Turnitin similarity and AI reports in the UAE: how to read yours, and what universities actually publish (2026)
A reference guide for master’s, PhD and DBA students and researchers in the UAE. It explains how a similarity report and the AI writing indicator work, according to Turnitin’s own documentation, and what UAE universities publish about similarity, quoted from their own documents. If you already have a report, our free Turnitin report interpreter walks you through reading it.
The short answer. No single percentage applies across the UAE, and Turnitin itself says there is no fixed number a report should show. Of the UAE universities we checked, only the University of Sharjah publishes a thesis figure, and it allows the College of Graduate Studies to approve reports above it after reviewing them. Khalifa University publishes a figure for coursework. The others we checked publish no number. A similarity percentage tells your reviewers where to look. It is not a verdict. What counts is whether every borrowed idea and every borrowed sentence is properly credited.
For Saudi, Qatari, Kuwaiti, Omani and Bahraini universities, our thesis submission rules lookup lists each university’s published similarity and format rules with sources.
Check your own university first. We keep a verified register of what 16 UAE and GCC universities publish about AI use in theses and coursework, with a disclosure template: AI use policies for theses in the UAE and GCC.
How a Turnitin similarity report works
Turnitin compares your submission with its database and highlights text that matches: current and archived web pages, published journals and periodicals, and a repository of papers students have submitted before. In its own guidance Turnitin says it does not check for plagiarism. It shows matches, and a person decides what they mean.
The overall index and the individual matches
The headline figure is the similarity index: the share of your text that matches other sources. Under it sits the list of individual matches, each a source with its own percentage and highlighted passages. The same overall figure can mean very different things. Turnitin’s own example compares a student at 20% who pasted text from a website with one at 22% who quoted and referenced sources correctly.
Quotes, bibliography and small matches: exclusions are settings, not rights
Correct quotations and reference lists still show up as matches, because they are matching text. Turnitin offers filters that stop them counting towards the index. These are only applied if your institution or instructor turns them on.
- Exclude bibliography detects the reference list and leaves it out of the index.
- Exclude quoted text ignores text in quotation marks or formatted as a block quote.
- Exclude cited text (newer report only) removes in-text citations together with the sentences they support.
- Exclude small matches (newer report only) hides matches below a word threshold: 8 words by default, and never lower.
- Exclude small sources (classic report only) drops whole sources below a word or percentage threshold.
Two points matter more than the filters themselves. First, Turnitin states that exclusions a student makes are temporary and do not change the official score your instructor sees. Second, your university decides which exclusions are acceptable. The University of Sharjah’s College of Graduate Studies has formally objected to references being removed by hand, and to the “Exclude small sources” function being used before thesis reports are generated. It said these practices made it harder to assess the true extent of similarity (see the table below).
Why a percentage alone is not a verdict
Turnitin says that plagiarism cannot be judged from the score alone. Reviewers look at how sources were used and cited, and whether the work fits the student’s own understanding. Its student guidance adds that a high score does not always mean plagiarism and a low score does not always mean there is none. A report of 0% can also be a problem when an assignment is meant to draw on sources.
Repository settings, and why your own draft can match at 100%
When an instructor sets up an assignment, they choose where submissions are stored: the standard paper repository (Turnitin’s global store), an institution repository, or no storage. They also choose which sources to compare against, and Turnitin notes that switching off a repository can lower the score. If an earlier draft of your thesis was stored, your final version can match it almost entirely; Turnitin’s student guide describes exactly this 100% case. The fix is for your instructor to exclude your earlier submission, not to rewrite. Tell your supervisor if you see it.
What Turnitin’s AI writing indicator measures, and its stated limits
The AI writing indicator is a separate measure. Turnitin states that the similarity score and the AI writing percentage are completely independent and do not influence each other. Here is what Turnitin’s documentation says about it.
- What the percentage means. It is the share of qualifying text that the model predicts was likely written by AI, or written by AI and then changed by a paraphrasing or “bypasser” tool. Only long-form prose sentences qualify. Lists, bullet points and code do not, so the figure is not necessarily a percentage of the whole document.
- Who sees it. The indicator and report are visible to instructors and administrators, not students. Instructors can download the report and share it with you.
- Minimum and maximum. A submission needs at least 300 words of long-form prose and no more than 30,000 words (file requirements).
- Low scores are not shown as numbers. Since July 2024, Turnitin’s release notes say that results from 1% to 19% appear as an asterisk with no percentage. Turnitin made this change to reduce false positives.
- Availability depends on your university. AI writing detection comes with Turnitin Originality, or as an add-on for iThenticate. Administrators can switch it on or off.
The false-positive caution Turnitin itself publishes
Turnitin says it aims to keep false positives under 1% for documents with more than 20% AI writing. False positives are fully human-written documents wrongly flagged. By Turnitin’s own figure, that could still mean about one in every 100 fully human-written documents. Turnitin says the percentage should not be used as the sole basis for action and that it does not make findings of misconduct. It also lists the kinds of human writing that are more likely to be wrongly flagged: text without much structural variation, text that repeats itself, and text that has been paraphrased without new ideas being developed. In short documents of a few hundred words, the result tends to be “all or nothing”.
AI detection for Arabic (August 2026)
On 18 August 2026, Turnitin announced AI writing detection for Arabic submissions, available through Turnitin Originality and as an iThenticate add-on. Its Arabic FAQ says the model covers long-form Modern Standard Arabic. It is a separate model from the English one. For now, detection of AI-paraphrased text is available only for English submissions. If you write your thesis or chapters in Arabic, your report may now include an AI indicator, provided your university licenses the feature and has it switched on.
What UAE institutions actually publish
The table uses only the universities’ own public documents. We quote the operative rule and link it. Where we found no published number, we say so rather than guess. Rules change and programmes can set their own, so your handbook and supervisor override any general guide, this one included.
| Institution | What the document says | Source (accessed 28 Sep 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| University of Sharjah | For theses: the College of Graduate Studies permits “a maximum of 15% similarity after the exclusion of all references, endnotes, footnotes, and materials enclosed within double quotations”. Quoted material must be justified. The College “may approve similarities exceeding 15%” after a thorough examination of the authentic Turnitin report. The same circular rejects hand-removed references and use of “Exclude small sources”. | College of Graduate Studies circular No. 11 (2023–2024), 22 May 2024 |
| Khalifa University | For coursework and final project reports: “Plagiarism is deemed to have occurred if the plagiarism score is equal to or greater than 15%, after all individual instances of scores of 2% or less are discounted.” The Master’s and PhD research-milestone pages we checked state no similarity figure for theses or dissertations. | Graduate Catalog 2026–2027, Identification and Analysis of Plagiarism Guidelines |
| UAE University (UAEU) | All graduate students must check their work with plagiarism software, and a “thesis/dissertation must be checked for plagiarism before submission to the College of Graduate Studies”. No public threshold found. Ask your supervisor or the library. | Graduate Student Handbook 2023–2024 |
| British University in Dubai (BUiD) | For doctoral theses, the Director of Studies confirms the thesis “has been checked with Turnitin software and the similarity is within the approved limit”. The limit is not stated in the document. No public threshold found. Ask your supervisor or the library. | Assessment Regulations of Doctoral Degrees 5.2.1 (Appendix H); PG Student Handbook, Sept 2025 |
| American University of Sharjah (AUS) | No public threshold found. Ask your supervisor or the library. | Graduate Catalog 2025–2026 |
| Zayed University | No public threshold found. Ask your supervisor or the library. | Academic Integrity page; Student Handbook 2022–2023 |
How to read this table: the two published figures come with conditions. At Sharjah these are the exclusions allowed, a review of the authentic report, and discretion above the figure. At Khalifa, the rule is written for coursework. Neither is a score to aim for. This table covers UAE universities only. Other GCC universities set their own rules, so check your own institution’s current thesis guide.
What to do when your report is high
The aim is not a lower number. The aim is a document in which every borrowed word and idea is properly credited and every other sentence is yours. Work through the report in this order.
- 1
Read each match, not the total. Open the source list and go through every highlighted passage. Sort each one: a correct quotation, your reference list, a common phrase or method term, a missing citation, or a passage that is too close to its source.
- 2
Fix missing citations and quotation marks. If you used someone’s exact words, put them in quotation marks and cite them. If you used their idea, cite it. Correcting attribution is exactly what the report is for.
- 3
Paraphrase properly, in your own words. Re-read the source, close it, and write the point as you understand it, in your own structure. Then cite it. UAEU’s graduate handbook lists changing some words while keeping the same structure and meaning, without noting the source, as plagiarism.
- 4
Check the reference list. Make sure every in-text citation has a reference entry and every entry is cited. Use your required style (APA, Harvard, IEEE or another) consistently, so reviewers can see what is referenced.
- 5
Talk to your supervisor. Ask which exclusions your programme applies, whether an earlier draft of yours is in the repository, and how the report will be read at submission. Supervisors see these reports often, and your question is a normal one.
- 6
Keep your drafts and version history. Save dated drafts, your notes and reading records, and your document’s version history. They show how your work developed if a similarity or AI result is ever questioned.
Never use paraphrasing tools, “humanisers” or AI rewriters to change a score. Running text through a tool so that a checker stops recognising it hides where the words came from and presents machine-altered text as your own writing. University integrity codes treat that as academic misconduct, whether or not the tool “works”. It also tends to fail. Since August 2025, Turnitin’s English AI model has been designed to flag text likely changed by AI paraphrasers and bypassers (which it also calls humanizers), and its FAQ says text from Grammarly’s generative paraphrasing features will likely be flagged. You end up with a document that reads worse and a report that raises more questions.
Want someone to read the report with you? Send your similarity report and your draft. An academic editor marks which matches need quotation marks, a citation or your own wording, and explains why. We never rewrite to lower the score, and we never write for you.
If your own human writing is flagged as AI
A flag is not a finding. Turnitin itself says its AI percentage should not be the sole basis for action. If your own work is flagged:
- Keep the evidence of how you wrote it. This includes dated drafts, document version history (Word or Google Docs), outlines, research notes, reading lists, data files and any supervisor feedback you acted on.
- Ask for a discussion before any decision. Ask politely to see the AI report and to talk it through with your supervisor or instructor. Be ready to explain your argument, your sources and your choices. That conversation is often the strongest evidence you have.
- Point to Turnitin’s own limitations where they apply. These include short documents, repetitive or formulaic sections, and text with little variation in structure.
- Follow your university’s procedure. Use the academic integrity, grievance or appeal route in your student handbook, and keep to its deadlines. Khalifa University, for example, sets these out in its graduate catalog’s student grievances and appeals section.
Questions students ask about Turnitin in the UAE
Is there an acceptable Turnitin percentage for UAE universities?
There is no UAE-wide figure, and Turnitin says every school, instructor or assignment may accept a different amount. The University of Sharjah publishes a conditional thesis figure and Khalifa University a coursework rule (see the table). For UAEU, BUiD, AUS and Zayed University we found no published figure. Ask your supervisor or library what applies to your programme.
Can I see my own AI writing score?
Not by default. Turnitin shows the AI indicator and report to instructors and administrators only. Instructors can download the AI report and share it with you, so ask if it is relevant to your submission.
If I exclude my bibliography in my student view, does my official score change?
No. Turnitin states that exclusions a student makes are temporary and do not change the official score the instructor sees. Official exclusions are set by your instructor or institution.
Why does my thesis match my own earlier draft at almost 100%?
An earlier submission of yours was probably stored in a Turnitin repository. Your instructor can exclude that source. Tell your supervisor instead of rewriting, and in future ask whether practice checks go to “no repository”.
Does Turnitin detect AI writing in Arabic?
Yes, if your institution licenses and enables it. Turnitin launched it on 18 August 2026 for long-form Modern Standard Arabic of at least 300 words.
Will Grammarly or an editor get my work flagged?
Turnitin says grammar, spelling and punctuation corrections from Grammarly and similar tools were, in most of its tests, not flagged as AI. Text produced with generative features such as drafting or paraphrasing will likely be flagged. Human editing that corrects language and citations without writing content for you is a different thing, but check your university’s rules on permitted help.
How this guide was checked
Turnitin facts come from Turnitin’s official guides, including Understanding the similarity score for students and How exclusion filters refine the Similarity Report, and its August 2026 press release. Institutional rules come only from each university’s own documents, linked in the table. All sources were accessed on 28 September 2026.
If you would like a second pair of eyes, Labeeb reviews the citations and referencing in your own draft and explains what your university’s report is showing. See academic-integrity editing for your own draft and share your university guidance to discuss a suitable scope. We never target a score or rewrite work to get past a checker (our integrity policy).