As with many educators who work with students whose lives are increasingly “computerized,” Marye has had to address the challenges of getting students to focus on writing that is more than just tweets, posts, or texts. It helps that her school is totally digital (there are no textbooks), and though her students are accustomed to writing and doing their work online, they struggle with academic writing and definitely with incorporating information that they find into their assignments. While Marye’s students understand how to pull text from research and include that information into their papers, they are not sure how to distinguish between whether their use is plagiarism or not.
Turnitin Similarity Reports have helped Marye to teach her students how to use evidence from texts appropriately, without plagiarizing. But, more than just that, Marye has take advantage of Turnitin’s feedback tools to provide feedback and create opportunities for peer feedback that students are much more likely to read and use to improve their work, whether in terms of their use of source material or in pursuit of better academic writing. With the additional use of Turnitin to keep student writing portfolios, Marye has helped to instill an understanding among her students that writing is not just an academic exercise, but an important life skill.