You are advised to read this guidance if you are preparing to submit your work via a Turnitin Assignment link.
You will often be provided with the opportunity to submit a draft, and then resubmit the final version of your assignment before the Due Date. If you are provided with this opportunity, take advantage of it and make a practice submission, to test the process.
Remember: There is a 24 hour delay in the generation of the similarity report if you re-submit your work more than three times to the same assignment over any period of time.
To check the settings for your Turnitin Assignment, after clicking the submission point title link, click on the chevron icon next to the title of the assignment in the Assignment Dashboard:
The vast majority of students will have no problems at all in submitting work online. But the fact that the occasional technical issues might arise should be a compelling reason for you to submit your work in plenty of time!
Make sure the file you are submitting will be accepted by Turnitin by being aware of the following:
1. File size
The maximum file size is 100Mb.
If you have lots of images in your document, you may need to compress them – you’ll find help with doing this in this guide: Student guide to reducing file size for e-submission.
2. File type
See the help article: What file types can I submit? for details on acceptable file types and exceptions, including tips on formatting documents before uploading.
Quick Tip: Save your file as a PDF and upload this to Turnitin, if you use advanced formatting in Word or tables in your document. This will ensure that any complex formatting shows correctly once uploaded.
3. File name
Follow any instructions your lecturer has given you about how to name your file. You may need to follow a specific file naming convention and include particular details to ensure your work can be marked and returned to you.
Avoid unnecessarily long file names, and avoid non-standard characters (such as punctuation marks and ;:,.”!$%&?/) when naming your files – these can sometimes cause problems, so are best avoided.
4. Correct file
Check that you have submitted the correct version of your assignment and the file is not corrupted. Open up your submitted work in the ‘Turnitin Document Viewer’ to make sure that the file you submitted displays correctly – if you can’t view the submitted paper on screen, then staff marking your work won’t be able to view it.
5. One file only
Remember that you can submit one file only as your submission – for example, you can’t upload appendices as separate files and will need to combine the different files into one.
The Microsoft support page: Merge documents shows you how to do this in a Word document.
6. Other considerations
- Some Internet browser settings can cause problems – please see Turnitin system requirements.
- Mac users – you may have problems submitting to Turnitin using Safari.
See Resolving issues when submitting to Turnitin using Safari on macOS
- If you need to submit work to more than one Turnitin assignment, submit to each one in turn – don’t try to submit to two assignments at the same time. Having Turnitin open in more than one browser tab will almost certainly result in errors.
- You will receive a success message and a link to download digital receipt an when you have successfully submitted your work to Turnitin. Download the receipt immediately.
- Not sure if your submission has been successful? Check the guide: Have I successfully submitted my work?
7. System Issues
Check to see if there is a service disruption. (Note: Only messages referring to TurnitinUK are relevant.)
8. What next?
Ready to submit? See Turnitin Assignment: How do I submit?
Guide last updated on November 28, 2022
