My professor told me I MUST register with turnitin.com..

Just got a lovely note from a professor telling me that I MUST register with this site. Turnitin's Originality Checking ensures originality, as well as use of proper citation.


Lovely.

I have lurked here for awhile and I am not about to ask the dreaded question of who is the best and trustworthy. I would like to know which companies are not being used by Turnitin.

Sites like turnitin only compare your work to: (1) material that is already posted somewhere on the Internet and (2) material that has already been submitted to them and retained in their databanks. It has nothing to do with what essay site provides any work if the student chooses to submit it as his or her own work for credit.

Commercial essay sites use their own proprietary software to test their writers' work because once it's submitted to a commercial service like turnitin, it goes right into their files and would get flagged the very next time it's run through. As long as the person who actually wrote the work didn't plagiarize it from another source, nothing that's custom written should ever get flagged; cheaper pre-written essays that have been resold many times are a totally diferent story, obviously. Any reputable company makes very clear which papers are pre-written and they charge a lot more for custom work.

As you can already guess I was burned on an essay purchasing company because I submitted a pre-written one. Hence why I have to register with turnitin now. The professor was cool about it though...gave me 5 days to write a new one and said he wouldn't report it to the school "this time".

it seems not possible to register to turnitin as a student

my turnitin userid and password was provided by the school. so i guess it is correct to assume that they don't have accounts for students solely?

Your professor cannot force you to use a third-party, commercial service that directly profits from your intellectual property without your consent/permission.

They do - writecheck.turnitin.com.


Absolutely correct! You are the copyright holder and cannot be forced to upload your work to a third-party website for whatever purpose - your explicit consent is required.