I've used TurnitIn once in high school (and this website is responsible for my terrible grade in AP Government), and throughout the entire semester in college. There was this one moment where one of my professors opened up student's (upon their requests) submitted papers during class. We saw how TurnitIn detected 'copied' answers from Yahoo! Answers, eNotes, Cliff Notes, Shmoop, and Sparknotes. Yet, there were students who had no knowledge of using such resources inside of their essays. Of course, the professor is not going to speak to us one-by-one on how we came up with our responses to the prompt.

TurnitIn is a bit on the controversial side because of the supposed plagiarism it detects in students' works. Meaning, the student's answer and the Internet could both be the of the same wording. For example, a response to the question, 'How is Don Quixote considered a madman to everyone else in the story?' A student and a website could both have the answer of, 'He was thought of as a little crazy due to his obsession with fantasy fiction, real-life portrayal of the characters, the expeditions, and desire to bring the chivalry code to life.' Albeit, both human and computer may not have the entire sentence written out verbatim, but a portion of it does go towards the plagiarism percentage calculation. The unfortunate part is the student who wrote the sentence from his own mind will be receiving the plagiarism penalty, which also negatively affects his or her grade.

Of course, there will be similarities between someone who physically wrote a paper on Don Quixote, drinking and driving, Shakespeare, hacking, spamming, and the essays that are published online. There are only a number of ways one sentence can be changed around, so as to avoid the risk of copying someone else. Unfortunately, TurinitIn does not seem to recognize that, therefore, putting students at a risk for something they had never done before with school assignments. We have thousands of schools across the country, so there is bound to be the same topic from two different schools. I remember having to write this DBQ for AP U.S. History, and Googled the topic real quick to get a basic idea of what to write about. Instantly, I saw multiple results from universities, both near and far away from my home, and many of the results had published essays online. So, what is the point of giving a student penalty when this scenario is introduced into the scene. Yes, citing can prevent plagiarizing, but would it then be totally original if students had to cite every. single. sentence? It would just be plagiarizing all over again, but with honesty. I mean, that is just like stealing, but asking the owner first before taking whatever it is the person wishes to take.

The biggest problem TurnitIn faces is copyright law. When a student turns in their paper through this site, it is stored for future use by the teacher. However, the site does more than that, TurnitIn apparently archives the paper as well, which is a problem with students. When someone publishes their work online, of course, they would want to protect their rights in making sure nothing goes wrong with their paper (such as someone else downloading and adulterating the essay to their own accord). TurnitIn, as mentioned before, archives the paper, and that is a problem because other people could use the paper for their own benefits, which is usually not for the greater good. Read more about the $900,000 lawsuit here. *I am not affiliated by this link. I found it through a Google search. Let me just tell you, TurnitIn has not said anything about the lawsuit, which makes sense. It is all about the money these days, who cares about quality? I am looking at you, Kylie Jenner, and your terribly made lip applicators.

Another issue, albeit more ironic than an issue, is that TurnitIn is merely a business website. In addition, they promise to keep the paper restricted for teacher's use, when they actually archive the student's work for the public to see. If a site intends to be created for educational purposes, then it should be advertising itself as a non-profit company, keeping students' papers for teachers' eyes only, and promise fair use for everybody. TurnitIn is essentially false advertising because it does none of the above, and it also makes money by those false promises. When placed into that perspective, TurnitIn is almost a scam. Think about it: the site charges a fee for the instructor so that students are able to turn in their work, but the essays are placed into an archive instead of being restricted for the eyes of teachers. Is this not the typical description of a scam? A service that promises so much, but wanting money for it? And when someone does use the service, it then makes money off of someone's work, which is a (legal) problem.

This supposed educational site also plays upon a student's honesty. Someone who has a reputation for working hard would not make the stupid move of copying and pasting someone else's work and then claim it as their own. TurnitIn could be responsible for the expulsion of bright, brilliant students from many institutions within and outside of America. It is baffling how such highly educated people could believe the percentage of plagiarism stated by some pathetic website, but yet tell their students to not use Wikipedia. Some students merely use their previous papers and place a couple of the sentences onto their current paper. Yet, Turnitin would still count that because it is most likely already written by another individual, or archived by TurnitIn itself. The student would get blamed for plagiarizing majority of the paper, when most of it was probably not even from the Internet. However, as also mentioned before, the same phrases a student types could be on the internet as well. There is little to no originality these days, and professors/teachers seriously need to understand this concept. They cannot turn around and blame the youth for an Internet they never had intended to create in the first place. I am quite confident the millennials these days never asked for an Internet that would contain such huge volumes of information that they would also be conjuring in their own heads.

Moreover, writing a paper would mean including facts, right? Unless if the student is writing about philosophy, where they have the opportunity of placing their own opinion, then it would be just stupid to claim the student was plagiarizing. Basic facts, such as, 'the Earth revolves around the Sun' is all over the place, so why would it make sense for the pupil to have a penalty for simply stating a common fact? How many ways can 'the Earth revolves around the Sun' be reconstructed? If students are going to be doing research papers, there is bound to be repeated information. It is not a researched paper if the details in the essay are pulled straight from the student's head. Sentences formed by information solely based on the student's opinion and whatever they thought of is not an informative paper. Professors and teachers have to accept the reality of the Internet and the reality of common knowledge. School is in place for a reason, and basic facts are published for a reason. Punishing a pupil because they know of such things, or have studied the subject with deep interest is only going to make them distressed, discouraged, and maybe even, dishonest.

TurnitIn should either be expelled or used only for grammar checks, not plagiarism checks. Grammar checking is fine because some information published online can sound a little weird, even outdated. This will also help students in their future papers, so that their essays make more sense, and that the words they use are not just bombs. What I mean to say is, students are using complex words for supporting the essay because they know what the word means, not to impress anyone, but sound dumb at the same time because the word used does not fit into context of the paper.

Let's be real here, it is either #BanTurnItIn, or use it for grammar and spell checking, for free. No money should be involved when creating a website for educational purposes.