Plagiarism checker

Hello:

Im not sure about the acceptable ratio, but if you referenced your work carefully, then you dont have a lot to worry about. There are no shortcuts for checking as far as I know. Just double check everything. And its not plagerism if you reference your work!
I made sure there wasnt any plagerism by referencing my work side by side. If you leave it to the end, there is a chance you forget whats your own work and what is someone elses!

Good luck!

Hey, no problem 🙂

Yeah, nothing to fret over then! Its normal to fret over it till the last minute, and after that. But if you did it carefully, then ignore the nervousness 🙂

Good luck!

Again, np 😉 addressing your questions:

Well, yes. What I did was paste the image url as the reference. Remember, anything that is not your own material, be it pictures, maps etc, provide a source. Why take a chance when everything else on your project is perfect? 🙂 I also referenced the tables I adapted from official documents and websites!

No no, references are not to be included in the word count. Nor are the titles, like – PART ONE: OVERALL OBJECTIVES AND RESEARCH APPROACH – this wouldnt be a part of the word count. However, subheadings are, so be careful to include those.

Ahhh, yes, that might be a bit problematic. I honestly have no idea 🙁 I suggest you ask your mentor or contact Oxford Brookes directly on acca@brookes.ac.uk. Although…there was something on the website that said that when you are submitting your project you are required to enter your mentor details. So its possible that they contact the mentor for verification. But, again, do inquire!

Hope this helped 🙂

@alyssa786: hi, could you rephrase your question? Im not quite sure what you are asking 🙁

Yes, you do.

@gm2191: I didnt go through such a detailed process! I just enclosed the text I had picked off from some source in quotes, and put the url in footnotes. Nothing about accessed on. That would come in your bibliography. Not referencing within the report. You may put in the name of the article if you wish, esp if its in a book/newspaper and there are multiple articles floating around, and also if the website had multiple articles in the same link and you want to point to the right one. But no need to write accessed on…thats for the biblio.

Hope this helped!

Hello!

If the previous msg was for biblio, then its fine..you might have to confirm the sequence in which you have to write things, and if the author is named for a particular article, then mention it.

Ahhh, regarding the limits, following is the text I picked out of the OBU infopack:

The word limit for your Research Report is 6,500 words. Oxford Brookes University recommends the following structure and approximate word distribution for your Research Report. We believe that this will allow you to demonstrate all of the required technical and professional skills, and graduate skills in sufficient depth.

Since it is recommended, I suggest you stick to it. I dont know how strictly you must adhere to it, but it is reasserted in the last line, so I think it would be better to play it safe and sticking to the limit.

I think I mentioned it in an earlier post that references are not to be included in the word count…nevertheless, here is something from the OBU infopack that might confirm that:

The 6,500 word limit excludes the Title Page, the Contents Page, the List of
References and the Appendices. Words used in tables and graphs and other forms of data presentation are not included in the word count. However, words used in section headings are included in the word count.

Hope this helped!

https://www.grammarly.com is the best website I can recommend for grammar and plagiarism. You can get 1 week free trial initially when you register. You have to give your debit or credit card details. However, if you cancel it within 7 days you won’t be charged. It is a 100% trusted website which many students use.

Read the economist.com review on the website.
https://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2012/08/grammar-software

Thanks

Yes Turnitin works and should (depending on which parameters have been set) identify each passage every time you have used an external source and show where that source came from.

A word of warning though from my own experience – do NOT be alarmed if you initially get an ‘Amber’/ Orange score (potentially a significant amount plagiarised). When I submitted my dissertation for my Masters it came back with a frighteningly high 30% (and in that university’s Amber zone). I don’t know who offers a Turnitin checking service but unless you can see all of the results for yourself I.e. all of the highlighted passages it could give you an unnecessary nasty shock! In my case most of the ‘potentially plagiarized’ sections turned out to be the mandatory inclusion of that university’s ethics statement + their standard statement of authenticity that had to be copied word for word!

However Turnitin did identify one significant passage which although referenced had not been put in citation marks and a couple of other minor accidental ‘lapses’ that I was then able to correct. One thing though unless you go through it with a fine toothcomb, you may still end up accidentally submitting something wrongly referenced – I had cited 2 pieces of work by the same author but written in different years but accidentally got them confused as just one and the same source ( so the year bit of my reference was wrong in one place and my list only showed one source). I only discovered the error to my horror several weeks after the final submission. Fortunately the markers didn’t notice and I still got 72%!

So don’t beat yourself up about referencing and I would say if you have done your RAP yourself and followed the rules fairly well you will be forgiven for the odd mistake. If you still want to run it through Turnitin for ‘peace of mind’ then that’s up to you but from reading your posts, I think it sounds like it would be an unnecessary extra expense… 😀

The primary reason universities use Turnitin is to uncover copied work. It will catch unscrupulous students who think that they can just rewrite sentences and a few paragraphs of something that was passed previously and get away with it (which is why I have been warning students not to send out their work in response to requests on this forum for ‘samples’). As Turnitin uses some complex algorithms within a massive database, it will be child’s play for OBU to spot the similarities – it will identify who previously wrote the piece too (even if it was submitted to another university), so both parties potentially get caught!

I don’t think as you @Kings and Queens have anything to worry about on that one, you can chill but maybe a few others reading this may be a little worried!!!! 😀

Your referencing sounds about right – as you are referencing graphs then you shouldn’t have to reference the figures and ratios that relate to them again in the paragraph that follows unless there would be an ambiguity or it isn’t clear where they come from (and then it would be ok just to say ” see Appendix A part D for calculations” just once) . One thing I am not clear on though is whether your graphs are in the text or all shoved away in the Appendices? If the latter move them to the appropriate section in the text as they are integral for the marker to understand and follow your reasoning and arguments. (Appendices are for reference material so basic calculations are fine there but not key charts and graphs).

The word count is now 7,500 which includes all the main RAP material but does not include Appendices and the actual Reference list (for which there are no word count limits). When it comes to eliminating words go for the introductory sections first – the analysis and evaluation sections in my opinion are probably key to passing/getting a good grade. Provided you have mentioned some limitations etc and covered the other usual ‘niceties’ in the beginning you should not go overboard at the expense of the actual analysis, which is the last thing that should be cut. 😀

@Kings And Queens – got a suggestion for you (and anyone else submitting their RAP) -When doing my Masters dissertation a fellow student suggested we read each other’s work and make any objective changes to make it flow better and spot any places where it was potentially missing a reference. Was really useful especially as I was seriously exceeding the word count as when you are so intimately involved in your own work it’s hard to spot things to change.

I reworked your paragraph for example to make it more succinct (in my opinion!) and to lose a few words in the process. (There is nothing wrong with what you wrote though)

“Despite the strong earnings, the Interest Cover declined from 2.88 to 1.1 times in FY11. The reason for this decline was that in order to meet the working capital requirement in the circular debt crisis, short-term borrowings rose substantially by 88.5% *to meet the subsequent 20.5% increase in finance cost*(Reuters, 2011). PBIT rose only rose by 7.4% – significantly less than the finance cost – therefore this impacted on the Interest Cover (See Appendix A, part D for calculations).”

* Should this be “contributing to the subsequent 20.5% increase in finance cost” ???

Maybe a good friend/ colleague / fellow student can be coerced to help edit if you think it would be beneficial overall? Always worth a second opinion if only to confirm that you are on track!