Can Turnitin Detect Handwritten Work? Can I get Away with Plagiarism by Submitting a Handwritten Paper?

Submitting plagiarized work is considered to be a severe offense in many learning institutions. Some of the repercussions of this form of cheating include failing a course, ruining your reputation, legal repercussions, or even expulsion. Unfortunately, students continue to find ways to cheat and avoid detection.

Many students, especially those in higher learning institutions, still think that handwritten work cannot be flagged for plagiarism. Therefore, some of them submit handwritten papers intending to bypass plagiarism detection.

However, can plagiarism be detected on a handwritten paper? Can Turnitin detect handwritten work? To answer these questions and many more on this topic, kindly read through this article.

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Can Turnitin Detect Handwritten Work?

Turnitin cannot detect handwritten work. This plagiarism checker cannot read and interpret handwritten work because it can only recognize typed work only.

However, Turnitin can detect handwritten work when you or your professor scan’s the work through Lens or some Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology.

When you submit the processed work to Turnitin, it will review the work for any similarity and plagiarism issues and detect such problems if present.

Also see: Can Turnitin detect Quillbot

Can You Scan Handwritten Work and Submit to Turnitin?

Scanning your handwritten work and submitting it to Turnitin is pretty achievable. This process is possible with Meteorology and Sciences, Economics, Language courses, and Mathematics. Below are guidelines to complete this simple process.

First, take a clear picture of the handwritten work using a smartphone or a camera. You can also scan the handwritten document using a scanning app on your phone. Then, save the images/ scanned copy on your computer.

Secondly, extract all the text in the saved images or the scanned PDF file. To do so, use the Optical Character Reader (OCR), which converts the pictures or the scanned paper into a text or editable Word format.

Finally, enter the converted text or Word format in Turnitin for similarity and plagiarism detection. Remember, before you enter the text in Turnitin, use the option ‘Allow any file type.’

In addition, ensure that the document you want to submit to Turnitin contains at least 20 typed words to enable the software to identify the text as selectable text and avoid issues during submission.

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Can Plagiarism Be Detected on a Handwritten Paper?

Plagiarism can be detected on handwritten paper. Professors can always detect plagiarism in handwritten documents, whether submitted in non-electronic form or online.

Therefore, students should avoid plagiarizing their work even if they handwrite the papers and submit them manually.

Professors can check for plagiarism in handwritten papers by using plagiarism-checking software like Turnitin.

They can do so by scanning the whole document using an Optical Character Reader, which converts the handwritten work into word format, sends the file to a plagiarism checking software, and receive a similarity report in at least a minute.

Also check: Can Turnitin detect copy and paste?

Additionally, professors compare a student’s previously written work with the current paper. Through this method, the instructors compare phrases, sentence structures, and curves of rounded letters.

If these features appear different, professors can know that the student copied the work. Students do not drastically change from being poor writers to professional writers.

Finally, the absence of citations in the handwritten work implies heavily that the work has been plagiarized. Remember, it is not hard to detect the originality of a submitted handwritten paper for instructors who have been in the career-long enough.

This is because such professors have taught the course for many years and know the content on the course posted online.

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Do University Handwritten Exams Get Checked for Plagiarism?

University handwritten exams rarely get checked for plagiarism. If the handwritten exams are submitted manually in hard copies, the possibility of the universities scanning the documents to check for plagiarism is minimal.

Remember, after students submit their exams, professors are faced with pressure and time constraints to mark the exams and present their results on time.

Therefore, in cases where handwritten exams are submitted in hard copies, professors may face insufficient time to scan all the exam papers page by page to run them through plagiarism detecting software, mark the papers, and handle them back in time.

However, when the handwritten exams are submitted electronically, or there are suspicions of cheating, universities check such handwritten exams for plagiarism.

In such cases, all the professors need to do is extract texts in the submitted work through OCR and run the exams in a plagiarism detecting software like Turnitin.

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Is Submitting Handwritten Work Good to Avoid Being Flagged for Plagiarism?

Submitting handwritten work is not a solution to avoid being flagged for plagiarism. Remember, when you submit a plagiarized document, your professor can always detect the plagiarism regardless of whether it is typed or handwritten.

Even without scanning your work and popping it on a plagiarism checker, a seasoned professor can pick out suspicious activity in your work when it is plagiarized.

For example, they can check for inconsistent phrases, mismatched writing styles, and the general overview of your work and determine if the work is copied.

Therefore, handwriting your work to avoid being flagged for plagiarism is not the way to go. Instead, the solution lies in conducting thorough research and writing a credible paper that is plagiarism-free or hiring a professional essay writer to do your work.

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Do Professors Check for Plagiarism on the Hard Copy Papers?

Professors usually check for plagiarism on hard copy papers that their students submit for marking. However, these are excluded cases where the professors suspect that plagiarism has been committed.

In a case of suspected copying, they will check for plagiarism regardless of whether the paper is soft copy or hard copy. For example, they can either type the article section in question in Turnitin or scan the entire document and run it in a plagiarism checker.

Additionally, the professors may compare the student’s hard copy paper with previously written papers. They look for a noticeable mismatch in style, sophisticated concepts used, lack of or wrong citations, and unusual phrases inconsistent with the student’s previous papers.

However, professors don’t need to check every submitted hard copy paper for plagiarism. A good scenario is when a class has many students, for example, 50 students and above, and all the students handed all their hard copy papers to the professor for marking.

In such a case, the professor cannot scan all the papers page by page to check for plagiarism later.

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Conclusion

So, can Turnitin detect handwritten work? After reading this article, you can agree with me that even if you handwrite your work and submit it for marking, your professor can still detect any form of plagiarism in the work, either by themselves or employing a plagiarism checker like Turnitin.

Therefore, this indicates that submitting a handwritten work is not a solution to avoid being flagged for plagiarism.