Turnitin disadvantages as plagiarism checker
The idea of a software checking your essay like a robot for plagiarized sentences and then grading it for frequency of plagiarized phrases found within the research paper would drive any student insane. How do you think would you feel spending nights writing a good paper and it will be graded based on frequency of plagiarized sentences and not the quality of information? If you can think how unfair or fair this could be, you should tell what you think now.
Grading the paper
It has been found that some essays could get higher grades if they have been properly referenced or cited. Those papers with direct quotes and citation taken from one of the resources stored in the Turnitin database receive higher rating. In some instances where there are lengthy citations that needed human reading and evaluation, students would feel better rewarded if the instructor personally reads the paper than machine. Essays without much citations would mean no research performed. This would fetch lower rating. Facts that were vaguely created and sounds vague still fetch a grade because Turnitin still considers the paper as original.
Low quality paper
Instructors could easily determine quality essays from less quality ones. However, the plagiarism software of Turnitin would not be able to determine what facts were made up because its main concern is originality. Now this reason alone would disappoint a lot of students. It is not easy to perform research and get possibly lower scores with papers that were just made up facts. For sure, instructors using Turnitin for grading and plagiarism scan would have justifications about these instances.
Students’ rights
Students have been asking about university ethics and legality of using the services of Turnitin for grading their research papers. Sometime in the early months of the year 2000, there were two students who refused to submit their research papers for evaluation through Turnitin. The instructor did not give them any other option. The instructor failed the students. However, when they filed a complaint at the senate committee of the university, the senate committee favored them.