I have run into a situation where a "plagiarism detection software" (I believe the one being used is called iThenticate) is showing 31 % similarity index for my document. In the list at the end of the report, it shows 20 entries under "Primary sources" (all have a subtitle "Internet" which I think is supposed to say all the matches with my document were found in other documents on the Internet) where the similarity percentages for each entry ranges from 6%, 1240 words to 1%, 118 words. This document is in the Humanities field. How should my document be modified to reduce this similarity index?
I have some sections in this document that have been paraphrased from another article (literally copy/pasted), but they have all been cited in the reference section. Are these one of the triggers for the similarity? The report shows some paraphrased material as being similar to something else (understandable) but not others. Should the paraphrased sections be formatted in some way to have the software ignore it?
Some common words such as "Chapter", "Introduction", etc and few common phrases are flagged as being similar to something else (words such as "chatper", "also" are flagged on one page, but not flagged in another). How concerned should I be about these? If I need the similarity index to be below some threshold percentage how do I ensure words like these do not take me above the threshold?
Some sections of the document are my own words, but the phrasings used are common enough that the entire section is being flagged as being from someplace else. How should I modify sections such as these?