Feedback Studio • Feedback Studio w/ Originality • OC
In this guide:
- What do the Similarity score colors indicate?
- How do I keep my score under a certain percentage?
- How does Turnitin detect student collusion?
What do the similarity score colors indicate?
The color of the report icon indicates the similarity score of the paper. The percentage range is 0% to 100%. The possible similarity ranges are:
- Blue: No matching text
- Green: One word to 24% matching text
- Yellow: 25-49% matching text
- Orange: 50-74% matching text
- Red: 75-100% matching text
Similarity Reports that have not yet finished generating are represented by a grayed out icon in the Similarity column. Reports that are not available may not have generated yet, or assignment settings may be delaying the generation of the report.
Overwritten or resubmitted papers may not generate a new Similarity Report for a full 24 hours. This delay is automatic and allows resubmissions to correctly generate without matching to the previous draft.
How do I keep my score under a certain percentage?
Your instructor may specify a range for acceptable scores. Before submitting, ensure your work contains enough of your own original writing compared to quoted material to fall within your instructor's accepted range.
Consult your syllabus, follow assignment instructions, contact your instructor directly, or review your institution's overarching policies on what counts as an acceptable similarity score before you submit. Every school, instructor, or assignment could very well have a different amount of matching text that is considered acceptable.
How does Turnitin identify student collusion?
Collusion is typically identified when a student's work matches with another student's submission on the same assignment or to previously submitted papers. Consider the following scenario:
Eric acquired a copy of his classmate Jane's paper. Eric submits Jane's paper as his own and receives a similarity score of 25%. Jane, who originally wrote the paper, submits her work a few days later and receives a 100% similarity score.
Turnitin can identify that collusion has taken place in this scenario by running a final similarity check against all submitted assignments after the due date. This ensures that every student is subject to the same level of scrutiny, regardless of when they submitted their assignments.
Similarity • SimCheck
In this guide:
What do the similarity score colors indicate?
The color of the similarity score in My Files is based on the amount of matching text in a document.
The percentage range is 0% to 100% with the possible similarity groupings being:
- Green: 0% matching text
- Blue: 1-24% matching text
- Yellow: 25-49% matching text
- Orange: 50-74% matching text
- Red: 75-100% matching text
Similarity score scenarios
A high similarity score does not always suggest that a piece of writing has been plagiarized, just as a low similarity score does not always indicate that no plagiarism has occurred. Consider the following scenarios:
- Submitting a document of considerable size could result in a 0% similarity score with a report that still contains matches. This is because the similarity score has been rounded to 0%, rather than being exactly 0%.
- You may have submitted multiple drafts of the same paper to your institution's private repository, meaning your final draft has resulted in a score of 100%. To avoid this issue, we advise that you only submit your final draft to the private repository.
- An individual within your institution has managed to acquire a copy of your document. They submit this document to the institution's private repository and receive a similarity score of 25%. You submit your original document a week later to the private repository but receive a 100% similarity score.