LopesWrite is an electronic grammar, spelling, and citation checker tool. Any assignments that are submitted to LopesWrite will generate a report with a similarity score. The similarity score is compiled by comparing the text of the assignment against a database of sources, including the internet, other student papers, and against one’s previously submitted work (self-plagiarism).
For additional citation tips and further explanation on academic integrity standards, check out the Academic Integrity section of the Student Success Center!
Not all assignments require you to submit through LopesWrite. Be sure to check the assignment details to see what is required.
If the file you uploaded is a PowerPoint (.pptx/.ppt) and the LopesWrite submission option is not visible, try refreshing the screen. If a LopesWrite report is required for the assignment, the submit button will appear.
After you have uploaded your assignment to the Assignment page but not final submitted (see (Halo | Learn) Submitting Assignments for directions on uploading documents), you will be able to submit it through LopesWrite. Click on the blue Send for Report link located in the Similarity Report column next to the document you uploaded. Once you have submitted your file to LopesWrite, the status will change to LopesWrite Report In Progress.
After submitting your assignment to LopesWrite, refresh your page to view the report. It may take up to 10 minutes for the report to generate. Once the report is ready, the Similarity Score will appear in the Similarity Report column. You can click on View Report to see more detailed results.
Once submitted to LopesWrite, an upload cannot be deleted. You can reupload as many documents (even with the same name) as you wish, but be mindful of the upload time listed under Uploaded Date when checking the box to submit!
Not all assignments require you to submit through LopesWrite. Be sure to check the assignment details to see what is required.
After you or any group member has uploaded an assignment to the Assignment page, but not final submitted (see (Halo | Learn) Submitting Assignments for directions on uploading the document(s)), you will be able to submit it through LopesWrite. Click on the blue Send for Report link located in the Similarity Report column next to the document you uploaded. Once you have submitted your file to LopesWrite, the status will change to LopesWrite Report In Progress.
After submitting your assignment to LopesWrite, refresh your page to view the report. It may take up to 10 minutes for the report to generate. Once the report is ready, the Similarity Score will appear in the Similarity Report column. You can click on View Report to see more detailed results.
After opening the LopesWrite report, you will be able to view your submitted assignment. A summary toolbar will be visible across the top of the report, with a color-coded markup of the paper and corresponding expandable grammar and citation notifications in the right margin.
The summary toolbar contains the following categories in order:
- Word Count – This displays total word count of the submitted document.
- Similarity Score – Indicates the percentage of similarity between words appearing outside of quotations marks in the submitted document and other internet and/or institution sources. You can expand the Similarity Score field by clicking on the arrow to display a more detailed breakdown of what percentage of content corresponds to which source type. If the same content matches both internet and institution sources, these scores may add up to a higher number than the total Similarity Score.
- Quoted Text – Reflects the percentage of words that appear within quotation marks (“”), in relation to the total number of words in the submitted document. Quoted content will not be included as part of the Similarity Score.
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Citation Items – Specifies the total number of unique internet and institution sources detected within the submitted document. Any Citation Item notifications will appear in the right margin (with corresponding color-coded highlights over the document), and are indicated as follows:
- Web Content – Internet Source
- Student – Institution Source
- Self – Institution Source
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Grammar Items – Shows the total number of possible spelling and/or grammar errors detected within the submitted document. Possible errors may include, but are not limited to: spelling mistakes, punctuation errors, agreement errors, passive voice, grammatical problems, and possible bad style. Click on the arrow to expand the comment further.
- Feedback Comment - This displays the total number of comments on your document. For information on viewing comments, check out the "How can I view my instructor's comments on my Citation Report?" accordion below in the FAQ section.
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Settings – Inside the Settings, you can control which citation and grammar notifications are visible (by toggling the purple switch). Please note, these settings only change what is displayed, not what is checked.
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Download – Generates a PDF version of the LopesWrite report that can be opened, saved, and printed.
NOTE Any content removed from the report view using Settings will not appear on the downloaded document.
The initial assignment submission to LopesWrite typically returns a report within 10 minutes. Additional submissions after this point may not return results for 6 hours. It is always best to create and submit your work a day or two in advance to give the system time to generate a report fully. However, if the report is stuck in progress there are a few troubleshooting steps we can do. Check out our FAQ for more information on how to fix the report that is stuck.
If it is close to midnight and your report has not generated, you may choose to submit the assignment to your instructor anyway. Doing so carries the risk of a high similarity report however, so we recommend waiting for the report if possible.
The best practice is to submit to LopesWrite early. This ensures that you have time to adjust your paper if the report comes back with high similarity.
If you uploaded files to Halo that you would like to remove from the assignment submission window, the archive file option will allow you to remove files from the working files. While you can archive files that have been submitted to LopesWrite, you still can’t delete them. In order to archive an assignment simply select a file that you have uploaded and press the archive button.
A confirmation window will appear. Select Confirm to archive the file.
After that the assignment will not appear in the Working Files tab but located in the Archived Files tab.
If you change your mind and would like to unarchive a file that was previously archived, select the unarchive file button.
A confirmation window that will appear and you can select Confirm to unarchive the file.
The file will then appear back in the Working Files tab.
FAQ
First, we recommend checking the file name. Sometimes when saving files, you may want to have special characters or save the file with a long name, but keeping the name short and avoiding using special characters will help avoid any unexpected problems when submitting the file.
Next, we recommend checking the size of the document. This is specifically important for students who are submitting their dissertation to LopesWrite but can also apply to other submissions. If you are submitting your dissertation or a document that has a lot of different pages, please check out our article Dissertation LopesWrite Submission for information about submitting large Word documents.
If you are still experiencing issues with the report not generated, the file may have gotten stuck in the submission process. We do recommend trying to resubmit your file again to generate a new request that won’t get stuck.
Please keep in mind that most assignments are due on Wednesday nights for graduate students and Sunday nights for undergraduate students. LopesWrite checks documents in the order that they were submitted, and since there are many submissions occurring at once, reports typically take longer to populate on these days.
If the report doesn’t generate for you after all of the troubleshooting steps, we recommend reaching out to GCU Technical Support. We can look into the LopesWrite system and see if there is an active outage with the system or determine if we need to escalate the issue further.
Not all assignments require you to submit through LopesWrite. Be sure to check the assignment details to see what is required.
The acceptable file types to submit to LopesWrite through your classroom are .pdf, .docx/.doc, .txt, .pptx/.ppt, and .xlsx/.xls. You will not be able to submit other file types such as word documents that are saved as templates (.dot/.dotx). If you see Not Applicable under Similarity Report it is likely that you are trying to submit a file type that is not accepted.
LopesWrite has a maximum character limit of 300,000, which is about 40,000 words or 150 pages. If your paper exceeds the maximum character limit, you will need to split up your paper to submit to LopesWrite.
If your paper is does not exceed the previously mentioned maximum lengths, then the issue might be your paper’s orientation. If your paper is in landscape orientation, then content may be cut off of the page.
LopesWrite can only read text. If there is text in an image, such as a scanned document, it will not be able to read any text in the image. LopesWrite might be able to read parts of charts depending on if the chart is an image or created within a word processor (such as Microsoft Word).
You are not able to manually submit to LopesWrite after final submitting an assignment. Any uploaded files in the drop box that were not submitted to LopesWrite will be automatically submitted to generate a citation report.
Quotes and bibliographies are excluded from the similarity index by default. If LopesWrite is including your bibliography/references page, see the errors section below for a solution.
Instructors are permitted to indicate that a different percentage is required for an assignment. For example, if the assignment instructions state that the citation report should be less than 20%, the instructor can indicate that they expect less than 15% instead.
Please reach out to your instructor if you have any questions on what their expectations are for an assignment. Technical Support does not have the ability to change what percentages are required. If you have any concerns regarding citation reports after speaking with your instructor, please reach out to your student services counselor (SSC) as the next point of contact.
Please work with your instructor to achieve an acceptable citation report percentage. Technical Support and the Library cannot assist you with lowering your score, though Technical Support can provide support on basic navigation and functionality. If your instructor is unavailable, we recommend reaching out to our GCU Writing Center. While direct assistance with your homework is not within the Writing Center’s scope of service, because it would be considered Homework help, they can help you understand why your similarity score was so high and provide guidance on how to lower it.
Turnitin is the citation checker that was in use before LopesWrite was created. The University is no longer using Turnitin. However, if you see Turnitin on assignment details or documents found within your classroom, please contact Technical Support so the materials can be updated.
Your instructor has the ability to leave comments on your Citation Report. Select View Report above the Similarity Score to view your Citation Report. Any comments labeled as Faculty feedback are comments made by your instructor.
The instructor can only leave feedback on documents submitted to LopesWrite that were final submitted. Any document that was not final submitted will not be available to the instructor.
Your instructor has the ability to submit your assignment to LopesWrite. Your instructor is only able to manually submit your file to LopesWrite if the assignment does not specify that a LopesWrite report is required, as Halo will automatically submit your file to LopesWrite if a LopesWrite is required and is an acceptable file type. If you have any questions as to why your instructor had submitted your submission the LopesWrite, we recommend reaching out to them for further assistance.
If you have submitted an assignment to the wrong class, or a previous course, your similarity score will be higher than the initial submission. This is because the system will flag the paper as being self-plagiarized. Unfortunately, there is nothing Technical Support can do about this, however, we recommend that you reach out to your instructor about this and see if they can provide further guidance.
Errors
If the submit button does not appear, it is likely because the assignment does not require a submission to LopesWrite. Keep in mind, it will also not appear if you attempt to upload a file type that is incompatible with LopesWrite.
For example, if the assignment requires you to turn in a Word document (.doc/.docx), but you attempt to turn in an Excel spreadsheet instead (.xls), you will not be able to submit.
If you are attempting to submit an acceptable file type and the assignment details state you are required to submit to LopesWrite, but you do not have a submit button, please contact Technical Support for assistance.
By default, LopesWrite should not check the references page of your paper for plagiarism. If you receive citation or plagiarism score on your references page, it is due to one of two reasons.
Reason 1: Your references section makes up more than 40% of your total paper. LopesWrite is intended to catch plagiarism, and if the majority of your paper text is after the references, it determines that this material should be checked. If you have a very long references section, or additional material like appendices after your references, we recommend reaching out to your instructor for guidance. They may ask you to submit those materials separately in order to get an accurate LopesWrite report. Technical Support does not recommend that you do this without speaking to your instructor first however, as certain formatting styles have requirements for appendices.
Reason 2: The title of your references page was not recognized by the LopesWrite system. To prevent this from happening, first, make sure that you separate your references page from the rest of your paper. Second, use either of the following words (not case sensitive) as the title of your references page:
- References
- References:
- Reference page
- Reference list
- Resource
- Bibliography
- Works cited
- Work
- Working
- Citation
- Citations
Reason 3: The references page was auto generated using a software such as PERRLA and contains content control boxes for the references. To fix this issue, copy and paste your paper into a blank document using the Keep Text Only paste option. This will fix the LopesWrite problem but will require you to re-format your paper in the appropriate style (APA, MLA, etc.).
Some courses require you to download, edit, and submit a template from the course or the Student Success Center. Some of these templates show up blank in LopesWrite's Citation Report. If this happens, you'll need to save your completed template as a PDF. Please follow the following instructions for assistance with saving your Word document as a PDF.
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Click File at the top left corner of your Word document.
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In the menu on the left-hand side click Save As.
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Choose the folder you want to save your file in.
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Click the dropdown menu under your file's title.
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Select PDF (*pdf) in the dropdown menu.
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Click Save.
A PDF copy of your document is now saved to your computer. It may automatically open as a PDF after it's saved; please make sure to close out of it before submitting your assignment.
If the error message “We were unable to generate a report for this file. Please contact Technical Support for assistance” appears when trying to view the LopesWrite Citation Report, try the following steps:
- Take out any special characters in the name of the file.
- Check that the file type is compatible with Halo. See the Invalid File Type Error in the LMS article for a list of acceptable file types.
- Copy and paste the contents of the file into a new file.
- Save the file as a PDF. See the Why does my work show up blank when I view the Citation Report? accordion for instructions on saving a file as a PDF.
If you notice LopesWrite is marking the quoted material in your assignment as plagiarism, please make sure the formatting is correct. If you need assistance with formatting, please reach out to the Library or visit the Student Success Center as GCU Technical Support can not assist with formatting.
If your formatting is correct, then your quoted material may make up 20% or more of your total document. If LopesWrite receives a document that is 20% or more quoted text, all document text is evaluated for originality. To fix this, try removing some of the quoted text, if possible.
If LopesWrite begins asking you to sign in when attempting to view your report, try to clear your cache and cookies. Once you clear your cache and cookies, you should be able to view your report without having to sign in. If you are still experiencing this issue after clearing your cache and cookies, please contact Technical Support.
Sometimes the “Send for Report” button for LopesWrite submission is visible, but not clickable. This issue may occur if the file extension is incorrectly formatted. If the file extension has capital letters such as .DOCX, LopesWrite will not recognize the file type. Make sure the file extension is formatted in lower case such as .docx, .pptx, and so on.
You may receive the error message: “The document is too short to be evaluated. To view a report, submit a new document with more than 20 words.” If you receive this error message, it is because the LopesWrite system is not able to read more than 20 words in the document. This is common with images, pdfs that don’t have selectable text, or Word documents that just have a link to another file.
If you are submitting an image file to LopesWrite, please keep in mind that the system will not read the words in the file. If you are required to submit the file to LopesWrite, please contact your instructor for assistance on what to do next.
If you are submitting an Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF file, check to see if the text is can be read by the LopesWrite system. You can do this by highlighting the text in the document. If you can highlight the text then the LopesWrite system can read it, but if you can’t then the LopesWrite system won’t be able to read it. Please keep in mind that if the file includes charts or special diagrams, the LopesWrite system will recognize it as an image and not readable text.
We do recommend that if you are getting this error and you can’t make any adjustments to the word count due to the assignment requirements, that you reach out to the instructor. The instructors may have expectations for that specific assignment and can provide guidance on what to do next.