Where Are the Comments on My Turnitin Report? Reading Instructor Feedback Like a Student

Your instructor's comments are not inside the percentage view you first land on. They live in the Feedback Studio, unlock only after the assignment's post date, and appear as several distinct types: a summary comment (text, voice, or both), bubble comments attached to specific text, QuickMarks from the instructor's comment library, inline italicized notes, and strikethrough on text you are told to revise. Turnitin's official student help page describes each one and where to find it.

Turnitin's official student page, "Viewing your grade and feedback," lists the feedback your instructor can leave:

"A summary comment is an overall comment given by your instructor regarding your whole paper."

"Summary comments may be given via text, a voice recording, or both."

"Bubble comments allow your instructor to provide you with more detailed feedback. A bubble comment may be highlighted and linked to a specific piece of text."

"QuickMarks allow your instructor to create a library of feedback that might be applicable, on multiple occasions, to multiple students, across multiple classes and assignments."

"Inline comments are brief comments made by an instructor. They are indicated by italicized text directly on the submission."

"Your instructor may feel that parts of your paper are not entirely necessary. They may choose to strike through pieces of text to advise you that it should be removed or revised."

So "feedback" is not one thing. A paper can carry a short inline note on one paragraph, a QuickMark on another, a deletion line over a sentence the instructor wants gone, and a voice summary of the whole assignment — all in the same submission.

Feedback is only released after the assignment's post date. A university help guide (BLE Moodle) states it plainly:

"Please note that Feedback can only be viewed after the Post Date, ie when they have been released to you for viewing."

The same rule appears in university LibGuides (Dundee): "Once the grades are released, you can see your feedback."

So if the report is generated but you see no comments yet, the first thing to check is the post date — not your browser. The instructor may have marked the paper, but the assignment simply has not released it.

Turnitin's official page describes the entry points:

"You can view your paper's overall grade from the top right-hand corner of the Turnitin Feedback Studio."

"To view your instructor's summary comments, select the speech bubble icon from the toolbar."

"If your instructor has left a text comment, it will appear in the side panel."

"If your instructor has left a voice comment, it will appear in the side panel. Select the play icon to begin playback."

University guides add the placement details: from your LMS submission point, open the assignment and click the similarity percentage or the blue pencil icon; if the right-hand panel is not showing, click the blue speech bubble. Most students miss this last step — the panel can be hidden and nothing on the page suggests it exists.

The two blue icons on the page look alike but mean different things. Turnitin's official page:

"Select the QuickMark to view the definition of the mark."

"Select the bubble comment icon on your paper to view your instructor's comment."

University LibGuides (Dundee) make the distinction students can use:

"This is a 'Quick Mark', it is a default comment. Click it to see more detail, and, in some cases extra information from the tutor."

"This is a bubble comment. It's something the tutor has written specifically for your work. Click it to see what it says."

In practice: if the blue mark looks like it could be a stock comment ("Good point", "Unclear", "Cite this"), it is probably a QuickMark from a reusable library; if it is longer and clearly written for your text, it is a bubble comment. Click either one — the content expands in a window, and clicking outside closes it.

Turnitin's official page covers the rubric case:

"Criterion can only be assigned to a bubble comment if a rubric or grading form is attached to the assignment."

"If a criterion has been assigned to one of your bubble comment, the bubble comment icon will be displayed with a rubric icon inside it."

A bubble with a small grid or rubric icon inside means the comment is tied to a scoring criterion — which is useful when revising, because it tells you which rubric row this feedback is about.

Voice feedback appears as a small player in the side panel. Dundee's guide: "If you have a voice comment, you'll see a small player. Click the play icon to hear it."

The similarity highlights and the feedback are independent layers on the same paper. Dundee's LibGuide:

"If you find the similarity colours distracting when you are looking at the feedback you can turn the similarity layer off."

This matters for two reasons. First, reading order: open with the feedback layer active to read comments, and re-enable the similarity layer when you want to check highlighted matches. Second, downloads follow whichever layer is active — a PDF downloaded from Feedback Studio captures the current view, so the same paper can produce a comments-only PDF or a similarity-only one depending on what you switched on (covered in our companion guide on downloading the report).

Instructor feedback on a Turnitin submission is a layer of its own, separate from the similarity report, and it only appears after the post date. When you open Feedback Studio, expect up to six kinds: the overall grade, a summary comment (text, voice, or both), bubble comments, QuickMarks, inline italicized notes, and strikethrough marks. Read in this order: open the feedback layer, check the right-hand panel (click the speech bubble if it is hidden), click each mark to expand it, and treat a rubric-linked bubble as a pointer to a specific scoring criterion. If nothing shows, the post date has not passed yet — the comments exist, they are just not released.