Q. Where do I submit my paper to be checked for plagiarism?

Why do we check for plagiarism?
Berkeley College uses software called TurnItIn to check for Plagiarism, which is considered a serious issue in U.S. colleges & graduate schools. This does not mean that we assume students are intentionally plagiarizing. We recognize that sometimes plagiarism is accidental, because you copied a passage and didn't write it in your own words, or don't know how to properly give credit to the places you found information you used for a college paper. This software is designed to alert your professor if you are not submitting your own original work.

Depending on how your professor set it up, you may be able to submit your paper twice. First to submit a draft and get the Turnitin Similarity report and use it to help you understand where rewrites or more citations may be needed. Then again to submit the final paper after you have made corrections, which then goes to your professor for grading. But check with your instructor, since some classes only let you submit it once, and that paper is considered final and cannot be edited. 

Where?
The process to submit your paper to check for plagiarism is almost the same as submitting any assignment or paper in Canvas. 

• Go into the course where you need to use TurnItIn.
• Go to Modules, then click on the week & assignment that is due, since that is where most instructors will put the link to upload your paper.
• If there is a link that says View/Complete, click on that.
• Scroll down to where it says Attach File and browse to find your paper to upload.
• Click Submit and follow the prompts to ensure your paper is uploaded.

What is TurnItIn? 
TurnItIn is used to detect similarities between your work and other's writing that could be caused by plagiarism. It creates opportunities to help you avoid accidentally plagiarizing, and help you properly attribute sources. TurnItIn compares your submitted assignments against a set of other student papers, published articles, and website content to identify areas of overlap between the submitted assignment and existing works. Then it gives a percentage of matches it found between what you wrote and other material in its database, and shows where it found the same language that is in your paper.