When a student submission receives a 0% Similarity score, it simply means that Turnitin did not find any matching text between the paper and our database of enabled search sources.
In the document viewer, instructors and students may also see this accompanying message:
ℹ️ "There are no matching sources for this report."
Why does a 0% score occur?
While a very low or 0% score can sometimes surprise users, it is highly common in the following scenarios:
Short Documents: Turnitin’s system requires a specific minimum threshold of consecutive matching words within a sentence or paragraph structure to flag a match. In shorter papers (1-2 pages), it is much easier to fall completely under this threshold.
Creative and Personal Writing: Assignments focused on creative writing, personal essays, reflections, or unique arguments naturally utilize the student's distinct voice, reducing the likelihood of overlapping with existing database content.
Highly Original Research: The paper contains completely independent thoughts, phrases, and structures that have not been published elsewhere.
The impact of assignment settings
An instructor's specific assignment configurations can also heavily drive down the final similarity percentage. A 0% score often occurs if the assignment is set to exclude components of a paper, such as:
Excluding Bibliographies / References: The system ignores the entire works cited section, which typically generates high match percentages.
Excluding Quotes: The system ignores any text placed within quotation marks.
Small Match Exclusions: The instructor may have configured the assignment to ignore minor matches below a certain word count or percentage threshold (e.g., ignoring any match under 10 words).
📚 Instructor Tip: To learn more about how these filters can impact Similarity Reports, please review our guide on managing filters and exclusions.