A similarity score on Canvas is the percentage of your submission that text-matches content Turnitin has already indexed, such as other papers, websites, or books, not a measurement of plagiarism. Canvas displays this score wherever a Turnitin-enabled assignment is graded, most often in SpeedGrader, using a colored icon next to your submission.
What is a similarity score on Canvas?
It is a percentage generated by Turnitin's plagiarism-detection engine, which Canvas displays through its Turnitin integration. Turnitin compares your submitted text against its own repository, current and archived web pages, academic journals, and previously submitted student papers, then reports what share of your text has a matching source somewhere in that index. A higher percentage means more of your text was found to match existing content; it does not by itself mean that content was copied improperly, since quotations, a shared bibliography format, and common phrases all count toward the match.
What do the color bands mean?
In Turnitin's own Feedback Studio interface, the standard bands are blue for 0%, green for 1 to 24%, yellow for 25 to 49%, orange for 50 to 74%, and red for 75 to 100%. Some other Turnitin interfaces reverse blue and green at the low end. The important caveat for a Canvas user specifically: Canvas's Turnitin integration is a separate display layer on top of Turnitin's engine, and some LMS integrations use their own band definitions rather than Turnitin's default ones, so the exact color your instructor sees can depend on how your school configured the integration, not a single fixed standard.
Why can the score in SpeedGrader differ from the score in the Turnitin inbox?
Because they can be generated at different times under different settings, and Turnitin's own help documentation is explicit about this. The score displayed in Canvas SpeedGrader reflects whatever filters were applied when the assignment's Turnitin settings were originally configured. If an instructor later changes those filters, for example excluding the bibliography or quoted material from the count, the separate Turnitin assignment inbox (the LTI interface) will reflect that updated filter and can show a different percentage than SpeedGrader, which keeps displaying the originally generated score for the same submission. This is not a bug a student caused; it is a documented limitation of how the two interfaces sync, and it means the single number you see in SpeedGrader is not automatically the final number your instructor is grading against.
This is a different question from whether Canvas has its own separate AI-writing detector, which is covered in does Canvas discussion posts detect AI.
A related question is whether Canvas assignments route through Turnitin at all, covered in does Canvas use Turnitin.
What counts as a high similarity score?
There is no official universal threshold, on Canvas or anywhere else Turnitin is used, and any specific cutoff you see quoted online is a rule of thumb, not a rule. As a general guideline, a similarity score under roughly 15 to 20 percent is commonly treated as low-concern, provided the matched text is properly quoted and cited, since a score in that range is often made up of a reference list, common academic phrasing, and short quoted passages rather than uncited copying. What actually matters is what the matched text is, not just how big the percentage is: a 40% score built from a long, properly quoted block can be entirely defensible, while a 10% score concentrated in a single uncited paragraph can be a real problem.
A deeper breakdown of what specific score ranges and colors tend to mean in practice, beyond the Canvas-specific mismatch covered here, is in Turnitin report colors explained.
Turnitin can also generate a separate AI-writing score, covered in what does the Turnitin AI score mean.
How to actually read your Canvas similarity score
Open the full similarity report, not just the percentage icon, and check which specific sources are matching your text.
Confirm whether your instructor's Canvas assignment excludes the bibliography and quoted material from the count, since that setting alone can shift the visible number significantly.
If the score you see in SpeedGrader looks unexpectedly high, ask whether it reflects the assignment's current filter settings, given the documented gap between SpeedGrader and the Turnitin inbox.
Treat the color as a prompt to look closer, not as a grade or a verdict on its own.
How this was made: the color-band figures, the SpeedGrader-versus-Turnitin-inbox score mismatch, and the informal 15 to 20 percent low-concern guideline were checked via web search 2026-08-25 against Turnitin's own help center and guides documentation, plus multiple independent third-party sources describing the same mechanism. No specific percentage is presented here as an official Canvas or Turnitin policy. Drafting is AI-assisted, with a person verifying each claim against its source before publishing.
Frequently asked questions
Does a high similarity score on Canvas mean I plagiarized?
Not by itself. The score measures text matching, including quotations, references, and common phrasing, not intent to copy. Instructors are expected to open the full report and look at what specifically matched before drawing a conclusion.
Why does my similarity score look different in two places?
Canvas SpeedGrader can display the score generated when the assignment's Turnitin filters were first set, while the separate Turnitin assignment inbox reflects current filter settings. If an instructor changes filters after submissions start arriving, the two numbers can legitimately differ for the same paper, per Turnitin's own documentation.
What similarity score is considered safe on Canvas?
There is no official universal cutoff. A score under roughly 15 to 20 percent is commonly treated as low-concern when the matched text is properly cited, but what the matched text actually is matters more than the percentage alone.
Can I see my similarity score before final submission?
That depends on how your instructor configured the assignment, not on Canvas or Turnitin by default. Some assignments allow resubmission and an early preview score, others only reveal the score once.
