Feedback

There's a lot going on when you first click on your work on Turnitin.com. Hopefully, the explanations here will help you get the most out of the feedback that your teacher has added to your work. Frankly, there's a lot going on on this page too, so if you'd prefer a video guide, check out this one that I've put together:

Layers

When you first look at your work on Turnitin.com, there's a lot going on. The first thing you should do is disable the different layers, so that you can look at your feedback closely enough to understand it.

There are three different layers that should be visible on work that has been returned to you on Turnitin.com: Grading, Similarity, and eRater. To turn those layers on and off, you can click on the button that looks like the button to the left.

From this window, you can check or uncheck the different layers, letting you focus on the most helpful information, and tune out the less relevant or helpful information.

Grading

The grading layer includes all of the comments, grades, and corrections that were added by a teacher's hand. Some of the comments on this layer are the kinds of thing that teachers comment on frequently, so there are likely to be some comments that are identical, but there are also comments and corrections that are unique to you and your work on this layer.

Let's start with your grade. To look at your grade, first click on the little speech bubble icon that you see on the left.

Find the link that pops up in the "Text Comment" box on the right. You might need to copy and paste this link into a new tab if clicking on it doesn't work.

The link should take you to a Google Doc that looks kind like the one you see to the right. This should give you a breakdown of how your work was scored, and how your work earned the grade assigned to it.

Keep in mind that when first looking at your work, the left and right columns ("Not Yet Meeting Expectations" and "Exceeding Expectations" respectively) would be blank. Anything written in those columns should let you know more about your strengths and your growth areas.

It's also helpful to keep in mind that nothing is highlighted in green at first. Anything highlighted in green on your copy of the rubric lets you know which of the expectations for the assignment you successfully met. (And you should feel pride in a job well done for that!)

In the rightmost column, a score is assigned for each topic (based on how many of the expectations were met, exceeded, or not met), and your score is totaled in the bottom left. (You can see from this rubric, that I had a ways to go before I've mastered these skills.)

Text Comments

The most common kind of comment you'll see on your work will look like the little block of text you see to the left here. These are called QuickMarks, and they're a tool that saves teacher a fair amount of time by letting use a shorthand code to offer feedback, instead of typing the same comments over and over.

If you click on the QuickMark, an explanation will pop up. This is particularly helpful for QuickMarks that may look like code. It may be fairly obvious what "Cite" means, but you may be at a loss for what something like SQW or ConFC might mean.

It's usually a good idea to click on any of the QuickMarks on your work. The reason it has been assigned to your writing might only become clear toward the end of the explanation, so be sure to read to the end of the comment so you can try your best to learn from the feedback on your writing.

After all, a teacher made the decision to add this comment to your writing in the hope that you'll learn from the feedback and improve as a writer.

Sometimes, there is something unique about your writing that doesn't fit into a QuickMark. In that case, you'll see a little speech bubble attached to a highlighted passage (shown below). Clicking on the speech bubble will show you a specific message that your teacher typed in response to your writing.

Sometimes, a Quickmark might need a little more explanation, or your teacherr may offer some specific suggestions for improvement (or specific praise). If you see a QuickMark with a speech bubble next to it, that means that your teacher assigned a QuickMark to the highlighted passage, and added an additional message. You should definitely take the time to read those messages, as they are probably discussing things that are particularly important to learn, or explaining QuickMarks that might not seem relelvant otherwise.

When you see the little "stack of boxes" icon next to a QuickMark, that means that this comment influenced your grade. If there was a specific expectation set out in the rubric, then there was something in the writing noted here that either exceeded or failed to meet that expectation. You should be able to look back and forth between your QuickMarks and your rubric to see the specific points that led to the notes in the left and right-hand columns of your rubric. Remember, these can show both strengths as well as growth areas.

A QuickMark or comment that does not have a rubric mark may be the kind of feedback that a teacher felt was worth knowing, but was not really a part of the assignment. It may also be the kind of feedback a teacher will want you to know for future assignments.

If you click on a QuickMark with a rubric icon, you can see exactly which row of the rubric the comment is relevant to at the top of the expanded comment.

If you see this, that means that there was something that affected the score of your work, but that it didn't really fit into a QuickMark.

This QuickMark has both a rubric category assigned to it, and an additional comment written by your teacher.

eRater

If you uncheck the Grading layer and check the eRater layer, you'll see some automatically generated feedback on your work. Think of this as the same kind of feedback you see from tools like Grammarly, or the spelling and grammar checker on Google Docs.

You'll see highlights in purple, and additional QuickMarks on this layer. All of these comments were made by a computer (not a person), and none of these should be seen as reasons why your work did not meet the expectations of the assignment.

While I'm grading your work, I leave this layer visible, and I try to catch any comments that are incorrect or irrelevant. If the eRater catches a problem that is relelvant to an expectation in the rubric, then I'll dismiss that comment too and replace it with one of my own. That way, you can be sure that if there is a comment explaining a loss of credit on your work, you can be sure that it came from your teacher, not a computer.

Just as with teacher generated comments, you can click on eRater comments to read a more specific explanation of the comment. If the comment was left on your work, it is likely that there is valuable feedback, and it is worth your time to read this comments so that you can improve as a writer.

If you read the comment, and you feel that the comment is irrelevant, confusing, or incorrect: you may be right. Turnitin.com is sometimes buggy, and these comments sometimes fail to load, so sometimes they get by me. I'm also only human, and sometimes I make a mistake and miss some of these comments that should have been dismissed. Check in with me if you think there are eRater comments that should have been dismissed.

Similarity

This Similarity layer is the so-called "plagiarism checker." It is a report generated by a computer that looks for passages in your work that may be similar to passages found in other works submitted to Turnitin.com, or that can be found online.

If your work has been graded, then your teacher has already reviewed the Similarity Report, and found that your work is likely authentic. If there is a problem with the authenticity of your work, I will speak with you before grading your work. You can ignore the Similarity Report if your work already has comments from your teacher.

While looking at your work with the Similarity layer active, you'll see passages highlighted. You can click on these passages, and you'll be shown the name of the similar source. Sometimes, these sources are from student work at other schools. This shouldn't be of any concern: in almost all cases this just means that you've used a quotation in your work that was used by another student somewhere else in the country.

You may also see some passages that are flagged in your Similarity Report that are simply commnly used phrases. No teacher should suspect you of cheating simply because you're not the first student to ever use the phrase "In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee." The Similarity Report from Turnitin.com is a quick and thorough look at your writing, but it does not make a judgement on your writing, but it can help your teacher decide whether or not your writing needs a closer look.

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