Similarity Review Report
To ensure the originality, integrity, and ethical compliance of submitted manuscripts, we offer a Similarity Review Report service. This helps you preemptively identify overlapping text, properly cite sources, and reduce the risk of rejection or ethical concerns.
What Is a Similarity Report?
A Similarity Report is generated by text-comparison software (such as iThenticate) that compares your manuscript against published works, web content, and scholarly databases. It highlights segments of your manuscript that may overlap with existing sources and computes an overall similarity score.
Why It Matters
- Catch unintentional overlapping text
- Sometimes, even well-meaning authors reuse phrasing (especially in backgrounds, literature review, or methods). A similarity check helps you catch and revise these before submission.
- Avoid desk rejection for originality issues
- Many journals screen new submissions for similarity. If large overlaps are flagged, manuscripts might be rejected or sent back for revision prematurely.
- Improve compliance & transparency
- Journals expect that quoted or reused text is properly marked and cited. A similarity report helps you identify where improved citation or rephrasing is needed.
- Strengthen ethical standards
- Helps uphold the integrity of your research by ensuring that source materials are acknowledged, thereby reducing risk of inadvertent ethical breaches.
What You’ll Receive
- A similarity score (percentage) indicating how much of your manuscript matches other sources
- A highlighted, side-by-side view showing matching passages and original sources
- An Expert Review / Recommendation Section: guidance on whether particular similarities are acceptable or need attention (rephrasing, citing, quoting)
- Suggestions for how to resolve or correct overlaps (e.g. rewrite, add quotations, exclude common phrases)
- Notes about whether overlapping sections are in methods, literature review, or standard text (some overlaps are common in these parts)
- A corrected or cleaned version (if included) after your revisions (depending on service level)
How the Process Works
- You submit your manuscript
You upload your document (Word, PDF, etc.) or specify the version you want checked
2. Expert interpretation & commentary
After the raw report is generated, an editorial expert reviews matches and classifies what’s acceptable (e.g. properly cited) vs what needs revision.
3. Delivery of the report
You receive the full report, highlighted matches, similarity percentage, and expert recommendations for improvement.
4. (Optional) Re-check after revision
If you revise based on the report, you may re-submit updated sections to ensure that new content doesn’t introduce overlapping text again.
Best Practices & Interpretative Notes
- A high similarity score does not always mean plagiarism. The report may include properly quoted text, references, standard phrasing, or methodology descriptions. Editors carefully review context.
- Many systems allow exclusions (e.g. bibliography, quotations, small word matches) to reduce “noise.”
- Reports show which sources matched and what percentage of the match is to each source.
- Overlap in Methods, standard definitions, or common phrases is often acceptable with citation.
- Some journals only run the similarity check on the first submitted version. Revised versions may require manual rechecking.
Pricing & Turnaround
- Turnaround: typically 1–2 business days
- Price: varies by length of manuscript, number of pages, or word count
- Re-check of revised sections may be included (or available as an add-on)
- Some services bundle this with editing or pre-submission review packages
FAQs
Will the report penalize properly cited text?
Yes, matched quoted or cited text will often show up in the report; it’s up to you to confirm whether the overlap is legitimate.
Can I see the report that my eventual journal editor will see?
This depends on journal policy. In many cases, similarity reports are shared with editors but not with authors directly.
Can this detect paraphrasing or concept plagiarism?
No. Similarity software detects exact or near-exact text overlap. Paraphrased ideas or conceptual plagiarism are harder to detect automatically and require editorial judgment.
What is a “safe” similarity score?
There is no universal threshold. Many journals consider <20–25% acceptable after exclusions; but even a low score can hide problematic overlap if concentrated from a single source.
