The role of anti-plagiarism software in learning to paraphrase effectively

Plagiarism, or using someone else's words or ideas without acknowledgment, is known to appear in university student writing. Culture, education, attitudes and language proficiency are viewed as the major causes of ESL writer plagiarism. The use of electronic plagiarism detection tools such as Turnitinⁱ and SafeAssignement seems to provide a remedy. While previous research (Walker, 2010) demonstrates that Turnitin can be an effective plagiarism deterrent, this paper claims that Turnitin can be additionally used as a learning aid which, paired with focused instruction, could help the students improve their quoting and paraphrasing skills. The claim is supported by an action research case study which tracks the plagiarism levels in a writing-intensive course. The conditions include the use of Turnitin to upload (1) the final assignment drafts only, (2) all assignment drafts, and (3) all drafts after explicit instruction in the use of Turnitin to improve paraphrasing skills. Condition 3 appears to be the most effective.