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SafeAssign: Interpreting SafeAssign Scores - For Students

 

The score you receive on your originality report indicates the overall percentage of text in your paper that matches material found in SafeAssign’s databases. A score of 25%, for instance, means that 25% of your paper matches material in the SafeAssign databases and 75% of your text is either original or is not included in the available databases. However, matching scores do not necessarily indicate that you have plagiarized or that something is “wrong” with your paper. SafeAssign does not examine how or in what context you have used outside source material. As a standard rule, though, matching percentages above 50% indicate an overreliance on or a misuse of outside sources. 

 

Your originality report provides you with the opportunity to check to see that all of your matching text has been properly documented. Further, your SafeAssign score allows you to see the ratio between your original work and the work you have incorporated from other writers. Following an analysis of your report, you should revise your paper to make sure that you have documented all outside material correctly and that you have established the appropriate self-to-source balance in your writing.

 

When you receive a SafeAssign score, remember to interpret it in the context of the assignment. What may be an inappropriate score for one paper might be appropriate for another. Because of this, you should keep in mind the type of assignment, the degree of research involved, and the preferred writing and research style when interpreting your score:

• Type of Assignment:  If you have submitted a writing assignment that has a research component as its goal, your score will be significantly higher than an assignment that does not require a research component.
  • Research Required: Depending on the amount of research required and the preferred researched writing and documentation style for the course, an acceptable SafeAssign score could be as high as 35%.  Scores in excess of 35% generally indicate an overreliance on outside source material.
  • No Research Required: If you submitted a piece of writing that did not call for any research or reference to outside sources, your score should be less than 10%.  Ideally, of course, no matching text would be found, but the system does not filter out common phrases and coincidental matches due to similar word combinations. Higher percentages indicate higher degrees of text match.
• Degree of Research Involved: The SafeAssign score should be weighed against the type of assignment, its length, and the number of outside sources required.  For example, a course term paper of 15+ pages and 10 or more sources will result in a higher matching score than a five page paper utilizing three sources.
• Preferred Writing and Research Style: The citation style you are using and the discipline for which you are writing should also be taken into account when interpreting your score.
  • Discipline-Specific Preferences: Different disciplines hold different preferences with regard to the incorporation of research into your paper. Papers in the humanities (English, history, philosophy) generally prefer a combination of direct quoting and paraphrasing, while the social sciences (psychology, sociology, criminal justice) prefer the use of paraphrasing over directly quoted material.  In the sciences (biology, chemistry), paraphrasing is the standard.
  • Preferences of Citation Style: If you are using the MLA documentation style privileged in the humanities, you may have more quoted material and a higher matching score.  If you are using the APA documentation style privileged in the social sciences, you should have a lower matching score. Since paraphrase is preferred, in a science or social science paper, you should have a low SafeAssign score.

 

Interpreting Scores for Assignments with a Research Component

 

The SafeAssign score for a research paper should not fall at either end of the spectrum. An extremely low score may indicate that you did not use enough research, while a high score indicates that you have relied too heavily on sources and may, in fact, be plagiarizing parts or all of your paper. 

 

The scores in between these extremes can offer up some interesting insights into your paper and how you have used research material.  Bear in mind, however, that SafeAssign can match only material stored in its library of electronic databases. Your paper may include other print sources (books, journals, and magazines) that do not yet exist in electronic form.  You should identify whether any sources are missing from your report and make sure that you take these missing sources into account as you think about your score, how well you have documented, and the balance between source work and your own writing and ideas. 

 

But I paraphrased!

If your report highlights sections that you believed were paraphrased, this suggests that your paraphrased version is too close to the original expression, which means you have inadvertently plagiarized.  Proper paraphrasing is difficult and it frequently leads to issues of inadvertent plagiarism. A lot of students think that paraphrasing involves simply changing a few words here and there – what we might call patchwork writing -- but paraphrasing actually involves more than that. Appropriate paraphrasing means expressing the ideas independently from the original in terms of tone, style, word choice, and sentence structure.

 

Many people also think that if they paraphrase, they do not need to include reference to authors or page numbers. This is not true. In fact, paraphrasing demands the same level of in-text citation that word-for-word quoting does.  The best way to identify to your readers what comes from you alone and what comes from others (even when you paraphrase) is to be overt and explicit about it.  Tell your readers in the text of the paper, not just in the citations or bibliography. In addition to your parenthetical citations, use phrases like: “According to X . . .“ or “As noted in Y . . .”.  Using this sort of in-text attribution can help you clearly indicate which ideas and information came from outside sources and which are your own.

 

Source Scores Above 50%

Scores above 50% indicate a high degree of text match and suggest excessive quoted or improperly paraphrased, or plagiarized material.  

 

A score this high indicates a misuse of sources, possible plagiarism and certainly an overreliance on sources. You should go back through your paper and evaluate how you are using your sources. When you write with sources, you must work toward striking an appropriate balance between what you have to say and the words and ideas of others.  As a general rule, your own writing and thinking should make up approximately 70-75% of your text, devoting the remaining 25-30% to research material that can help you support and develop your points. A score of 50% or more indicates that this balance is lacking in your paper. You may be relying too heavily on research material and not enough on yourself. You will need to go back to your paper and revise in order to let your own reasoning do the primary work of the paper.

 

Scores between 35 and 50%

Scores between 35 and 50% indicate considerable and perhaps problematic levels of quoting or improper paraphrasing.

 

Depending on where your score is falling in this range, you could be in some trouble with your use of source work. Your score indicates that your source work is controlling the paper too much, and you should revise to create the correction self-to-source ratio.  In addition, you should make sure that your quoted material and your paraphrasing are documented correctly. As noted above, it is important that you strike the appropriate balance between your writing and thinking and the writing and thinking of others.  If your score is creeping up toward the higher range, you will want to revise in order to make sure that you and your own reasoning controls the paper, not your source work. 

 

Source Scores Between 20 and 35%

Scores between 20 and 35% indicate that your paper contains significant quoted or improperly paraphrased material. 

 

Scores between 20% and 35% are likely appropriate, provided you have correctly documented your work and have achieved the self-to-source balance required for the assignment. You should go back through your paper to determine whether all your direct quoting is effective and that you have properly paraphrased and provided correct attribution for all paraphrased material.

 

Source Scores Below 20%

Scores below 20% indicate that some quotes or blocks of text in your paper match other documents.

 

Provided you have accurately documented your source work, your score may indicate a reasonable use of sources. However, if you are writing a research paper, especially one in the humanities, you paper may need more outside support.  Direct reference of research material helps you develop and support the points you wish to make in your paper.  If you do not provide sufficient outside source material, you run the risk of undermining your points.  By not consulting enough material about your subject matter, as a thinker and writer, you remain detached from the conversation that others are having about your subject.  The more you know about this conversation, the stronger your thinking will be about your topic. In order to improve the balance between your thinking and the thinking of others, you might want to do more research and incorporate what you find out into your paper as you revise.

 

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Also in this section:

• What is SafeAssign?
• Interpreting SafeAssign scores
  • For students
  • For instructors