Scribbr Plagiarism Checker

Sometimes the Scribbr Plagiarism Check finds similarities that are not forms of plagiarism, such as references and correctly cited sources. You can exclude these irrelevant similarities from your total similarity score.

Exclude similarities:
Step 1: Open your Plagiarism Check results.
Step 2: Click on the highlighted similarity that you would like to exclude.
Step 3: Click on the “Exclude” button on the right.

The similarity is now excluded from your total similarity score.

If you have excluded multiple sources from your total similarity score, then you might see an error message in your Plagiarism Check results. Unfortunately, this is a problem that we cannot fix at the moment.

If you encounter this issue, you can simply ignore all irrelevant similarities and subtract their score from your total similarity score. This allows you to calculate your actual similarity score by yourself.

Downloading a PDF of your results is simple. Just follow these two steps:

Step 1: Open your Plagiarism Check order page and click the “Generate PDF” button

Step 2: Wait until the button turns green and click “Download PDF”

Review every similarity for plagiarism, and decide whether or not you need to revise your text.

1. Review the similarity, and think about whether or not the match makes sense to you.
2. Revise the snippet if necessary. You can do so by paraphrasing or quoting. Always cite your sources.

Your similarity score shows you what percentage of your text is found within sources in the comparison database.

For example, if your score is 15%, then 15% of the content you wrote is unoriginal, as it matches text in the database.

You will have to review each similarity and decide whether or not you need to revise your work.

What is a good score? How do I update my work?

Your work should not contain any plagiarism. This means that even a score of 1% is too high.

However, contrary to popular belief, plagiarism checkers do not detect plagiarism, but similarities. Not all similarities found by the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker constitute plagiarism. Our check sometimes flags the following:

• Properly cited quotes,
• In-text citations or your reference list, and
• Commonly used phrases that are obviously not considered plagiarism.

Because of this, you can generally follow these guidelines:

1. A score higher than 10% is troublesome.
2. A score between 5% and 10% it is not bad per se.
3. A score around 5% is reasonable.

Even if your score is 1%, you will need to review each similarity and decide whether it’s necessary to revise your work.

What should I do with a found similarity?

Sometimes a quote is found in your thesis and marked as a similarity by the Scribbr Plagiarism Checker, because the quote is also found in another source.

A quote found by our plagiarism checker is not a form of plagiarism. However, it is important that you have added a reference to this quote. Below we briefly explain the rules to write down quotes in APA Style.

Quotes of less than 40 words

When citing a section of text fewer than 40 words, you use double quotation marks directly before and directly after the quote. Next to that, you mention the author, the year and a page number.

Example: Quote of fewer than 40 words

Quote of 40 words or more

If the quote contains 40 words or more, then place the quote in a separate block, which begins on a new line and is indented in its entirety.

Example: Quote of more than 40 words

Check the article about quoting according to the APA rules for more information.

The Scribbr Plagiarism Checker detect similarities between your paper and a comprehensive database of web and publication content. Because many students write their references in the same way (for instance in APA Style), a plagiarism checker finds many similarities with these sources.

A reference found by the check is not a form of plagiarism. Therefore, there is no need to take action.

How to exclude your reference list from your results:

You can exclude matches from your reference list in your Plagiarism Check results. However, please be aware that this might not always work, depending on your document.

Step 1: Open your Plagiarism Check results.
Step 2: Click the settings button in the “Sources overview” (see picture below).
Step 3: Select exclude reference list. (see picture below).
Step 4: Click “Done.”

If you’re unable to view the Plagiarism Check results in your browser, please try the following two solutions:

1. Are you using Google Chrome?

We’ve found that using Google Chrome resolves most issues related to the results page. First, try using Google Chrome to open your Plagiarism Check results. If you are already using Google Chrome, or if this solution does not work, then proceed to the second solution.

2. Contact support for a PDF copy of the results.

If the first solution doesn’t work, you can contact our support team via chat or email and request a PDF copy of the results via email. This way, you can still review and process the results. We apologize for the inconvenience.

No worries! This error does not influence the accuracy of your Plagiarism Check results.

If you have inserted a chapter or section title in the header of your document, then you might see an error message in your Plagiarism Check results.

Instead of the title, you will see an error message like the one above. Unfortunately, this is a problem that we cannot fix.

Our check may flag these error messages as similarities. You can ignore these similarities.

No worries! This error does not influence the accuracy of your Plagiarism Check results.

If you have an automatic table of contents and/or list of figures and tables, then you might see an error message instead of the page numbers. The error message might look like this: “Error! Bookmark not defined.”

Unfortunately, this is something we cannot fix. Our check may flag these error messages as similarities. You can ignore these similarities.