How to Remove Plagiarism Score to Reduce Turnitin Similarity

One can calculate Turnitin similarity on the basis of the percentage of content present in two or more documents. The software checks your document and compares it to every document present in its database.

If it finds that there is some content similar to yours, then it calculates the percentage of similarity. If there are many matches, then your Turnitin score will be high and vice versa.

This blog post reduces Turnitin similarities in large batches to improve your students’ grades. Regardless, Turnitin is easy to use and great to have at your back when you need it.

How to Remove Plagiarism Score

Plagiarism is an extremely serious charge. Not only can it result in a failing grade or suspension, but it can also result in legal charges and even jail time for the cheater.

You can effectively remove plagiarism from your paper by paraphrasing the matching text and citing any outsourced content. This reduces Turnitin or SafeAssign similarity. You can also reduce similarity score by quoting any text and avoiding copy-pasting altogether.

However, the best way to remove plagiarism is by rewriting the text afresh.

The following methods can help you to reduce the plagiarism score: 

1. Avoid Copy-Pasting 

Do not copy-paste the whole paragraph from one source; instead, write the same in your language and mention reference at the end of the sentence.

To reduce your plagiarism score, do not copy and paste large chunks of text.

Avoid using common knowledge words or easy to find on the web (e.g., searching for variations on your topic will give you many papers with the same word or phrase).

Copying large text sections from a source without quotation marks or proper citation. Using other people’s ideas without crediting them. Or changing a few words in a sentence but copying the rest of the sentence and not citing your source.

2. Cite your Sources 

When you are writing a paper, it is important to attribute sources that you have used in your work. Whether you are quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing, if the words or ideas are not your own, cite them.

If you do not cite appropriately, even if you did not mean to plagiarize, it will appear in Turnitin as a match. 

But citing your sources correctly can also help reduce your Turnitin percentage for matches that are there because of proper citations.

Using quotation marks around content quoted directly from the source and citing that source correctly will tell Turnitin that it should not be considered plagiarism.

Give credit to all the sources you use. When you cite a source, you let the reader know that some of the information, ideas, or quotes in your paper came from another place.

Including citations also gives credit where it is due. Plagiarism is not only dishonest, but it also robs others of credit for their ideas, inventions, and research findings.

3. Paraphrase

Paraphrasing means using your own words to relay the same content as the source. It requires an understanding of what the original text means and how it relates to your paper, but it doesn’t require that you understand every word in the original text.

To paraphrase a passage effectively and accurately, you should:

1. Make sure you grasp the full meaning of the source text before you begin writing.

If you fail to do this, you may unwittingly omit or change parts of the meaning through misreading or misunderstanding.

2. Write out a paraphrase by putting the passage into your own words. Do not simply substitute synonyms for specific words from the original text.

If you do, your paraphrase will be just as plagiarized as if you had copied the passage directly from the source text.

3. Double-check (by looking up unfamiliar terms) that your paraphrase accurately reproduces the content and meaning of the original text; if not, revise it so that it does reflect those things accurately.

4. Use Quotations Marks 

Quoting using the exact words is the best way to reduce your Turnitin Similarity Index score. Every word that you quote from the original article must be within quotation marks, and you must include a reference to the original source.

Using long quotations (over two or three lines) is not advisable, as it makes your writing less readable.

To paraphrase means to restate ideas in your own words.

If you just take a few sentences from an article and put them into your assignment, you are plagiarizing.

This is because you have not used quotation marks around the sentences or referenced the original article.

It is acceptable to use parts of the original text if it requires very little re-working on your part. If you use Turnitin self-check and realize the quoted text is matching by block, it could be a direct quote.

An example could be when quoting someone’s research finding, or if there is one particular sentence that says something extremely well, such as “the earth is round.”

5. Avoid Overusing Quotations 

Quotations are a great way to add authority and credibility to your writing but can also lead to high plagiarism if you don’t cite them properly.

The safest way to use quotes is sparing – a few well-placed quotes can make your writing more powerful than pages of text.

If you want to use lots of quotes, make sure you always reference the source fully with an in-text citation and a reference list entry.

Also, remember that you don’t have to quote the whole sentence. Only quote what is relevant, and put it in the context of your own words.

Relying too heavily on direct quotes makes your writing appear less original and more like a collection of ideas from other sources.

If you need to use multiple quotes, make sure that you cite them correctly and paraphrase them appropriately. But do it manually or use paraphrasing tools. Remember, sometimes, Turnitin may not detect paraphrasing tools if they are unique.

6. Use Longer Sentences

To get around this, we recommend using longer sentences. The longer the sentences in your paper are, the less likely it is that another student will have written the same sentence in their paper.

You can use our word counter tool to check whether your sentences are long enough. Be careful to avoid long sentences that affect the grammar of the paper.

How to Reduce SafeAssign Similarity

The Similarity Index is a percentage value indicating the likelihood that your paper contains plagiarized content from sources available on the Internet and others databases.

SafeAssign checks the students’ papers for similarity. SafeAssign works by checking each sentence of your paper against its database of other papers submitted by other students.

You can remove or reduce SafeAssign similarity by paraphrasing the text that shows in the similarity report as copied or plagiarized. This can be seen from the plagiarism report that you download from the SafeAssign scan via the BlackBoard.

Another way is to rewrite the highlighted text so that you replace it with yours.

If too many sentences in your paper match up with sentences in other papers, then your paper will get flagged as plagiarized content.

Citing sources properly is best to avoid high similarity scores in SafeAssign. When you quote any text or include information from another source, use an in-text citation that refers to your bibliography or reference section at the end of the document. 

Your paper will run against other papers that have cited the same sources, but since it is not a copy of another student’s work, SafeAssign will not see it as plagiarism.

If you do not have a reference page or only have a few citations on it, add more entries when possible. You should also paraphrase ideas from other texts instead of quoting them directly. 

How to Reduce Turnitin Similarity

The Turnitin Similarity Index measures how much of your paper matches the text in the Turnitin database. If you get a high similarity index for a piece of your paper, one or more passages in your paper are very similar to something already in the Turnitin database.

The best way to reduce Turnitin similarity score is by comparing the similarity report with your paper and rewriting the matching text to make it unique. The copied text that shows plagiarism is marked in red or yellow color.

This is the part that you rewrite afresh so as to remove the copy-pasted text which removes plagiarism.

To know the matching text, you will see the highlights alongside the similarity index. The index number ranges from 0% (no matching content) to 100% (the entire paper is identical to another submission).

A similarity index above 15% requires an investigation by the instructor. If a similarity index greater than 15% is evident, please do not be alarmed. 

It may be that you have inadvertently plagiarized.  However, it could also mean that you have cited sources correctly but that the source has been used by others as well.

If this is the case, your citations are correct, and there is nothing for you to worry about.