Academic integrity

The student guide to plagiarism and Turnitin

Plagiarism is presenting someone else's words or ideas as your own without credit. Turnitin flags matching text, but it is your tutor who decides whether a match is plagiarism.

What counts as plagiarism

Universities in the US and UK treat these as misconduct: copying text without quotation marks, paraphrasing too closely, reusing your own earlier work without permission (self-plagiarism), buying or sharing work to submit as your own, and citing sources you never read.

How Turnitin similarity works

Turnitin compares your submission against web pages, published journals and previously submitted student papers. It produces a Similarity Report that highlights matching passages and the percentage of your text that matches. Correctly quoted and referenced text still appears as a match, which is why the percentage alone isn't a verdict.

What is a "good" similarity score?

There's no universal threshold. Many tutors treat under 15–20% as typical for essays with references, but a single 8% block copied from one source can matter more than 25% spread across properly quoted references. Always check your institution's guidance.

AI-writing detection

Turnitin also reports an estimate of AI-generated text. Detection is probabilistic and can be wrong, so many universities use it as a prompt for conversation, not proof. Policies on AI tools vary by course — read yours and declare any use where required.

Using model answers with integrity

Model answers and worked solutions are study aids. Use them to understand structure, method and reasoning, then write your own work in your own words. If you rely on an idea, cite it. Our papers are human-written and checked with Turnitin before delivery so you get original reference material.

Pre-submission checklist

• Every direct quote has quotation marks and a page number.
• Paraphrases change structure as well as wording, and are cited.
• Your reference list matches every in-text citation.
• You've followed the required style — try our citation generator.
• Any AI assistance is declared as your course requires.