UGC plagiarism levels (2018 regulations)
The UGC (Promotion of Academic Integrity and Prevention of Plagiarism in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2018 set four levels of similarity for students and researchers. Enter your similarity percentage to see where you fall.
The four levels
| Level | Similarity | Consequence for students/researchers |
|---|---|---|
| Level 0 | Up to 10% | Minor; no penalty |
| Level 1 | Above 10% to 40% | Submit a revised script within six months |
| Level 2 | Above 40% to 60% | Debarred from submitting a revised script for one year |
| Level 3 | Above 60% | Registration for the programme cancelled |
What is excluded
- All quoted work reproduced with permission and/or attribution
- References, bibliography, table of contents, preface and acknowledgements
- Generic terms, laws, standard symbols and equations
- Common knowledge and short common phrases (institutions commonly treat matches of up to 14 consecutive words as excluded)
The regulations also say the core work (abstract, summary, hypothesis, observations, results, conclusions and recommendations) should not be plagiarised at all. Always check your own university's rules, which can be stricter.
Check your draft before your supervisor does: CitedWriter's similarity pre-check applies these exclusions and shows your level.