iThenticate

Checking high-stakes documents for matching text

iThenticate is a similarity-checking service for documents where originality matters most, such as journal manuscripts, theses, dissertations, grant applications and other formal submissions. It belongs to the Turnitin group. Its tagline is to publish with confidence, and the idea is to surface potential plagiarism before a document reaches an editor, a committee or the public. The vendor calls it the most trusted plagiarism checker among researchers and publishers, which is its own claim.

How the report works

The tool produces a similarity report that highlights passages matching other sources, with a panel for viewing the source text beside each match. Exclusion options let an editor set aside matches that do not matter, such as quoted material or reference lists, so attention goes to the ones that do. Institutions can also use an AI writing detection feature; the individual credit packages do not include it.

What documents are compared against

The vendor says each submission is compared against current and archived web pages, a large body of scholarly publishing and open access material. That includes articles, books and conference proceedings from tens of thousands of scientific, technical and medical journals, US law reviews, pre-prints and encyclopedias. A partnership with Crossref gives access to content from major academic publishers, and the company says it covers 97 percent of the top 10,000 most-cited journals and checks about fourteen million documents each year. Large publishers are said to build it into their own workflows, so authors can run the same check their publisher may run.

Who uses it

Different sectors are addressed separately. Academic users check work before publication, admissions offices screen personal essays, government bodies check public-facing content from legal documents to grants, medical groups aim to prevent invalid findings and grant misconduct, and journals use it to protect their reputation.

Individual and organization options

Individual researchers and graduate students can buy credits. One package covers a single manuscript of up to 25,000 words, and another covers up to three manuscripts or one of up to 75,000 words. Credits last twelve months and include five free revisions. Organizations get customized arrangements, and a team is available to talk them through.

iThenticate is a similarity-checking service for high-stakes documents such as journal manuscripts, theses and grant applications. It is part of the Turnitin group. Researchers use it to review their work before submitting it, and institutions use it to screen what they publish.

What iThenticate offers

• Similarity report: highlights text that matches other sources, with a panel for viewing each source.
• Exclusion options: filters that help reviewers focus on the matches that matter.
• Large content database: web pages and scholarly material, helped by a partnership with Crossref.
• AI writing detection: available on institutional plans.
• Credit packs: for individuals preparing manuscripts.

Customers and markets

Academic publishers, universities, government bodies, medical researchers and admissions offices, as well as individual scholars.

Key facts

• Part of: Turnitin
• Publisher links: used in workflows at IEEE, Springer Nature and Wiley