Can NUS Students Check Their Turnitin Similarity Score Before Final Submission?

It’s 11 PM. Your assignment is due at midnight. You’ve just hit submit on Canvas, and now you’re staring at the screen wondering: did I accidentally copy too much from that journal article? Will my similarity score be too high?

If you’re a student at the National University of Singapore, this feeling is familiar. So here’s the direct answer: Yes, you can sometimes check your Turnitin score before your final submission — but it completely depends on how your professor has set up the assignment.

There is no single rule that applies to every module at NUS. Some professors allow you to see your report instantly. Others hide it until the deadline has passed. In this guide, we’ll break down exactly how this works, walk you through the steps, and warn you about a resubmission trap that catches many students off guard every semester.

The Truth About Turnitin on NUS Canvas

It All Depends on Your Instructor’s Settings

A lot of students assume Turnitin is a separate website they need to log into. It isn’t. At NUS, Turnitin is built directly into the Canvas assignment page you already use for your coursework. When you submit a file to an assignment that has Turnitin enabled, a similarity report is generated behind the scenes.

Whether you get to see that report depends on a setting your professor chooses when creating the assignment. There are generally two common setups:

If your module falls under the second setting, there is no trick to see your score early through Canvas itself. Your only real options are to ask your professor directly, or to review your own paper carefully before submitting, or consider getting an assignment proofreading service to identify citation and paraphrasing issues before the deadline. (more on this further down).

Can Students See the Turnitin AI Writing Score?

Along with the similarity score, Turnitin also has an AI-writing detection feature. This score works differently. In most cases, AI detection results are only visible to your professor, not to students, even in modules where the similarity score itself is visible. Don’t be surprised if your report shows a similarity percentage but no AI score — that’s expected, not a glitch.

How to Check Your Similarity Report on NUS Canvas (Step-by-Step)

If your module does allow students to view reports, here’s how to actually find your score:

1. Log in to NUS Canvas using your student credentials.
2. Open your course and click on the Assignments tab.
3. Upload your draft or paper and click Submit.
4. Once processing is complete, go back to your submission page. You’ll see a coloured percentage icon (usually red, orange, yellow, or green) next to your file — that’s your similarity score.
5. Click on the percentage to open the full similarity report, which shows exactly which sentences matched other sources, and where those matches came from.

A quick note on colours: the colour is just a visual indicator of the percentage range, not a pass/fail grade. A green score doesn’t automatically mean your paper is fine, and a yellow or red score doesn’t automatically mean you’ve plagiarised. Your professor will still read the actual report to judge context.

Turnitin Score 20% or higher and not sure why? Get your assignment reviewed, professionally paraphrased, or use our assignment editing service before your deadline arrives.

The Resubmission Trap You Must Know About

This is the part most students learn the hard way, usually the night before a deadline.

Your first submission to a Turnitin assignment typically generates a report fairly quickly. But if you go back, edit your paper, and resubmit, the next report does not always come back instantly. Depending on how many times you’ve already resubmitted and how the assignment is configured, generating an updated report can take much longer than your first attempt.

This becomes a serious problem if you’re planning to:

• Submit an early draft just to “check” your score
• Make last-minute edits based on that score
• Resubmit again right before the deadline, expecting a quick updated report

If the report doesn’t refresh in time, you may end up submitting your final paper without ever seeing whether your edits actually improved your score.

Bonus for Master’s & PhD Students: The NUS iThenticate Route

If you’re a postgraduate student working on a thesis, dissertation, or a paper for journal submission, Turnitin through Canvas isn’t actually the tool meant for you. NUS provides a separate service called iThenticate, specifically for postgraduate students, academic staff, and researchers.

Here’s how it’s different from the Turnitin you use for coursework:

If you’re at the thesis-writing stage, this is the tool you should be requesting access to, not trying to squeeze your dissertation through a regular Canvas assignment.

Why You Should Never Use Free Third-Party Turnitin Checkers

When students can’t see their score on Canvas, the instinct is to search for a free “Turnitin checker” online and paste their essay in. This is one of the riskiest things you can do, and here’s why.

Many of these free tools store your paper in their own database once you upload it. Weeks or months later, when your actual paper — or even a slightly revised version of it — gets checked by the real Turnitin system at NUS, it may match against the copy you uploaded to that free site. The result: your own original paper can come back showing a high similarity score, flagged as matching “another source” that is actually just your own earlier upload.

This is called self-matching, and it can create a lot of unnecessary trouble during an academic integrity review, even though you didn’t copy from anyone.

Safer alternatives:

• Use official NUS-provided tools where available (Draft Coach, or a Pre-Check folder if your module has one)
• Ask your professor if a practice submission folder can be set up
• Focus on strong citation habits instead of chasing a specific percentage

Final Thoughts: Focus on Learning, Not Just the Percentage

At the end of the day, Turnitin is a matching tool, not a judge. It cannot tell the difference between a properly cited quote and copied text on its own — a human still has to read the report and make that call. Chasing a low percentage number is far less useful than simply writing in your own words, citing properly, and paraphrasing with understanding rather than just swapping synonyms.

The score is a signal to review your work, and many students also choose online assignment help Singapore for an independent review before submitting.

FAQs

If I submit late, do I lose the chance to check my similarity score?

If your assignment allows viewing reports “immediately,” submitting late doesn’t remove that option — but if the setting is “on due date,” you’ll see your score at the same time as everyone else, regardless of when you submitted.

Q2: What is considered a “safe” Turnitin similarity score at NUS?

There is no single official number that applies to all modules. Percentages are usually judged in context by each professor, and the same score can be completely fine in one module and concerning in another, depending on how much of it is properly quoted and cited versus unoriginal text.

Q3: Can NUS undergraduates use iThenticate?

No. iThenticate at NUS is reserved for postgraduate students, researchers, and academic staff working on theses, dissertations, or journal submissions. Undergraduates use Turnitin through Canvas.

Q4: My professor has disabled the option to view similarity reports. What can I do?

You can ask your professor directly if they’re willing to set up a separate practice or Pre-Check submission folder. Outside of that, the only option is to review your own work carefully — checking your citations, quotations, and paraphrasing — before your only submission.

Q5: Does NUS Canvas show the Turnitin similarity score to students immediately?

This depends on your assignment settings. Some professors enable “immediate” report generation, while others restrict it until the due date.