Plagiarism check and reduction in Coimbatore

At Bharathiar, what happens after a failed check

Bharathiar University follows the UGC 2018 structure. On its plagiarism check page the university has written what will happen if your result crosses the 10% limit. A thesis in Level 1 is sent back for revision. The revised thesis can be resubmitted only after one month, and not later than six months. So a one-week turnaround is not possible.

There are two panels in this process. The Departmental Academic Integrity Panel has the HoD, one senior academic from outside and one person who is expert in the tools. This panel gives its report within 45 days. After that the Institutional panel reports to the Registrar, again within 45 days. A case can begin from a complaint or from something an examiner finds, and the university can also start one on its own.

The certificate form mentions DrillBit, and the acceptable maximum given there is 10%. You, your supervisor and your HoD sign it before the e-thesis is submitted. As per the plagiarism check page, a certified certificate is valid for 15 days only. Get every other submission document ready before asking for the check. That is why we tell scholars to clean the thesis early. Suppose the official check shows 11%. That will cost you at least one month. If the same 11% had come in a trial report three months before, and your department is able to run one, a few evenings of rewriting would have fixed it.

Anna University centres, Karunya and TNAU

In the Anna University research centres in Coimbatore, the check is run from the supervisor’s own login. The Centre for Research plagiarism policy still names Urkund, as it was written before the national software changed. Level 0 is up to 10%. Papers you claim in the thesis are not counted against you, but sit with your supervisor and list those papers before the run, otherwise they will come in the report as matches.

For Karunya scholars, read clause 11.1 of the 2023 regulations. Your report has to come from whichever software the university specifies, and after that your supervisor and HoD put their signature on it. Up to 20% is allowed at Karunya, and they don’t count the scholar’s own works in that figure.

In TNAU the software is kept in the office of the Dean (SPGS). As per 28.6 of the 2025 rulebook, you apply for the check in form SPGS PF 37. Both Master’s and doctoral theses must be below 30%. That limit is more relaxed than the Bharathiar one. Still, many TNAU theses depends heavily on standard methods sections and on papers co-written with the advisory committee, and both match heavily if not handled carefully.

Avinashilingam’s library service, and theses in Tamil

Among the Coimbatore universities, Avinashilingam’s library plagiarism page gives the most practical details. Turnitin and iThenticate are available there from 2014, and Urkund from 2015. You give the thesis as one single file, starting from the introduction till the bibliography. Preliminary pages like the declaration, acknowledgement and abstract are not included. Back pages like the glossary, index and questionnaire are also left out. The report comes back within one day.

The same page has one point every Tamil-medium scholar must know. For theses in Tamil, Hindi and French, the institution has no software to do a plagiarism check. We wanted to read Avinashilingam’s current PhD regulations also, but when we opened the link we had, it was showing “page not found”. Ask the library what replaces the check for a Tamil thesis.

If you are a Bharathiar scholar writing in Tamil, ask CRE how the official check is done for your thesis, and whether English translation has to be attached. Our similarity work is for English text only. For a thesis in Tamil we can help with the English translation and the abstract, and the Tamil text remains with you.

What we do with a Coimbatore report

We look at the source list first and the percentage after that. In theses from Coimbatore we are seeing the same causes many times. A senior’s thesis from the same department matches in the review chapter. Textbook definitions in the methodology chapter have no citation. And the scholar’s own conference paper shows up as a match, because nobody excluded it before the run.

For each match we decide one of three things. Either it needs a proper citation, or it should be quoted with quotation marks and a page number, or you rewrite it in your own words from what you have understood. You do the rewriting and we comment on every draft. Some people run word-spinning tools or hide characters inside the text to fool the checker. We never do this, and anyway the integrity panel is there to catch exactly such tricks.

How it works from Coimbatore

Send us full similarity report with the thesis file and your university name. We work from the report your supervisor or library gives you, as we don’t run any checker of our own. Maybe the report has not come yet. Then just tell us on which date your official check is fixed. Till the trial report comes, we can go through the review and method chapters, because uncited definitions and close paraphrase mostly hide in these two. When the report comes, we sort the matches chapter-wise and source-wise and mark what has to be fixed.

After that we agree on a plan in writing. It lists the chapters and matches, the number of rounds and the fee. You revise one chapter, we read it, then you move to the next. Please don’t rush for the official check. Wait till a trial run gives a number well inside your limit, with some margin left over, because the university will go by its own certificate only.