Faculty can use iThenticate to scan any papers students submit for class assignments, or only those papers that show signs of potential plagiarism.*

We recommend letting students know on your syllabus whether all or some papers may be run through iThenticate, and that students are expected to adhere to the Academic Honor Code.

*Publicly releasable documents only; iThenticate is not approved for CUI, PII, or PHI.

Advising teams may want to run publicly releasable drafts of their advisees’ chapters through iThenticate as the text is developed, so they can guide students early on.

Or advisors may run a Near-final Draft thesis through iThenticate before they or their student signs the Thesis Release and Approval Form (TRAF). The TRAF attests that the thesis is compliant with the Academic Honor Code (student), meets academic standards (advisors and chairs), and is ready for release (student and faculty).

If plagiarism, in even draft chapters, appears extensive and intentional, faculty have the option, per the Honor Code, to report the misconduct to the Dean of Students.

Faculty and staff.

Students are not authorized to have NPS iThenticate accounts (see “Why can’t students get iThenticate accounts?” under the FAQs, Additional Policies).

Email a request to software@nps.edu.

No; the software is relatively user-friendly. See the iThenticate User Guide.

That said, it takes practice to differentiate between real problems and false positives in similarity reports. Contact the GWC at writingcenter@nps.edu if you'd like one of our trained staff members to analyze a similarity report for you.

Click here for instructions.

Word docs, text files, and PDFs. LaTeX files can be saved as PDFs and then uploaded.* For a full list of supported file types, see the iThenticate website.

*Publicly releasable documents only; iThenticate is not approved for CUI, PII, or PHI.

Yes.

It won’t allow documents over 40 MB or 400 pages. To submit a large .doc file, first convert it to PDF, then save the PDF as a "reduced size" file.

By keeping a human in the loop who is knowledgeable about citation and documentation practices, and proficient with the software.

Thesis office and writing center staff are trained to review each passage iThenticate highlights, and to help authors determine if there is plagiarism or a documentation issue. 

For more information, see the GWC's "Approach to Plagiarism Prevention and iThenticate" handout, and the TPO's citation guides page.

Yes.

Particularly if iThenticate flags passages that contain field-specific common knowledge or typically unquoted technical language (such as mathematical variables). Advisors can help students determine when foundational concepts or language should be cited, and when it does not need to be.

The TPO, as the NPS unit that publishes theses, is responsible within its resource base for publishing theses that do not contain knowingly plagiarized material or personally identifiable information (PII), meet copyediting and formatting standards, have all necessary signatures, are properly marked with the faculty-designated distribution statement, and have permission to use copyrighted material.

iThenticate is an automated tool that allows users to more easily and quickly:

1. Identify issues with verbatim copied material that hasn't been quoted
2. Identify incomplete paraphrasing
3. Teach proper citing, quoting, paraphrasing, and documentation methods while manuscripts are still in draft stage.

Any student who has been away from academia may forgot citation norms and rules. Still, all NPS students are responsible for producing classwork and theses that are free of plagiarism, whether intentional or unintentional.

Few faculty members have used iThenticate. When used infrequently, the expertise atrophies.

Thesis processors and GWC instructors are trained on how to properly cite, quote, and paraphrase, and most maintain proficiency with the software. The TPO and GWC also share common explanations, emails, and best practices, to standardize requirements and resource availability across the departments.

This service is supplementary to efforts by students, faculty, and the Dean of Students. Students are best served when they work hand-in-hand with faculty and writing instructors toward the proper use of sources.

Yes, but only under three conditions:

1. The Initial Draft appeared to have concerns.
2. No Initial Draft was run.
3. Thesis processors notice signs of potential problems during Final Draft review.

The TPO will contact the advisors and department chair for further discussion. If the problems are minor and inadvertent, students are typically permitted to correct and resubmit the thesis. If the problems are moderate to significant or appear willful, the case is turned over to the Dean of Students (see Academic Honor Code).

Yes—this is either encouraged or required for students whose Initial Draft iThenticate report showed concerns.

The student or advisor must request an additional report by emailing Thesis Processing.

If an Initial Draft report "does not identify significant plagiarism issues," per the email, then the thesis is not eligible for a Near-final Draft report from the TPO. However, students can make appointments with the writing center to review revisions and to run additional chapters through iThenticate.

Evaluators rely predominantly on iThenticate’s markings to direct their attention. They look for material, for instance, that has been copied from another source but lacks quotation marks, block quoting, or citations; quotations that are not formatted correctly; directly quoted material that has a citation but no quotation marks; and incomplete paraphrasing.

The evaluator leaves comments on areas of potential concern, and recommends what or how to revise.

The evaluator may recommend consultation with an advisor, especially for passages that contain field-specific common knowledge. The evaluator may comment on iThenticate’s false-positives for clarity, but typically evaluators comment only on areas that appear problematic.

If the evaluator spots potential issues in the text not identified by iThenticate, such as uncited figures and tables, they may investigate further or leave a query.

See the TPO's "Advice for Acing Your iThenticate Review" for common iThenticate report comments.

They are placed as comment balloons in the PDF, typically to the right of the color-coded passage being commented on. Contact the evaluator if you cannot see their comment balloons.

When the Thesis Processing Office is overloaded, GWC staff may evaluate iThenticate reports on behalf of the TPO.

This is encouraged so students learn early the proper methods of citing, quoting, and paraphrasing. The hope is that, by thesis time, students are critically engaging sources, know the correct methods, and are following them.

For publicly releasable papers,* simply make an appointment with a writing instructor in WCONLINE and request and iThenticate report in your appointment form. The instructor will run the document through iThenticate and go over the results as part of the appointment.

*Only publicly releasable content can be uploaded to iThenticate. For CUI papers, writing instructors can consult on citation and source blending without the use of iThenticate.

Yes. Not requiring this is interpreted by many students as a lack of requirement in general. At thesis time, students become angry when they discover that habits that have been tacitly approved by instructors are no longer sufficient. Most important, coursework offers opportunities for faculty to teach students how to incorporate sources, from thinking about and evaluating sources to incorporating sources following academic norms.

Because there are vast and varying style requirements between the citation styles, learning an field-appropriate style early will prevent students from having to quickly and/or sloppily learn a style while also completing thesis research and writing. Practicing a citation style early and often also helps students learn what source information is necessary during notetaking; developing good notetaking habits saves students immeasurable time expended re-finding sources later. Sloppy notetaking is a significant contributor to plagiarism.

Most NPS students have been out of school for years. They may have forgotten the rules, or they may have come from technical disciplines that didn’t stress writing skills. Additionally, the military services have a laissez-faire culture of repurposing written material without attribution, which inculcates bad habits for students re-entering academia.

Writing coaches, thesis processors, and librarians regularly work with resident and distance-learning students on these issues. For NPS online resources, see these links:

• GWC: "Plagiarism Prevention 101"
• GWC: "Foundations of Academic Writing"
• GWC: Writing Resources
• TPO: Citation Guides
• DKL: Citation Styles

Plagiarism is the borrowing of another author’s or source's words, ideas, images, or data without giving credit. Written works are assumed to be the author's invention, unless otherwise indicated. Quoted, paraphrased, and summarized information from others must be attributed to its source.

The exception is that common knowledge and field-specific common knowledge need not be cited if it is rarely disputed.

Yes. The NPS Academic Honor Code, NPSINST 5370.4D (10 October 2018), uses the Naval Academy definition, defining plagiarism as "the use of the words, information, insights, or ideas of another without crediting that person through proper citation. Unintentional plagiarism, or sloppy scholarship, is academically unacceptable; intentional plagiarism is dishonorable. You can avoid plagiarism by fully and openly crediting all sources used."

(Department of the Navy, Academic Honor Code, NPSINST 5370.4D, Monterey, CA: Naval Postgraduate School, 2018.)

Academia at large and the publishing world sometimes do not distinguish between source misuse and willful misattribution in assessing whether authors are guilty of a violation. Authors are expected to know the rules.

The NPS Honor Code definition of plagiarism [see previous question] differentiates between unintentional and intentional plagiarism.

Regardless, Thesis Processing will not knowingly publish a thesis that contains plagiarized material.

By the Honor Code rules, when a Final Draft thesis has been submitted to Thesis Processing and the student has signed the Thesis Release and Approval Form, the student is henceforth responsible for any instances of apparently intentional plagiarism and must be referred to the Honor Board if instances are discovered.

Final Drafts with potential plagiarism may be discussed with the advisors and chair. The GWC/TPO Director determines whether to forward the case to the Dean of Students for an Honor Board or to work with the student to correct inadvertent plagiarism.

Yes, if not attributed properly. If you use text created by a generative AI tool, its use must be disclosed. Refer to the citation guidance for generative AI.

No. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT cannot be used for plagiarism detection because they do not have any “memory” of sources they have trained on.

Not always. Some instances of misattribution appear to be clear-cut cases of plagiarism. Other instances (identified by iThenticate) fall into a gray area, either because of their abbreviated length or because the identified passages may be common field-specific phrases. Students should discuss such issues with their professors, thesis advisors, or other subject matter experts.

Undoubtedly. The internet, while a fantastic tool for finding information, facilitates a cut-and-paste culture in which some students, either through sloth or ignorance, believe they can produce papers and theses simply by corralling information from the web.

A 2013 study of U.S. colleges indicated that plagiarism occurred for four major reasons:

1. Lack of research skills (34%)
2. Lack of time (26%)
3. Careless note-taking (22%)
4. Confusion about how to cite sources (18%)

(Rob Greenburg, "The Problem of Plagiarism among Students," HubPages, Intellectual Property Law, last modified March 11, 2013.)

• Evidence of shortcuts in other areas (sloppiness)
• Few or no citations
• Sudden changes of tone or style
• Change in formatting, including font size or style, margins, and citation style
• Text indicates an outside source, but there is no citation with or near the text
• Weak organization and argumentation
• Quite a bit of information but little analysis
• Inclusion of irrelevant material
• Clearly borrowed figures and table data with no source listed.

Often, the literature review, which is most dependent on existing literature, is where plagiarism occurs. It's less likely to be found in the original research chapters. But we've seen theses that are littered with misattribution throughout the document, including, even, in the abstract, introduction, and conclusion.

We also see plagiarism more frequently in figures and tables than in other areas. 

Many universities require such a statement on all syllabi. At NPS, it is a personal preference, but we encourage doing so, if only to open the conversation with students and encourage them to ask if they have questions.

By signing off on a thesis, the student is giving his or her assurance that the work is original unless indicated otherwise by clear and complete attribution. This signature marks the threshold for plagiarism that separates a work in progress from a completed work submitted for publication.

Ideas, information, models, theories, directly borrowed language, images, or data from other sources that are not common knowledge or field-specific common knowledge. Controversial information, even if commonly known, should also be cited.

Identifying the source author affords the reader full opportunity to validate or falsify the authority, bias, or any other form of legitimacy that reflects on the accuracy, quality, or evidentiary value of the material.

By the same token, the reader has the right to assess the source medium, whether peer-reviewed journal or academic-press book, a publication with less rigorous standards, website matter, spoken words, private correspondence, and the like.

Finally, the ethics of academia require that authors and other sources be given appropriate credit for their original words, ideas, and data.

Yes, if the material used is from a copyrighted source. In that case, the "fair use" provisions of copyright law may permit use of limited amounts of copyrighted material—less than 10% of the total or less than one page of quoted text—without the permission of the original author.

Failure to properly credit the original author, however, weakens a fair use claim. See the DKL page Copyright at NPS for more information.

Yes. Images found in copyrighted publications are considered to have their own separate copyright. They are also more likely to be used in full, as opposed to 10% or less. See the DKL Copyright at NPS page for more information.

Yes. While basic citation rules and formatting apply, the citation for a figure or table should be included in the figure or table title.

If a figure or table is borrowed exactly from another source with no changes, the borrower lists "Source:" before the citation. If the figure or table is only partially borrowed or has been changed in any way, the borrower lists "Adapted from" before the citation. If the components of the figure or table come from multiple sources, all should be listed in the citation.

By making it reasonably clear that information in a sentence comes from a source. For instance, with citations, signal phrases, or sentence-flow cues.

By following citation guidance from the Dudley Knox Library.

If direct quotes are (generally) less than five lines long, they are placed between quotation marks as part of a sentence, then the source is cited within or at the end of the sentence. It is preferred that the sentence begins with a signal phrase or other text, not the quotation.

If direct quotes are (generally) more than five lines long, they are set off in block-quote style, meaning the quote follows on a new indented line and is single spaced, and the citation is placed at the end of the quote, after the final period. Quotation marks are not used around block quotes. It is preferred that a signal phrase introducing the source appears in the paragraph text that precedes the quotation.

See more tips for direct quotes in the Thesis Processing Office's "Paraphrasing and Quoting" handout.

Not in most cases. Italicizing quoted material is unconventional and blurs the distinction with italics being used as emphasis elsewhere in the paper. This format is not used by any of the dozen or so style guides used at NPS for theses.

By adding a citation or signal phrase to the sentence in which the item occurs, or by clarifying the source through sentence flow.

Rarely. It must be clear at all times who is contributing: the paper author or the source author.

When using a source for the first time, a sound policy is to identify the source’s credentials as authority for the material to set up the paraphrase, then cite the source at the end of the paraphrase.

For subsequent uses of the same source, use brief signal phrases or citations to clearly indicate the start- and end-points of the source’s contribution. In the absence of clear citations or signal phrases, the reader assumes that the ideas contained in a sentence belong to the author. For tips, see the Thesis Processing Office's "Using Signal Phrases Effectively" handout.

If a direct quote from the same source is used within a paragraph of paraphrased or summarized material, the sentence with the quote should be cited.

The text preceding the list should indicate the source using a signal phrase and, if appropriate, its qualifications as evidence.

A citation should be added to the end of the last list item, on the same line. Quotation marks are not needed, as long as the list is indented and single-spaced.

For more guidance, see the Thesis Processing Office's "Citing Bulleted and Numbered Lists" handout.

Yes. If multiple voices are blended into a single list, the author must make clear who the source is at all times. Normally, each paraphrased or quoted item would have its own citation. In such lists, quotation marks are required for quoted material.