High Similarity Score? What to Do Next

A similarity percentage only tells you how much of the document matched sources that were searched. It does not tell you whether the matches are a problem. A paper full of correctly quoted material can score higher than one with a single uncited paragraph.

Open the report and look at what is matching before you change anything. Rewriting the wrong passages wastes time and can introduce new problems.

Sort the matches by source and start with the largest. Most high scores come from a few causes.

• The reference list or bibliography matching published titles.

• Correctly marked quotations, especially long ones.

• Assignment instructions, templates, headings or cover-page text that many submissions share.

• Standard phrases and technical terms common in your field.

• One source followed too closely across several paragraphs.

• Your own earlier work that has been published or stored by the checking service.

Each kind of genuine problem has a direct fix.

• Missing citation: add the in-text citation and the reference entry.

• Copied wording without quotation marks: add quotation marks and a citation, or rewrite the passage.

• Close paraphrase: rebuild the sentence from your own understanding with a new structure, then cite the source.

• Too much quotation: keep the quotes whose wording matters and summarise the rest in your own analysis.

• Reused earlier work: cite and disclose it, or write the section afresh.

Swapping words for synonyms, inserting hidden characters, translating text back and forth, or running passages through a paraphrasing tool to lower the number does not fix missing attribution. These tactics can themselves be treated as academic misconduct, they often make the writing harder to read, and reviewers who read the report can usually see what happened.

The goal is not a smaller number. It is a document where every borrowed word and idea is visible and credited.

After revising, run the check again and confirm that the remaining matches are quotations, references, common phrases or cited paraphrases. Expect some matches to remain; that is normal.

Keep a short note of what you changed and why. If anyone asks about the report later, you can explain each remaining match in a sentence.

If an instructor or editor has already seen a high score, respond with specifics. Point to the matches that are references or marked quotations, explain any that came from your own earlier work, and say what you corrected.

Follow your institution's or publisher's process, and ask what threshold or review policy applies, if any. Most review processes look at the matches themselves, not only the percentage.