HOW TO INTERPRET TURNITIN REPORTS

Coventry University London Campus - LRIT

>> SIMILARITY COMPARISON

Need help with your work?
-

Please visit the Learning

Resource Centre on the 5th
floor or book and attend one of
the workshops about Citing
and Referencing via the
Student Portal
Ask your tutors about good
academic practice and advice
for good referencing
Visit the SpotLight module in
Moodle (link located on the left
hand side of the page under
the Reading List and Locate
service)

For an electronic copy of this guide

Turnitin will compare your work against more than 20 billion web pages, 220
million student papers and millions of articles. Also their database is updated
daily.

>> TURNITIN COLOUR CODED REPORTS

Turnitin provides certain colours to emphasize the percentage of similarity.
Please note that there is no right or wrong colour to have and refer to the
notes below.

Similarity Indices

1
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

No matching words
1 Word - 24% matching text
25% - 49% matching text
50% - 74% matching text
75% - 100% matching text

see the Student Portal or scan:

>> WHAT PERCENTAGES ARE SAFE?

There are no clear cut rules for this as all work will probably contain some
words from other sources. For example, a percentage of 17% could mean
that it has found similarities from 17 sources 1% each (which can be all
right subject to proper referencing and good academic practice) or it could
mean that it has found 17% only from one source (which in some cases may
be an indicator of poor academic practice or plagiarism).

>> HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR WORK

You should check any matches you find by reading through the matched text. Consider the following:
Quotation and Referencing
If the matching source is meant to be quoted ensure it is enclosed in quotation marks and correctly referenced.
Paraphrasing
Is the highlighted text poorly paraphrased? Consider rewriting.
Common words and phrases
Words and phrases that are commonly used may be matched by the Turnitin system; this is normal and should be taken into account
when viewing the Originality Report.
Students re-using work
Work previously submitted via a Turnitin assignment will be added to the Turnitin database and will be matched in the Originality
Report.

>> FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What percentage similarity score is sufficient to indicate plagiarism?

The similarity score indicates text matches with other documents, including for example quotations that are used. We
advise students that there is no score they should aim for as a target. The important thing is to ensure that ideas and
quotations used are properly referenced, not to aim for a particular originality score. For more information on referencing
please see the Study Skills area (Business Students) or the Legal Skills area (Law Students) in Spotlight

A piece of work has an originality score of 0%. Does this mean it is not plagiarised?
No, an originality score of 0% does not guarantee that the work is not plagiarised. Turnitin has a large database of web
sites, books, journal papers and other sources, but does not (and cannot) include everything ever written.

If students re-submit an assignment, wont it show up as a 100% match?

No, pre-submissions of a single assignment by a particular student will never match other submissions of the same
assignment.

>> VERY IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER!

1. A high similarity index does not automatically imply that a piece of work has been plagiarised. Turnitin does not
distinguish between unacknowledged and correctly referenced text. The report will highlight quotes as not original
regardless of whether you have referenced them correctly or not. It is important that you learn how to reference text
correctly to avoid plagiarism. Common terms, such as those contained in the assignment question, footnotes etc. may
also be highlighted.
2. A low similarity index does not automatically imply that plagiarism has not occurred. Turnitin does not detect all
plagiarism.
3. A judgement about whether or not plagiarism has occurred cannot be based simply on the percentage of matching text
that is found. Tutors are required to analyse and interpret the originality reports.
4. Turnitin's database does not necessarily include all web pages and papers/reports in subscription based digital libraries.
Although Turnitin is commonly referred to as an "automatic plagiarism detection service" this description is inaccurate.
Sometimes, Turnitin does not highlight text that has been copied from other sources because these sources are not
present in Turnitin's database. Also, Turnitin will not mark as "plagiarised" text that has been correctly paraphrased, but
where the in-line citation to the reference is missing. Tutors are free to use other information/sources to determine
whether plagiarism has occurred. If the tutor reports a case of suspected plagiarism, then the tutor will provide the
University Assessment Disciplinary Board with all supporting evidence, and not just the Turnitin Originality Report.
5. The easiest way to ensure that your assignments are free from accidental plagiarism is to quote, paraphrase,
acknowledge, cite, and reference correctly. See SpotLight module.