Overview of Turnitin Draft Coach
Available for students and staff, Turnitin Draft Coach helps users navigate the issues of similarity, plagiarism, and grammar directly in Microsoft Word. This means that students can draft work in Word and then use the feedback in Draft Coach to help improve writing prior to submitting an assignment.
How to Access Draft Coach
When students open Word through their FSCJ Office 365 account, they will see the Turnitin menu option, then Draft Coach. It’s important to note that students will only have access to Draft Coach within the browser version of Word (it’s not available via the desktop application) and only through their FSCJ account (not through their personal account.)
Why Should Students Use Draft Coach?
When students access the Draft Coach panel, they will be able to identify issues with similarity, citations, and grammar while drafting before submitting an assignment.
The Similarity Check focuses on identifying when text matches the text of another source, whether that is from the internet or Turnitin’s databases. The Similarity Score quantifies how similar the work is to other pieces of writing, but one should consider acceptable forms of similarity, like quotations, citations, and bibliographic material when responding to this number. Note: students have three opportunities to check similarity against Turnitin’s databases and the internet. This is to prevent students from making multiple edits that only focus on the similarity score.
The Citations Check is used to help students identify when citations are missing references or when references are missing citations. This check focuses on identifying matching pairs of citations and references. This check does not currently assess the accuracy of a citation format or whether a student is missing citations or references based on the actual content of the text. Draft Coach can identify APA, MLA, and Chicago citation styles. No other citation styles are currently reviewed in Draft Coach. Students have unlimited opportunity to check their citations.
The Grammar Guide is used to help identify, edit, and learn from your grammar mistakes. This check focuses on identifying issues in grammar and providing guidance on how to address them. The Grammar Guide encourages students to edit grammar mistakes on their own with detailed explanations. Since the goal is for students to review and apply the feedback, Grammar Guide does not autocorrect any writing. Students have unlimited opportunity to check their grammar with the guide.
