Integrating Turnitin in Teaching Essay Writing for Tertiary
Education
Hasan Zainnuri, Dewi Cahyaningrum, and Sri Haryati
Department of English Education, Sebelas Maret University, Surakarta, Indonesia
Keywords: Turnitin, Essay Writing, Intermediate Students, Tertiary Education, Academic Integrity.
Abstract: Many intermediate students find that essay writing is challenging and many teachers struggle to find methods
to teach the skill successfully. Turnitin is known as the platform of text matching software to detect plagiarism
and as a tool allowing teachers to integrate a model for writing instruction into students’ assignments,
comments, and ongoing assessments. Turnitin allows teachers to focus on specific content lessons such as
idea development, sentence fluency, words choice, and organization. This article reports the implementation
of using Turnitin and services as instructional support tools for formative assessment in teaching essay writing
for tertiary education, rather than just for plagiarism prevention. The idea of integrating this software is to
explore how Turnitin helps teachers do the following: 1) discuss academic integrity with students, 2) teach
essay writing techniques for tertiary education, 3) teach students to cite sources properly, and 4) build better
essay writing skills in students. Some services included in Turnitin that will be implemented in this study are
Originality Check plagiarism, GradeMark, and PeerMark. Fifteen second-grade university students taking
essay writing class participated in this study. This paper reports the result of a case study research for
intermediate students mainly talking about (1) the idea of integrating Turnitin to develop students’ essay
writing skill and improve awareness of academic integrity and (2) practical model of integrating Turnitin as
instructional support tools in teaching essay writing completed with its challenges. In this study, steps and
integration of Turnitin in teaching essay writing are explained and discussed. In addition, students’
perceptions regarding the strength of Turnitin are analyzed.
1 INTRODUCTION
Due to its difficulties, many students find that writing
is challenging. Writing, in general, is an extremely
complex cognitive activity in which the writer is
required to demonstrate control of a number of
variables simultaneously. At the sentence level these
include control of content, format, sentence structure,
vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, and letter
formation. It means, ideally, in writing the students
should be able to organize the content with the title,
organize a text to make it cohesive and coherent, use
correct grammar, use correct vocabulary, and write a
text with correct punctuation, spelling, and
capitalization (Bell and Burnaby in Nunan, 1992: 6).
This idea justifies that writing requires complex
micro skill in establishing the sharing ideas.
In university level, problems on writing were still
found by teachers. Research reveals that the
university students have various writing problems
namely language problems at the levels of
morphology and syntax; usage errors, and mechanical
mistakes, that is, spelling, punctuation and
capitalization; lack of several writing development
skills, cognitive problems and graphomotor problems
(Alfaki, 2015: 40). This study enhances the view that
writing challenges the students as many skills need to
be mastered in it. Due to the problems, many teachers
struggle to find effective methods and strategy to
teach the skill successfully.
An alternative for overcoming the students’
problem in writing is turnitin. In general, turnitin is
primarily launched as a “plagiarism” tool (Turnitin
2015). It is basically known as the platform of text
matching software to detect plagiarism and as a tool
allowing teachers to integrate a model for writing
instruction into students’ assignments, comments,
and ongoing assessments. Researh shows that
Turnitin have a positive effect on helping students
understand how to write with academic integrity
(Kostka & Ebsworth, 2014; Rees & Emerson, 2009;
Stapleton, 2012; Ledwith & Rísquez, 2008).
160
Zainnuri, H., Cahyaningrum, D. and Haryati, S.
Integrating Turnitin in Teaching Essay Writing for Tertiary Education.
DOI: 10.5220/0007163801600165
In Proceedings of the Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference
on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education (CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017) - Literacy, Culture, and Technology in Language Pedagogy and Use, pages 160-165
ISBN: 978-989-758-332-2
Copyright © 2018 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

Technically, turnitin allows teachers to focus on
specific content lessons such as idea development,
sentence fluency, words choice, and organization.
This article reports the implementation of using
Turnitin and services as instructional support tools for
formative assessment in teaching essay writing for
tertiary education, rather than just for plagiarism
prevention.
Considering the excellences of Turnitin, this
platform is strongly recommended for teachers
particularly for teaching essay writing in tertiary
education level. Since the investigation in using
Turnitin less carried out, bridging platform features
and the implementation of it is needed. This article
reports the implementation of using Turnitin and
services as instructional support tools for formative
assessment in teaching essay writing for tertiary
education, rather than just for plagiarism prevention.
The idea of integrating this software is to explore how
Turnitin helps teachers do the following: 1) discuss
academic integrity with students, 2) teach essay
writing techniques for tertiary education, 3) teach
students to cite sources properly, and 4) build better
essay writing skills in students.
2 RESEARCH METHOD
This interpretive qualitative research used a case
study method. Seventeen students of English
department in a state university taking Essay Writing
course participated in the research. A four-month
Essay Writing course was offered to the participants
using a blended learning approach: a combination of
face-to-face tutorials and online learning interactions.
Schoology and Turnitin were used as the platform for
the online learning interaction.
In the face-to-face Essay Writing class, students
discussed and practised Comparison and Contrast
essay starting from composing outline, draft, revision,
and final paper. Relevant reading and grammatical
knowledge was also discussed when necessary. The
students also received constructive feedback from
peers as well as from researchers as the learning
facilitators. In the online interactions of peer, all
students socially interacted and discussed content-
related issues. To enhance the English learning and
acquisition, teacher participants to use English in the
online interaction.
The data were obtained through observation
notes, recorded interviews, participants’ reflective
journals, and the online interaction scripts. The
qualitative data were analysed by using Braun and
Clarke’s (2006) thematic analysis and content
analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006).
3 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
The research indicated that participation in the
blended learning of Essay Writing by integrating
Turnitin increased the level of motivation and
confidence of students to learn essay writing. The
following section describes the implementation of
using Turnitin, integrating Turnitin to develop
students’ essay writing skill with explained practice
and steps, as well as students’ perceptions regarding
the strength of Turnitin.
3.1 The implementation of using
Turnitin and services as
instructional support tools
Turnitin is not merely a text matching software
supporting anti-plagiarism but also a learning
platform facilitating teachers to manage certain
instructional process particularly in writing. Being
integrated in writing class, this software assists
teachers in performing such activities as follows: (1)
discuss academic honesty to students, (2) lecture
essay writing for tertiary education; (3) teach students
to cite sources properly, and (4) establish better essay
writing skill for students. Utilizing the provided
services such as originality checking service, grade
mark and peer mark in Turnitin then enables teachers
to realize them.
3.1.1 Originality Check
In this study, the researcher integrated originality
check which can measure the similarity index
between the text of the submission and the targeted
search assignment in any form of publication in the
internet. The result, reported in originality report,
specifically presents three features namely document
viewer frame to show the similarity index, paper text
consisting the original formatting of submitted text
completed with the highlighted matching text, and
matching source to denote the list of matching
source(s). The similarity index in document viewer
frame then indicated by the five possible indices like
blue (no matching text), green (one to 24% matching
text), yellow (25% to 49% matching text), orange
(50% to 79% matching text) and red (75% to 100%
matching text).
Integrating Turnitin in Teaching Essay Writing for Tertiary Education
161

Students’ assignments which have been submitted
in Turnitin as shown in Figure 1 are then evaluated
automatically. It then shows the similarity report.
From the Figure 1, it can be shown that almost all of
the students’ assignment have lower than 10% of
similarity index.
Figure 1: Similarity index and similarity report.
3.1.2 GradeMark
This study adopted GradeMark feature in Turnitin
which is the teachers’ platform to edit and grade
students online. The researcher contributes comment
in the body of the submitted paper, signifies the
mistake in grammar and punctuation, evaluate either
in quantitative or qualitative rubric, assesses the
students’ performance and provides grade for the
paper. Several tools and types of mark used by the
researcher in this study include comments, inline
comments, quickmark comments, rubric scorecard,
and general comment. The implementation of
GradeMark conducted by the researchers can be seen
in Figure 2.
Figure 2: GradeMark on draft of essay.
3.1.3 PeerMark
In teaching essay writing, this study integrated
PeerMark which enables students to read, review and
evaluate one or more of submission text in a single
classroom in an assignment. The stages in utilizing
PeerMark are as follows: (1) teachers set a Turnitin
paper assignment; (2) teachers create a PeerMark
assignment and set the number of papers to be
reviewed as well as create free response and scale
questions to respond to while reviewing papers; (3)
students submit the paper; (4) students write peer
reviews on the PeerMark by responding to the free
response and scale questions. Since the PeerMark has
due date, students lost their chance to write, complete
and edit the review when the due date passed. The
implementation of PeerMark conducted by the
researchers can be seen in Figure 3.
Figure 3: Peer review or PeerMark on draft of essay.
3.2 Integrating Turnitin to develop
students’ essay writing skill and
improve awareness of academic
integrity
Essay Writing is thinking process that generates,
organizes, and exchanges one’s ideas in the form of
essay to the readers. It involves using several
language components such as content, organization,
vocabulary, language use, and mechanics. It also
takes long process covering prewriting, organizing,
drafting, revising, editing and documenting the final
draft. In fact, the students find difficulties in
developing ideas into a good paragraph since they did
not know where to start writing, still make some
mistakes in applying grammar rules, mechanic,
punctuation and spelling. Besides, students are often
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
162

blocked by perception that teacher is their only
audience since they are accustomed to write a text to
full fill the assignment or to write for the teacher, not
for themselves. Besides, they tend to put their focus
on speed leading to writing product instead of
accuracy. In this case, they often skip necessary
stages of the writing process. Understanding a
responsibility to hold students accountable for the
essay they write throughout each writing stage,
teacher brings the strength of team work and feedback
on their progress to help each student follow every
stage of writing process. To achieve this goal, the
teacher accommodates Turnitin.
Turnitin is known as the platform of text matching
software to detect plagiarism and as a tool allowing
teachers to integrate a model for writing instruction
into students’ assignments, comments, and ongoing
assessments. It provides digital environment
engaging students through the entire writing process.
As reported by Bangerter, Turnitin consists of
OriginalityCheck, PeerMark, and GradeMark tools
offering students multiple rounds of feedback from
their peers, their instructors, and even themselves
throughout the writing process. This combination of
feedback provides students with conducive and
enjoyable classroom atmosphere.
Discussing about feedback for students’ writing,
Raimes (1993) states that feedback is an important
part of every language teaching and learning process,
careful work on the job will be a contribution to
pedagogy. A research conducted by Seow (2002) in
(Yugandhar, 2015) shows that the teacher's guidance
to students' writing is a significant technique in
developing writing process. In another situation,
some teachers and writing theorists have fostered peer
groups in high school and college classrooms as a
way to encourage students to write and revise. As
Moffett (1983) suggested, teachers teach students to
teach each other. This peer-feedback is one of
changes in writing pedagogy and research in which
teacher comments often supplemented with peer
comments (Hyland and Hyland, 2006). Both
teacher’s feedback and students’ feedback in peer
mark and grade mark can be designed following the
students’ need of exposures dealing with the language
components while Turnitin OriginalityCheck may
reduce incidences and/or unintended plagiarism.
Moreover, related to this description, data from a
number of studies show that active learning,
collaboration, formative and scaffolded assessment,
and ongoing discussion is needed for students to most
effectively learn how to write with academic integrity
(McLafferty & Foust, 2004; Rees & Emerson, 2009;
McGowan, 2005).
3.3 Practical model of integrating
Turnitin in teaching essay writing
and its challenges
This research adopted the integration of Turnitin
reported by Bangerter. Practical model of integrating
Turnitin as instructional support tools in teaching
essay writing in this research is as follows. In the
essay writing process, students are able to cycle or
even move back and forth through prewriting,
drafting, revising, and editing multiple times before
they create the final product. With Turnitin, students
use feedback from peers through PeerMark and
instructor feedback through GradeMark. Moreover,
students also can use Turnitin to check reflective
pieces to identify what changes they need to make or
to discuss what they have learned through multiple
rounds of feedback prior to implementing those
changes. Students also can move through
OriginalityCheck and PeerMark several times before
submitting a draft for evaluation with GradeMark. In
this case, Turnitin holds students accountable for their
efforts in the process rather than for just the final
product. Moreover, feedback here can be very
specific depending on students’ needs. Feedback
gained from OriginalityCheck may block students
from the possibility of doing plagiarism.
Besides talking about the supportive features of
Turnitin for students’ writing development, there is
also challenges that may arise that need to be
anticipated. Specifically talking about PeerMark, the
researchers found that constructing specific and
constructive comments and feedback that can be
useful to improve the text are not easy for students. It
is revealed that only the high achievers noted as
trained students who can construct constructive
comments on their peers' writing and incorporate
peers’ comments to improve their writing. Harmer
(2004) noted that with extensive training inside and
outside of class, trained peer review feedback can
positively impact EFL students.
3.4 Steps and integration of Turnitin in
teaching essay writing
The researchers conducted an Essay writing course
with the following steps. First, the researchers explain
the materials about comparison and contrast essay.
Then, students are asked to submit an outline of
Integrating Turnitin in Teaching Essay Writing for Tertiary Education
163

comparison and contrast essay through assignment
and to provide review on the other students’ work by
using PeerMark. After that, they compose draft of
comparison and contrast essay by developing idea
from the revised outline. Next, their drafts were
reviewed by other students and lecturers by using
PeerMark. Once the PeerMark of each draft has been
read, finally the students can submit the final revision
of essay through submitting it through assignment in
Turnitin. The detailed information of each steps can
be seen in Figure 4.
Figure 4: Steps and integration of Turnitin.
3.5 Students’ perceptions regarding the
strength of Turnitin
Having students’ perception, the reflection
assignment was assigned to all students. It is an
opportunity for students to write about what they
learned from the writing process as well as offer
feedback on the assignment they worked on. This is
most useful in classes that emphasize and teach the
writing process. Students’ responses in the reflection
assignment were analyzed. In conclusion, most of
students agreed that the use of OriginalityCheck,
GradeMark, and PeerMark are useful to improve their
writing skill of essay.
In addition, the researchers conducted an
interview with highly motivated students. They said
Turnitin for the teaching of argumentative essay is
accessible very fast through its website in
http://www.turnitin.com. Moreover, the subjects
revealed that using Turnitin made them more
responsible and self-confident since the teacher does
not tell when the materials will be uploaded exactly.
Students need to check regularly if an update
including materials and assignments are posted by the
teacher. Moreover, the activities that students are
assigned by using PeerMark in Turinitin such as peer
review and give feedbacks on their friends’ work by
responding to the free response and scale questions
have encouraged students to think more critically.
This statement is in line with the research conducted
by Zainnuri (2017), he stated that online peer review
through discussion via Schoology can support
facilitate to enhance students’ proficiency in higher
education about argumentative writing. This
statement is in line with the result of Sicat’s
experimental research which concludes that the LMS
Schoology in addition to the traditional method of
teaching can help facilitate in enhancing the college
students’ proficiency in Business Writing.
4 CONCLUSIONS
From the findings and discussion above, it can be
concluded that integrating Turnitin in the teaching of
essay writing helps teachers do the following: 1)
discuss academic integrity with students, 2) teach
essay writing techniques for tertiary education, 3)
teach students to cite sources properly, and 4) build
better essay writing skills in students. In addition, the
teachers can use Turnitin both to check students'
papers for originality and instructional support tools
for formative assessment and the students will be able
to identify where they needed to edit their work to
avoid plagiarism and should be more aware of
academic integrity.
REFERENCES
Alfaki, Ibrahim M. 2015. University Students’ English
Problems: Diagnosis and Remedy. International
Journal of English Language Teaching, 3(3), pp. 40-52.
Bangerter, R. A manual book for engaging students in the
writing process with Turnitin. Available at
http://www.turnitin.com. [Accessed 16 Oct. 2017].
Braun, V., and Clarke, V. 2006. Using Thematic Analysis
in Psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3,
pp. 77-101.
Harmer, J. 2004. Research on Peer Review Journal of
Second Language Writing. UK: Harlow, Essex.
Hyland, K. and Hyland, F. 2006. Contexts and issues in
feedback on L2 writing: An introduction. In K. Hyland
and F. Hyland. Feedback in Second Language Writing:
Context and Issues, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, pp. 446-448.
Kostka, I. and Ebsworth, M. E. 2014. Using Turnitin to
support students’ understanding of textual borrowing in
academic writing: A Case Study. In S. Li and P.
CONAPLIN and ICOLLITE 2017 - Tenth Conference on Applied Linguistics and the Second English Language Teaching and Technology
Conference in collaboration with the First International Conference on Language, Literature, Culture, and Education
164

Swanson. Engaging Language Learners through
Technology Integration: Theory, Applications, and
Outcomes. Hershey, Pennsylvania: Information
Science Reference, pp. 44-71.
Ledwith, A. and Rísquez, A. 2008. Using Anti-Plagiarism
Software to Promote Academic Honesty in the Context
of Peer Reviewed Assignments. Studies in Higher
Education, 33(4), pp. 371-384.
McGowan, U. 2005. Plagiarism Detection and Prevention:
Are We Putting the Cart before the Horse? In: HERDSA
Annual Conference. [online] Sydney, Australia, pp.
287-293. Available at
http://www.herdsa.org.au/wpcontent/uploads/conferen
ce/2005/papers/mcgowen.pdf. [Accessed 18 Feb.
2018].
McLafferty, C. L. and Foust, K. M. 2004. Electronic
Plagiarism as a College Instructor’s Nightmare –
Prevention and Detection. Journal of Education for
Business, 79(3), pp. 186-190.
Moffett, J. 1983. Assessment and Evaluation.
Clearinghouse Universidad Nacional de Colombia,
Ciudad Universitaria: Departmento de Lenguas
extranjeras.
Nunan, D. 1992. Research Method in Language Teaching.
New York: Prentice Hall.
Raimes, A. 1993. Out of the Woods: Emerging Traditions
in the Teaching of Writing. TESOL Quarterly, 25, pp.
407- 430.
Rees, M. and Emerson, L. 2009. The Impact that Turnitin
Has Had on Text-based Assessment Practice.
International Journal for Educational Integrity, 5(1),
pp. 20-29.
Sicat. 2015. Enhancing College Students’ Proficiency in
Business Writing via Schoology’, Int. J. Educ. Res.
3(1), pp. 159–178.
Stapleton, P. 2012. Gauging the Effectiveness of Anti-
Plagiarism Software: An Empirical Study of Second
Language Graduate Writers. Journal of English for
Academic Purposes, 11, pp. 125-133.
Yugandhar, K. 2015. Practicing Teacher Organized Peer
Review to Advance EFL Students’ Writing Skills.
International Journal on Studies in English Language
and Literature, 3, pp. 25-29.
Zainnuri, H. and Cahyaningrum, D. 2017. Using Online
Peer Review through Discussion via Schoology to
Enhance College Students’ Proficiency in
Argumentative Writing: A Case Study. In:
International Conference on Teacher Training and
Education. [online] Surakarta: Atlantis Press, p. 341.
Available at: http://atlantis-
press.com/proceedings/ictte-17/25885761 [Accessed
16 Feb. 2018].
Integrating Turnitin in Teaching Essay Writing for Tertiary Education
165