Reading a plagiarism report
What the similarity percentage means, the three kinds of match, and when a high number is perfectly fine.
Updated Sep 25, 20261 min read
The similarity score is the share of your text that matches one or more sources. It measures overlap, not wrongdoing.
Kinds of match
- Identical: at least eight words in a row match a source exactly (capitals, punctuation and quote styles don't count as differences).
- Near-identical: the same passage with a word or two swapped, added or dropped. The compare view boxes the words that differ.
- Heavy paraphrasing changes too many words to match, so it isn't flagged. Run AI detection on the same document for machine-rewritten text.
What's normal
There's no universal cut-off. A research paper full of properly cited quotations might show 15% similarity and be entirely fine. A personal essay with 10% matching a single website deserves a closer look. For each source, ask: is the match quoted and cited, common phrasing, or copied?
Working through the sources
- Step 1: Open the Plagiarism tab on the report. Sources are listed by how much of your text they match.
- Step 2: Select a source, or a highlight in your text, to compare the matching passages side by side.
- Step 3: Follow the link to read the original in context before drawing conclusions.