Using Filters and Exclusions will help you refine a Similarity Report to only include matches that are irrelevant to you.
Applying filters and exclusions may or may not change the overall similarity percentage depending on several factors, such as overlapping sources for one match.
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Assignment templates
Template exclusions can be turned off for individual submissions from the Similarity Report.
- Open the student's Similarity Report for the submission in question.
- Select the Filters and Settings option from the side bar.
- Uncheck the Exclude Assignment Template filter.
- Select New Report.
If there is no Exclude Assignment Template filter option, it has not been enabled in the assignment settings, and can no longer be enabled for an assignment with submissions.
Matches by word count or %
If you exclude small matches at the assignment level, you can change it at the individual submission level.
Excluding small matches allows you to exclude matching against sources with a small amount in common with the submission. For example, it's possible to exclude matches fewer than 20 words in total, or less than 10% in total.
The percentage is based on the total word count of the student's submission. For example, if a student submitted a 5,000 word submission, and you have this set to 10%, it will exclude sources of less than a 500 word match.
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To exclude text from the report according to its size, click the red filter icon from the similarity toolbar.
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From the Filters and Settings side panel, use the radio and text boxes to determine which exclusions should apply to the submission you are viewing. You can exclude sources that are less than a certain number of words, or a certain percentage of words. For example, filtering by 10 words will exclude all sources that have a cumulative number of matching words that are less than 10 words in length.
- Select Apply Changes at the bottom of the right-side panel to confirm and regenerate the report with your change now reflected in the assignment.
Quotes and bibliography
Exclude quoted text, bibliographic content, and reference materials from within a Similarity Report to remove those matches from the report. This can possibly affect the score percentage, and help provide a more focused assessment. To learn more about how these exclusions work, check out our How exclusions and filters refine the report guide.
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To exclude quoted text and/or bibliographic materials from within the report, select the red Filter
icon from the similarity toolbar.
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From the Filters and Settings side panel, use the checkboxes to make bibliography and quote exclusions from the report.
- Select the Apply Changes button at the bottom of the right-side panel to confirm and renew the report with your change now reflected in the submission.
Sources
Excluding sources via Match Overview
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To exclude sources using the Match Overview side panel, choose the red numerical similarity score in the similarity toolbar.
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All matches will be displayed within the Match Overview side panel.
- To access each match in more detail and exclude sources, select the arrow to the right of the relevant similarity percentage.
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At the bottom of the Match Breakdown side panel, select the Exclude Sources button.
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Using the checkboxes, select each source to exclude from the report. The Exclude button at the bottom of the panel will show the amount of sources chosen.
- Select the Exclude button to confirm and regenerate the report for that submission.
Excluding sources via All Sources
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To exclude sources using the All Sources side panel, select the list icon located under the score number in the similarity toolbar.
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Select the Exclude Sources button at the bottom of the All Sources side panel.
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Use the checkboxes to choose each source to exclude from the report. The Exclude button at the bottom of the side panel displays the number of sources you have selected to exclude.
- Select the red Exclude button to confirm. To clear your selections and go back, choose Cancel.
Restoring excluded sources
If a student resubmits an assignment, their original assignment will show up under "excluded sources" in order to prevent matching against the original draft.
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To view sources that have been excluded from the Similarity Report, select the red Exclude icon from the similarity toolbar.
- If you have excluded any sources from the report, they will be listed in the side panel under Excluded Sources. Use the checkboxes to select any sources you would like to restore. Select the Restore button to continue.
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To restore all excluded sources in the list, choose the Restore All button.
- To go back without restoring any excluded sources, select the “X” in the top right corner of the side panel to leave the Excluded Sources list.
You do not need to refresh the Similarity Report to see these sources reflected in the similarity score.
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Changing your settings will only change the setting for future uploads. If required, previously uploaded documents will need to be individually adjusted.
Search repositories
You are able to exclude entire repositories from appearing in a Similarity Report. The repositories you have available to you are determined by the administrator for your organization.
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Select
Settings from the sidebar.
- Using the checkboxes, choose the repositories that you'd like your submitted documents to not match against.
- Changes should automatically apply, but select the Done button to confirm and close the side-bar.
Turnitin's repository options include:
- Internet: Turnitin's 'web crawler' actively archives websites and holds over 70 billion current and removed pages in our database.
- Publications: Turnitin partners with leading content publishers to create a robust collection of over 170 million articles from library databases, textbook publishers, digital reference collections, subscription-based publications, homework helper sites, and books.
- Crossref & Crossref Posted Content: The Crossref repository is a collection of published scholarly works and the Crossref Posted Content collection of scholarly works that have been submitted but not yet published. Both available to search submissions against through our exclusive partnership with Crossref.
- Submitted Works: This is an umbrella term for all items previously submitted to any of the repositories that an account has been set up with. The following repositories are potentially available for Turnitin accounts:
- Private institutional repository
- Private group repository (e.g. country, consortium, or a specifically requested group)
- Global repository
Highlighted matches
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Exclude text directly from the paper text by selecting the highlighted text and then the Exclude text option that appears by the start of the passage.
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This will open a menu that will allow you to select the reason for this text exclusion. Your feedback will help us make similarity matches more accurate.
Choose from the available options:- Instructions or template material: Has the similarity check picked up a template used by your institution? Or has the student inadvertently left in instructions at the beginning of the essay. Use this option to exclude this text. This will help Turnitin identify these sorts of matches in the future.
- Cited or quoted material: Has the student attempted to use quotes but the content has been picked by the similarity check? Perhaps they have used incorrect quotation marks? Use this option to exclude any content you feel should have been excluded due to citations or quotes. This is a good exercise to help teach students about correct citation style.
- Valid collaboration: If the similarity check has picked up valid collaboration between students or researchers, use this option to exclude this text.
- Common wording: Depending on the size of matches the Similarity Report has been set to ignore, the report could pick up short strings of words that are commonly used in academic writing. Exclude this text using this option.
- Other: If you would like to exclude text for a reason other than the available options, select ‘Other’ to open a text box. Here you will be able to enter your reason for the text exclusion. This information will help Turnitin improve our similarity matching in the future.
- Exclude without reason
- Alternatively, select a source to expand it and view the matching text side-by-side with the paper.
- Scroll to the bottom of the source text and select Exclude this Text.
- You will be presented with the same exclusions options as described above. Select a response to exclude the text. The similarity score will be updated to reflect the exclusion you have just made.
Quotes, bibliography, citations, small matches
Content exclusions can include removing any matches to the bibliography or any places within a document where the author has used quotes.
- Select
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Using the checkboxes, select the content types you would like to exclude from all future documents:
- Bibliography: For papers written in English, Turnitin's machine learning algorithm is able to understand what elements of the paper should be excluded and dynamically remove them from the Similarity Report without the need for the uploader to specify a specific bibliography section of their paper. For papers written in a non-English language, Turnitin looks for a beginning and terminating phrase to work out where the bibliography is.
- Quotes: Turnitin looks for all content between quotation marks and excludes this text from the report. For the list of supported quotation marks, check out our guide about how exclusions and filters refine the report.
- Citations: Turnitin uses machine learning to check every line in a document. If we find something we can tell is an in-line citation, it won't be included in the Similarity Report. The quoted part of the citation can be removed using Exclude Quotes.
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Small Matches: Turnitin will filter all matches that are less than or equal to the length of the number of words supplied.
- Changes should automatically apply, but select the Done button to confirm and close the side-bar.
Sources
Sometimes, you may notice that a source is included in the Similarity Report that you didn't intend, or there may be a source you think was permissible, and don't want it to contribute to the overall similarity score.
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Select
My Files from the sidebar.
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Find the file
containing the document you'd like to view and select its title.
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From the sources sidebar, choose a source view:
- Sources Overview: A list of the top sources found in the document.
- All Sources: A list of all sources that have matched in the document.
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Hover over or focus on the source you would like to exclude. Select the eye icon with a strike to exclude this source.
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You will be presented with options to state why you are excluding this particular source.
- After making a selection, the similarity score will update to reflect the exclusion you have just made.
If there are multiple sources from different parts of a single domain or URL, each will be treated differently. Excluding a specific page of a website or subdomain will only remove the match from that level of the domain. For example, a submission may match to several articles from a single website (such as britannica.com or reuters.com)
Using the new, enhanced Similarity Report? Find guidance in Managing exclusions and filters in the new, enhanced Similarity Report.