15. Plagiarism and Referencing

15.1. How Turnitin works

Turnitin is an online tool used at Queen Mary to support academic integrity by checking submitted work for potential plagiarism.

Submitting Your Work

A Turnitin assignment is set up by a member of staff, typically via QMplus. You will access the assignment online and upload your work before the deadline.

Once submitted, Turnitin analyses your work by comparing it against:

  • Current and archived web content
  • Previously submitted student papers
  • Published books, journals, and academic articles

Turnitin Reports

For each submission, Turnitin generates two key outputs:

  1. Similarity Index

    • This is a percentage score indicating how much of your work matches other sources.

  2. Originality Report

    • This provides a detailed breakdown of matched text, showing the source of each match and highlighting areas that may require attention.