LibGuides: Reference help: Turnitin Draft Coach

Turnitin Draft Coach helps you write in your own words

Haaga-Helia uses the plagiarism detection system Turnitin. Students can use the Turnitin Draft Coach add-in to check their own texts before handing in their assignment or thesis. The program helps you to write better texts in your own words and avoid direct copying. Draft Coach compares your text with the material in its database and warns you of potential plagiarism problems and gaps in source citations. It can also be used to check the grammar of English-language texts.

If you check your text with Draft Coach, your text will not be stored in Turnitin's database. The text will only be saved when you return the assignment for Turnitin plagiarism check in Moodle or Teams.

Start using Turnitin Draft Coach

Turnitin Draft Coach is available in Word Online (M365) with Haaga-Helia IDs.

Open a browser, for example Chrome or Edge.
Go to https://www.office.com/apps and log in at xxxxxxxx@myy.haaga-helia.fi (ID is not in the format etunimi.sukunumi@myy.haaga-helia.fi).
Select Word from the applications.
Upload your file to Word Online.
From the toolbar, select Turnitin and then Draft Coach.

If you get the error message Authentication Failed, click Try again.

6. The Draft Coach panel opens on the right side of the screen. This guide concentrates on the tool Similarity Check. You can read more about the two other tools Citations Check and Grammar Guide in Turnitin's Student's Hub. Please note that the Citations Check does not reliably identify citations that comply with Haaga-Helia's reporting guidelines.

Similarity Check

Start the Similarity check by selecting Go to Similarity and then Run Similarity Check. Click Confirm. The analysis will take a few moments to complete.

The Overall Similarity score indicates the amount of matching text Draft Coach found in the Turnitin database. You can also see a breakout of similarities by sources. In addition, you can see how many similarity checks you have left for this text. You can check the same file three times.

For more detailed results, click View Full Report.

You can refine the Similarity report with Filters. Compare submissions against option allows you to choose the types of documents your text is compared with. Use Exclusion filters to exclude certain parts of your text from the analysis. For example, references in your bibliography (list of sources) may be flagged as similarities when matched with other bibliographies unless Exclude bibliography is selected.

Draft Coach highlights the parts in your text where it has found similarities. Click on the highlighted text or the source in the result panel to see

how many text blocks have similarities with the source
how many matching words have been found
the original text (View Full Source Text) or a link to it

Understanding the report

You should always view the highlighted similarities in context. Don't look only at the percentage. There is no specific score that you should aim for. Not all highlighted sections are necessarily a sign of plagiarism. Acceptable similarities include:

A necessary quotation that is marked with quotation marks or indentation and referenced in accordance with the Haaga-Helia Reporting Guidelines.
In-text citations and the text in the bibliography (list of sources).
Established phrases, expressions, lists, etc. A citation is required if the information cannot be considered common knowledge.

Otherwise, you are expected to express the content in your own words. Rewrite the text, if the report reveals, for example, these:

Long, continuously highlighted text segments, even when the source is cited.
Long text segments with gaps here and there, even when the source is cited. It's not enough to change a word here, another word there. Not even when the source is cited.
Unnecessary quotations, even when the source is cited.

Note! Draft Coach may interfere with the formatting settings of Haaga-Helia's report templates. It is recommended to use Word Online only for the Draft Coach checks. Use the desktop version of Word to edit your text.