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Glossary

What is Turnitin?

The name that strikes fear into essay-writers — often more than it should. Here's what Turnitin actually checks, and the big thing it doesn't touch.

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Definition

Turnitin is a service that checks written submissions for similarity against a large database of papers and web content, and — more recently — for AI-generated writing. It runs on essays and assignments, not on auto-graded Canvas quizzes.

What Turnitin does

When you submit a paper through Turnitin, it compares your text against a huge index of student papers, journals, and web pages, then produces a similarity report highlighting overlapping passages. The score isn't a plagiarism verdict — it includes quoted and cited material — and the instructor decides what it means.

Similarity vs AI detection

Turnitin added an AI-writing detector that estimates how much of a submission looks machine-generated. This is a different and far shakier thing than similarity matching. Independent testing and Turnitin's own disclosures show it produces false positives on genuine human writing, which is why many institutions treat its scores cautiously and some have disabled it.

Why quizzes are a different world

Turnitin only has something to analyze when there's writing to analyze. An auto-graded Canvas quiz — multiple choice, true/false, multi-select — produces no essay for it to scan. That's a key reason Canvas can't detect ChatGPT on a standard quiz: there's no text-origin analysis happening at all.

Frequently asked questions

Does Turnitin run on Canvas quizzes?
No. Turnitin checks written submissions — essays, papers, assignments. Auto-graded quizzes (multiple choice, true/false) aren't run through it; there's nothing for a similarity or AI detector to analyze.
Can Turnitin detect ChatGPT?
Turnitin sells an AI-writing detector that estimates the likelihood text was AI-generated. It's probabilistic and well-documented as unreliable, with false positives on human writing — so a score is a flag for review, not proof.
Is a Turnitin similarity score the same as plagiarism?
No. The similarity score just measures overlap with its database, including correctly quoted and cited material. Instructors interpret it; a high number isn't an automatic accusation.

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