This guide helps users understand similarity scores and percentage ranges.
In this guide:
The Similarity Report
When a user submits to iThenticate/Crossref Similarity Check, we check the submission against our database. If any text in a submission is similar to one of our sources, these matches are highlighted for you to review.
It is perfectly natural for a submission to match against some of our database. Our database includes billions of web pages: both current and archived content from the internet, a repository of works students have submitted to Turnitin in the past, and a collection of documents that comprises thousands of periodicals, journals, and publications.
Even when a submission has quotation marks and references, the quoted text will show as a match. The similarity score is simply the percentage of text in a submission that matches other sources. Use this as a tool within your review process to make your own determination if any academic misconduct is present.
Similarity score percentage ranges
The color of the report icon indicates the submission’s similarity score, based on the amount of matching text found. The percentage range is 0% to 100%. The colors for similarity ranges are:
| Green: 0% matching text | |
| Blue: 1-24% matching text | |
| Yellow: 25-49% matching text | |
| Orange: 50-74% matching text | |
| Red: 75-100% matching text |