I say that "You'd be surprised." (Marvo 9), and I didn't put an entry for Marvo in my works cited page, I'd be plagiarizing. Or, if I just said "You'd be surprised", that's also plagiarizing. It gets really specific. For my last essay I got it handed back because of errors on the works cited page where I would have lost so many points I would have been better off just not handing it in.

Thankfully, she gave me a chance to fix it because I handed it in early.

Is it that hard to follow the guidelines in the MLA book? I mean, everything you need is right there, it tells you exactly what to do. Or were you just making guesses that your formatting was correct? Maybe things have changed since I had to use MLA format, which hasn't been since high school.

Well, people make mistakes. It just so happens that even the slightest mistake in formatting quotes gets you slaughtered like the goats.

Sometimes the rules do seem unrealistically strict, but it's kind of necessary. Sloppy citing and bad sources is among some of the things that ruin scientific literature. Everything has to be clear and transparent, not vague and confusing.

Originally Posted by Marvo

Sometimes the rules do seem unrealistically strict, but it's kind of necessary. Sloppy citing and bad sources is among some of the things that ruin scientific literature. Everything has to be clear and transparent, not vague and confusing.

Agreed. It does tend to get really annoying, but it's just a matter of setting aside a time to make sure you did everything right. It's worth it for the amount of credibility it adds to your work.

A lot of times you don't need to use quotations. It's still proper as long as you cite the source, but many sites won't catch it. My GF has turned in a paper before that the site showed as 40% plagerized, but it was due to a block quote and other things that were done properly, but the software is too stupid to realize. It's for lazy professors

Ex: Though annoying, it can just come down to making sure the formatting is correct as it is worth the time to keep your credibility (SomeGuy #14).

I dind't need quotation because it's not his exact words, but still needs citation because it's just his post reworded. Most "turnitin" type programs don't see that and will give a false reading. Most papers, no matter what, will usually have a 10% plagerized number even if everything is done properly and such because of that. And it's also doing a wide sweep of the net, so you're bound to have SOME material that is similar