TO THE EDITOR:
This is a response to the article “UNC purchases Turnitin plagiarism-detection software” by Caitlin McCabe and Megan Cassella.
Many people seem to support the use of Turnitin. But to be completely honest, I am not entirely sure how I feel about the University purchasing advanced plagiarism detection software. Certainly, plagiarism is an ever-present threat to the integrity of students on campus, but does this mean that increasing the incentive to not plagiarize is necessarily a good thing?
I am not so certain. Jean DeSaix claims that her goal is “to have a system that will help us do our best, rather than tempting us to do our worst.” However, instead of helping students do their best, the use of Turnitin would more likely force them to never do their worst.
With the risk of being caught plagiarizing so high, it will be incentive, not moral values, that motivate students to write honestly. This could be more dangerous to the development of student integrity than the actual act of plagiarism itself.
Another issue I have with Turnitin is the possibility that students may begin to rely on it. Out of the many features within the software, the one that concerns me most is WriteCheck, a feature that checks the work of students for them to see if it contains any plagiarized text. This could easily be abused by students. By checking their work for them, Turnitin could potentially deprive students of the crucial experience of consciously avoiding plagiarism in their own writing.
It should be clear that the University’s use of Turnitin needs to be considered more thoroughly, for this technology could create more problems than it solves.
Ryan Passer
Freshman
Economics
