At most of the universities read for this guide, a research thesis does not reach its examiners until somebody has read its similarity report, and that somebody is often not the student who wrote it.
To check a dissertation for plagiarism before submission, you need three things: what your university does with that report, why a dissertation matches text it never copied, and how to declare what you reused from your own work. This guide takes each from eleven universities' own pages, read on 23 September 2026, then gives a chapter-by-chapter check.
EdCitation publishes it, and sells the text-matching check described near the end, Check plagiarism. Most repairs a match points to are free: Cite a source builds the credit a matched passage needs, and Verify references checks the whole reference list.
What does a university do with a dissertation's similarity report?
It gives the report to a person, who reads the matches and decides; none of the eleven universities read here sets a percentage that decides. What differs is who runs the check, when, and whether you see it. The checker is usually Turnitin or, for research theses, iThenticate.
| University | Who runs the check, and when | Who reads the report |
|---|---|---|
| Edinburgh, School of Social and Political Science (UK) | The student, for the first-year board report and the thesis, in time to fix problems | The supervisor, who shares it; the student cannot see it after upload |
| De Montfort (UK) | The student, within three days of handing the thesis in for examination | The internal examiner, who tells the external examiner the outcome |
| Illinois Chicago (US) | The student, in iThenticate, before the defence | The committee, from a report form |
| UNC Charlotte (US) | The student, in iThenticate, once they have applied to graduate | The committee, at least two weeks before a doctoral defence |
| Concordia (Canada) | The student, on request; after submission, examiners may run it too | The student first, then the university |
| UNSW Sydney (Australia) | The supervisor; candidates have no access | The supervisor, before certifying the thesis for submission |
| Macquarie (Australia) | The principal supervisor, at confirmation of candidature and at submission | The supervisor, who grades the overlap |
| Karolinska Institutet (Sweden) | The university; its library sends the report once the thesis is published in the open archive | The examination board |
Who sees the report first
Often not you. UNSW (n.d.) gives candidates no access to iThenticate and requires supervisors to run every thesis through it. At Edinburgh's School of Social and Political Science the supervisor shares the report, which the student cannot open after upload (University of Edinburgh School of Social and Political Science, n.d.), and the University of Sydney (2026) has administrative staff check each thesis before examiners receive it. At UNC Charlotte, where the student runs it, the report goes to the committee with the dissertation (University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2026b).
What happens once it has been read
Macquarie University (2026) sets out three outcomes, each decided by the supervisor's academic judgement. Low or minor overlap, including standard phrases or weak paraphrasing, is sorted out with the student. Medium overlap means counselling, a written record and a rewrite, then iThenticate again. Major overlap, or medium overlap that survives counselling, goes to the faculty's associate dean for research training, who may refer it to the Research Integrity Office; if misconduct is found, the sanctions can include ending the candidature. At De Montfort University (n.d.), an examiner who suspects plagiarism sends the report to the Director of the Graduate School, and a confirmed case stops the examination.
Why none of them names a safe number
Macquarie says there are no standard or ideal maximum or minimum percentages, and UNSW that the percentage "is not a plagiarism score". UNC Charlotte warns that the index may look "shockingly high" and asks the committee to read the report. De Montfort comes closest, telling examiners that below 20% is unlikely to mean widespread plagiarism, though one section may still be copied. National regulators that do publish figures for theses are compared in what similarity percentage is acceptable.
Why does a dissertation match text it never copied?
Because a dissertation repeats a great deal of legitimate text: your earlier documents and papers, quotations, hundreds of reference entries, and the standard wording of your field.
| What matches | Why | What the guidance says |
|---|---|---|
| Your own published papers | The journal version is usually in the checker's database | Melbourne: exclude a paper from the report only if all of it is included, and explain every exclusion |
| Your proposal or first-year report | It matches if it was stored when first checked | Edinburgh's social and political science school does not store research students' work; Concordia counts a proposal as a thesis-related document |
| Quotations | Correctly marked text still matches | UNSW lists referenced quotations among the causes of a high score |
| The reference list | An entry reads the same in every paper that cites the source | Karolinska suggests excluding it; UNC Charlotte allows its exclusion |
| Methods | A standard procedure is described in standard words | Karolinska: methods matches are "usually not taken into account", and the section can be excluded |
| Short common phrases | Technical terms and definitions recur across a field | UNSW: unlikely to suggest plagiarism; Karolinska suggests filtering matches under ten words |
| Wording the university requires | Cambridge makes every thesis carry the same declaration, word for word | Expected, and nobody's plagiarism |
The exclusions are the university's choice
The settings disagree, and yours are the ones that count. The University of North Carolina at Charlotte (2026a) lets students exclude only quotations and the bibliography from the report a committee sees, never small phrases or the abstract. Karolinska Institutet (2026) suggests excluding the reference list, the methods and matches under ten words, and the University of Melbourne (2025) wants every filter explained. One dissertation can produce very different figures under each; how plagiarism checkers work shows what the figure counts.
What no text-matching check sees
Figures. The University of Illinois Chicago Graduate College (n.d.) warns that iThenticate cannot detect images and figures taken from other sources, or user error such as an inappropriate exclusion. A borrowed diagram, map or chart needs its credit, and often permission, checked by hand.
What counts as self-plagiarism in a dissertation, and how do I declare reuse?
Reusing your own earlier work becomes self-plagiarism when the dissertation presents it as new without saying so. The remedy is a declaration where your university asks for one, and an acknowledgement wherever the earlier work was published. Definitions and the coursework rules are in what self-plagiarism is, and when you can reuse your own work.
What must be declared, and what need not be
The University of Melbourne (2026) draws the line at publication. Unpublished working documents, such as annual progress reports and ethics applications, can be reused without attribution, and it calls attributing a progress review unnecessary. Published text reused without attribution is self-plagiarism; the same text quoted, or introduced with a sentence saying the section first appeared in a cited paper, is acceptable.
Earlier degrees are the other case. Cambridge's compulsory declaration says the thesis is not substantially the same as work submitted for any other qualification, "except as declared in the preface and specified in the text" (University of Cambridge, n.d.). A master's dissertation that grew into a doctorate is declared there.
The policies read here are for research degrees. For an undergraduate or taught master's dissertation, the module handbook sets the rule; ask before reusing any part of an assessed essay.
Where the declaration goes
- Melbourne: the preface says where each publication is used, by page or chapter, what you contributed, and any work done for another qualification, with a declaration form for each publication signed by the principal supervisor. Those publications stay out of the bibliography.
- Sydney: an author attribution statement after the acknowledgements, signed by you and your lead supervisor.
- Karolinska: in a thesis built from papers, the summary chapter must be new text, without extensive extracts from those papers.
Where the universities disagree
De Montfort tells its examiners that a student cannot be guilty of plagiarising their own publications. Melbourne treats unattributed reuse of published text as self-plagiarism. Declare anyway: a declaration costs a paragraph and satisfies both. A preface entry, with placeholders to replace:
Chapter 4 is adapted from [authors, year, title, journal, DOI], of which I am first author. I designed the study, collected and analysed the data and wrote the first draft; [co-author] advised on the analysis. The text on pages [xx to yy] first appeared in that article and is reproduced with the publisher's permission.
Cite a source can take the article's details from its DOI, so the year, volume and pages in that entry are the publisher's.
How do I check a dissertation for plagiarism, chapter by chapter?
Check each chapter against its sources as it is finished, then the whole file before it goes in.
- Read your university's rule. Who runs the check, when, which exclusions are allowed, and where reuse is declared. EdCitation's Check your paper, free, turns a set of instructions into a checklist and shows, for each rule, the sentence it came from.
- Front matter. Required declarations can match other theses. Make sure the preface names every reused or published part.
- Introduction and literature review. These chapters are written with sources open, so this is where patchwriting hides. Set each paraphrase beside its source, and give every quotation its marks and page number; the audit in how to check your paper for plagiarism before submitting applies chapter by chapter. For an idea whose source you have lost, Find sources looks for the claim across about 300 million published works.
- Methods. Standard procedures will match. Cite the published protocol, and acknowledge any wording carried over from your own paper.
- Results and discussion. These should match least, so a match here deserves the closest reading.
- Included papers and figures. A declaration for each paper, and a credit for every borrowed figure.
- Run the text-matching check. Chapter by chapter, then the whole dissertation, with Check plagiarism, which marks each match beside its source. Read every match rather than the figure.
- The reference list. A checker only matches its wording. Check that every entry exists and every citation has one with Verify references; managing dissertation references from proposal to submission covers the list's whole life.
- The final file. Remove comments, tracked changes and template text; Mechanics QA lists what is left.
How does EdCitation's Check plagiarism help before you submit?
Check plagiarism is EdCitation's text-matching check, and the best tool for the reading this guide asks of you, because the policies above tell the reader to look at the matches themselves, and it shows each one inside your own text, beside the page or paper it matches. That counts where the university's report reaches someone else first; at UNSW, candidates cannot run iThenticate at all. Check plagiarism is run by you and shown only to you, so a quotation mark lost in chapter two can be found by you first, before an examiner reads the chapter.
What you give it and what comes back
Paste a chapter, or choose the file of the whole dissertation. The report gives:
- the share of matching text: one figure for the whole paper, and how many sentences it comes from;
- every match in place: marked in your own text, in the order you wrote it;
- the source of each match: a link to the page or paper, so you can quote it and cite it properly.
What it costs
Check plagiarism comes with Pro at $8 a month, which carries 240 credits each month; Max, at $24, carries 720, and extra credits start at $10. The credits a check needs are shown before it starts. A failed check costs nothing, and neither does checking the same text again within a day. Pricing has the plans.
What it cannot tell you
No outside check reproduces your university's report. The university's checker also holds other students' submissions, which Concordia University School of Graduate Studies (n.d.) lists among the databases its Turnitin account searches, and its settings are the institution's. So EdCitation gives no safe score and no prediction: a match proves nothing on its own, and a clean report proves nothing either. Nothing in your dissertation is rewritten for you; every fix is yours. If your graduate school also asks about AI use, Check AI marks every passage as AI-written, AI-assisted or human and shows its score, which is not proof either way.
What do I fix when a match turns up?
Usually the credit, not the wording, and EdCitation has a tool for most repairs.
| The match | The fix | The EdCitation tool |
|---|---|---|
| A quotation with no marks or page number | Add the marks, the page and the citation | Cite a source finds the matched work by DOI, title or ISBN and builds its reference |
| An idea in your words whose source you lost | Find the original, then cite it | Find sources matches the claim to published work |
| A paragraph that follows one source phrase by phrase | Rewrite it from understanding, source closed, then cite it | None: EdCitation never rewrites; the guide to paraphrasing shows the method |
| Text from your own published article | Acknowledge it in the chapter and declare it in the preface | Cite a source sets the article's details from its DOI |
| A long reference list | Confirm every entry exists and every citation has one | Verify references, free; References from a file, Pro |
| Comments, tracked changes, template text | Remove them before the final file | Mechanics QA, Pro |
Verify references needs no account. It gives every entry a verdict, verified, doubtful ("check this") or not found, flags any retracted paper, and reports an index that did not answer as "could not check", never as not found; upload the whole dissertation and citations and entries are paired both ways. References from a file stores each upload in My papers, so a second run lists what changed, and suggests published replacements for a reference that cannot stand. A free account includes three of its checks a month; Pro has no limit.
Quick questions
Can I run my thesis through Turnitin before I submit it?
It depends on the university: at Illinois Chicago and UNC Charlotte the student runs the university's checker, at UNSW only the supervisor. EdCitation's Check plagiarism shows matches against published and web text without an institution, though not your university's own report.
Will my published papers count as plagiarism in my thesis?
Not when declared. Melbourne lets you exclude from the iThenticate report only publications included in full, each exclusion explained, and De Montfort tells examiners that students cannot plagiarise their own publications. Declare every reuse in the preface either way.
Is reusing my research proposal in the dissertation self-plagiarism?
Not under Melbourne's guidelines, if it was never published: they let unpublished documents written during candidature, such as progress reports and ethics applications, be reused without attribution. Check your own university's rule, and tell your supervisor, because a stored proposal can still match.
What similarity score is acceptable for a dissertation?
None of the universities read for this guide sets one. Macquarie says there are no standard maximum or minimum percentages, and UNSW that the percentage is not a plagiarism score; read the matches instead.
Does iThenticate check figures and images in a thesis?
No. The University of Illinois Chicago warns that iThenticate cannot detect images and figures taken from other sources, so check the credit and permission for each borrowed figure by hand.
References
- Concordia University School of Graduate Studies. (n.d.). Turnitin. https://www.concordia.ca/gradstudies/students/thesis-based/process/turnitin.html
- De Montfort University. (n.d.). Turnitin guide for internal examiners. Doctoral College. https://www.dmu.ac.uk/doctoral-college/research-supervisors/turnitin-guide-for-internal-examiners.aspx
- Karolinska Institutet. (2026). Plagiarism checks in doctoral education. Staff Portal. https://staff.ki.se/doctoral-education/plagiarism-checks-in-doctoral-education
- Macquarie University. (2026). Graduate research iThenticate procedure. Policy Central. https://policies.mq.edu.au/document/view.php?id=174
- University of Cambridge. (n.d.). Submitting your thesis for examination (PhD, BusD, EdD, MD, VetMD, MSc, MLitt). Cambridge Students. https://www.cambridgestudents.cam.ac.uk/your-course/research-students-pgr/postgraduate-exam-information/writing-submitting-and-examination/phd/submit
- University of Edinburgh School of Social and Political Science. (n.d.). Turnitin and plagiarism. https://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/students/postgraduate/phd/regulations-of-study/turnitin-plagiarism
- University of Illinois Chicago Graduate College. (n.d.). iThenticate review procedures. https://grad.uic.edu/academic-support/thesis/ithenticate-review-procedures/
- University of Melbourne. (2025). Incorporating your published work in your thesis. Graduate Research. https://gradresearch.unimelb.edu.au/preparing-my-thesis/thesis-with-publication
- University of Melbourne. (2026). Publication and authorship guidelines. Melbourne Research. https://research.unimelb.edu.au/strengths/responsible-research/trusted-research/publication-and-authorship-guidelines
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte. (2026a). iThenticate. The Graduate School. https://graduateschool.charlotte.edu/current-students/graduation-clearance/ithenticate/
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte. (2026b). Final defense. The Graduate School. https://graduateschool.charlotte.edu/current-students/thesis-and-dissertation/final-defense/
- University of Sydney. (2026). Preparing your thesis. Graduate Research. https://www.sydney.edu.au/research/graduate-research/current-students/thesis-and-examination/preparing-your-thesis.html
- UNSW Sydney. (n.d.). iThenticate. Conduct and Integrity Office. https://www.unsw.edu.au/assurance-integrity/conduct-integrity/research-integrity/responsible-conduct-research/IThenticate