Maria, a graduate student in public health, submits a 6,000-word literature review on vaccine hesitancy. She receives a Turnitin similarity report of 4% .

You copy a unique theoretical definition from a 2015 journal article, change two words, and do not provide a citation. Turnitin flags those 50 words. Your score is 4%, but you have plagiarized.

To put this in perspective, here is a general industry-accepted breakdown of similarity ranges:

Maria realizes Match 4 needs quotation marks and a page number. She fixes it. The other matches are acceptable. Her final revised report would drop to approximately 3% after adding quotes—still excellent.