Plagiarism check says my work is 22% plagiarised what does this mean

I had over 50% similarity once and I got away with it so dw as long (as you've referenced everything you should be fine.)

I had over 50% similarity once and I got away with it so dw as long (as you've referenced everything you should be fine.)

Is this massive amount of work that has apparently plagiarised and would i be penalised for this or not as i have been told that if a certain amount of work is below a certain % the uni would let it go or is this just BS

If it's 20% plagiarised then you're in trouble. If it's 20% similarity level and the similarity is the bibliography, titles, names etc then it's probably fine. You need to look at what the 20% is.

How did you get away with 50%?! That’s a lot

ohhhh really isnt that really high

Doesn't matter if it's 80/ 90% similarity as long as you've referenced lol. You just won't get an amazing mark because you've hardly got your own words in there.

I don't see how this plagiarism database/system can actually work

with thousands of students handing in different essays each year, there is going to come a time just purely by chance that essays start looking a lot like previous ones from like 20 years ago or something.

you might have a similar writing style/way of saying things and by chance written something very similar to someone else.......

You've only plagiarised if you've actually tried to pass off some other bloke's work as your own. If you haven't done that, then 20% will be fine. If you got like >51% then that means only <49% of the essay is actually your words. You'd possibly be in a pickle then.

It means that 22% of the content in your report matches that of other reports on their database. Usually you end up with 5-20% because you just happen to phrase something the same as someone else (or even you) did, or because of references.

22% is in the range of ok, if it was much higher then they would probably start thinking it's a bit odd and check into it. 50% of the time that means you'll get called into a meeting automatically and it will be because you've quoted articles correctly, in which case they'll quickly send you on your way. 30% of the time you'll have quoted incorrectly and they'll give you a slap on the wrist, then the rest of the time you've actually plagiarised and you'll get a much harsher punishment.

Depends on your uni, but my uni's policy was to use it as guidance. They looked out more for large blocks of text that were directly lifted from sources than a raw percentage. That said, I rarely got over 10% unless bibliographies were included in the total. Not sure how people end up with 30% or more without literally copy and pasting text.

I don't see how this plagiarism database/system can actually work

with thousands of students handing in different essays each year, there is going to come a time just purely by chance that essays start looking a lot like previous ones from like 20 years ago or something.

you might have a similar writing style/way of saying things and by chance written something very similar to someone else.......

It means that your submission has aspects which are 20% similar to previous submissions (turnitin I'm guessing)

Although every University has its own policy, I doubt 20% would be enough to flag your work up as plagiarised.