Having seen Turnitin in practice, it doesn't work where hundreds of students have to write on the same topic. The 1st student to use common phrasing to describe a thought or event gets credit for originality. All follow-on students using similar phrasing - equally original - get tagged as "cheaters". There are only so many commonly used sets of words to express the same thought or fact - something Turnitin doesn't recognize.
My daughter's middle school research paper on Martin Luther King was flagged for plagiarizing a college paper on the same topic that was written 4 years prior in a state and college far away. She and I had to work at using different words in her sentences - all words were original from the 1st draft on - and still we couldn't get the plagiarism rating low enough to satisfy the Middle School requirements.
I am unimpressed by lazy software and lazy teachers who refuse to acknowledge the foreseeable consequences of their actions.
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