Have I made a HUGE mistake?

Back story. I'm 48 and in week 3 of an Occupational therapy course. I originally graduated in 1997 so have been out of academia for some time.

I submitted my first formative assessment today, it was just a 500 word assessment, and I got it back with a turnitin score of 54%.

I'm absolutely devastated and am now thinking I've made a huge mistake. I wanted to do something just for me, since my divorce, but I'm not sure I'm cut out for studying at my age.

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BankaiGintoki

21

Original post by Nattylou741

Back story. I'm 48 and in week 3 of an Occupational therapy course. I originally graduated in 1997 so have been out of academia for some time.

I submitted my first formative assessment today, it was just a 500 word assessment, and I got it back with a turnitin score of 54%.

I'm absolutely devastated and am now thinking I've made a huge mistake. I wanted to do something just for me, since my divorce, but I'm not sure I'm cut out for studying at my age.

From https://hummedia.manchester.ac.uk/faculty/staffnet/tandl/GuidanceonInterpretingOriginalityReportsApril14.pdf
‘The Originality Report is NOT a plagiarism report. Originality Reports help you readily locate potential plagiarism.

Academic judgement must be used to determine whether or not the highlighted text in the assignment has been correctly cited and referenced. Highlighted text in the Originality Report is just unoriginal.’

It depends on the nature of your essay, If it is quite research based, a mid range score is good, as it reflects your research.
From https://libguides.reading.ac.uk/citing-references/turnitin#:~:text=Average%20similarity%20index%20%E2%80%93%20up%20to,you%20are%20guilty%20of%20plagiarism.

‘It is quite normal for an essay to have up to 50% of matches to other items; or even more. This does not mean you are guilty of plagiarism. Remember, Turnitin counts anything in your work which matches another source as unoriginal: so, e.g., if you have used a quotation – in quote marks and correctly attributed – this will be counted as unoriginal material. By counting innocent material in this way, you can build up a significant “similarity index” without being guilty of plagiarism.’

Original post by Nattylou741

Back story. I'm 48 and in week 3 of an Occupational therapy course. I originally graduated in 1997 so have been out of academia for some time.

I submitted my first formative assessment today, it was just a 500 word assessment, and I got it back with a turnitin score of 54%.

I'm absolutely devastated and am now thinking I've made a huge mistake. I wanted to do something just for me, since my divorce, but I'm not sure I'm cut out for studying at my age.

Hi,

No, you haven't made a huge mistake! It can take time to adjust to university and can be really scary, i promise you that so many people feel like this at first, I know I did.

A Turnitin score of 54% could happen for a number of reasons, for instance if part of your assignment is filling out a form supplied by the tutor, turnitin will pick up all the questions that are on the form that you are answering because its already been supplied so it is in circulation. If its not related to this and you are just finding a high score from doing essays, then you could try reading the information you are wanting to include in your essay, and then re writing it in your own words and make sure to cite and reference it, changing a few words here and there wont be enough. I recommend contacting your student support team, there will be someone there who can help you with this. If you are unsure of how to contact them, speak to your tutor and they will be able to put you in contact with them, or they might even be able to get student support to do a class on how to avoid plagiarism.

I hope this helps,

-Victoria
Wrexham Uni Rep

Have I made a HUGE mistake?

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