Cover page, title, page numbers & References/Bibliography are counted in similarity %
Hi Turnitin Team,
I would like to suggest an improvement to the Similarity Report.
My university require students to use a standard cover page, declaration, table of contents, page numbering, and reference list. However, these mandatory sections have been automatically included in the Similarity Index, making the overall % appear unreasonable high than the originality of the actual assignment. During upload, I don't have the option to exclude the cover page, contents page, page numbers & bibliography. As a result, all these contributed to high and unreasonable similarity score.
This can be misleading because some lecturers judge a submission based on the overall similarity % before acceptance or reviewing the detailed report. As a result, students may receive an unfair first impression even when their academic writing is original.
Could Turnitin consider automatically excluding or separately reporting (instead of by filtering after generating the overall score):
1) University cover pages and declaration forms
2) Page numbers, headers, and footers
3) Tables of contents
4) Reference/Bibliography sections
Alternatively, it would be helpful to display an Net Content Similarity Score only that excludes these administrative and formatting elements.
I fully support Turnitin's role in promoting academic integrity. My suggestion is simply to ensure that the Similarity Index reflects the originality of the student's actual academic work rather than mandatory formatting.
Thank you for considering this suggestion & hopefully it can be resolved in soonest.
2 replies
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Thanks for sharing this suggestion!
We’ll pass this feedback along to our product team for review. Really appreciate you taking the time to share it with us!
- Kat, Turnitin Team
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Have you tried creating a template to cover at least the cover sheet? For the bibliography, you can exclude the reference list when you set it up. You can add that template when you create the assignment. (For Classic, you just attach it, for New Standard, you can attach it & the students can download it)
That said, having the similarity enabled on a reference list can be useful
- Some of the work *should* be similar & that includes the referencing; assuming a student has used a standard convention for referencing, and they're using academic journals. Usually, the only items that aren't similar are
- When they're the first person to reference it (unlikely)
- They've invented a new, unique referencing system (again, unlikely)
- They've found something they probably shouldn't be referencing in an academic essay (e.g. news item, blog post etc - though clearly, it might be useful in specific circumstances - you know the work you set
- They have a non-existent reference (perhaps they have been using AI - this is, of course, now increasing.
- Some of the work *should* be similar & that includes the referencing; assuming a student has used a standard convention for referencing, and they're using academic journals. Usually, the only items that aren't similar are