Taking on Turnitin: Tutors Advocating Change

Abstract

Like many writing centers, ours trained us to respond to writers whose papers might involve plagiarism; we learned to show students how to use various para-phrasing techniques and how to cite sources. In staff meetings, we talked about why it was more important to understand the causes of students' plagiarism than to judge them for it. Then one day, a student walked into our writing center and said that she had submitted a paper to her professor online, as required, only to learn a