Bridge over troubled water: A literacy approach to using Turnitin

Abstract

The text matching software Turnitin is now used in one form or another by over 90% of Australian universities. Unfortunately, both educators and students commonly view Turnitin as a plagiarism detection tool. We argue that this focus limits the effectiveness of Turnitin by contributing negatively to staff and students’ anxiety and may incongruously lead to poor academic practice. In line with emerging research, we advocate a literacy approach to using Turnitin that harnesses its potential to develop students’ academic writing. However, unlike this research which has tended to focus on discipline-specific courses rather than academic language and learning courses, our study developed teaching resources and activities designed for use by students of all disciplines and programs. The resources were evaluated in month-long preparatory academic skills programs with 46 international students. Our approach not only reduced students’ anxiety; importantly, it assisted students to develop their authorial voice and better understand appropriate citation practices. Our results demonstrate that Turnitin has potential to assist students with their writing, particularly if it is primarily viewed as a tool that is inextricably connected to academic writing, and intersects with timely and constructive academic learning resources.