Checking for
Plagiarism

How to Check Your Work for Plagiarism

Your assignments must reflect your original thoughts and ideas, and you must properly cite information from sources. When you do not properly cite sources, that’s plagiarism.

Your assignment submissions will automatically be checked for plagiarism by SafeAssign, a feature in your online classroom. SafeAssign compares your submission to a database of student work and the internet and then generates an Originality Report that you and your instructor can review. This is to help you identify any information included in your assignment that you may not have properly cited.

Note: Remember that assignments based on worksheets or templates will often lead to high risk scores and text matching percentages even when the student has submitted original work. Please reach out to your instructor if you have any questions or concerns regarding this.

If you need help with citations, we’ve got your back! Check out the Understand Citations page in the University Library.

Remember:

  • You are required to submit only your own original work with proper citations for external sources quoted in that work.
  • Your instructor will see a report for every submission.
  • Copied or purchased assignments are likely to be caught, and this can result in a Code of Conduct violation, which can lead to a failing course grade, suspension, or even expulsion from the University.

Complete the following steps to check your work for plagiarism:

Video Transcript
  1. Submit your assignment and then close out of the assignment.
  2. Open your assignment again and view the Details & Information panel.
    • If the report is not ready, you will see Originality Report in progress.
    • If the report is ready, select View Originality Report to view the summary, which shows how much of your work matches the work of others.
  3. Select Additional content under the Originality Reports section for the detailed report.
  1. Review the information in the detailed report, which includes sources and highlights the sections of your assignment that match content found in other sources. Use the report to make any changes necessary to ensure you have properly cited all work that is not your own. You may resubmit your assignment as many times as the setting in the online classroom allows.