Plagiarism and similarity reduction in Coimbatore

What similarity percentage does each Coimbatore university accept in a PhD thesis?

The table holds only what each institution’s own document says. Where the document gives no figure, the table says so. We have not filled the gap with the national one.

The spread runs from 10% to under 30%. That’s wider here than in most cities, and it changes what “reducing plagiarism” means. A Bharathiar or Anna University scholar at 18% has real work to do. A TNAU scholar at 18% is inside the rule. But the same chapters will go on to journals, and their editors may run their own checks with their own limits. So it’s still worth fixing uncited or closely paraphrased text. Most of these rules borrow the UGC levels, which our plagiarism limits guide explains.

One more thing to check. Karunya’s admissions website still hosts the 2020 regulations. Those allowed 25%, and the check ran on software held by the head of department. The 2023 regulations on the main university site replaced that with 20%. Work to the 2023 figure unless your research office tells you otherwise in writing.

How does Bharathiar University’s DrillBit check work, and why does the 15-day validity matter?

Bharathiar’s plagiarism-check page sets out rules in force from 1 November 2022. The certificate form names DrillBit and a 10% maximum. Three points trip scholars up:

• Chapters only. The e-thesis you submit for checking holds the chapters and nothing else. So front matter never inflates the figure. The university’s academic integrity regulations also exclude quoted work with attribution and the references and bibliography. The contents, preface and acknowledgements don’t count either. Nor do generic terms, laws, or standard symbols and equations.
• Five signatures. The form has places for you, your supervisor, your head of department, the University Librarian and CRE’s Director in charge, with seals. Yours, your supervisor’s and your head’s must be in place before the e-thesis is submitted.
• Fifteen days. A certified certificate lapses 15 days after it is issued. Say the thesis submission is held up by a missing signature, a fee receipt or a no-due certificate. Then you check again.

So the sensible order is simple. Finish every correction and gather the other papers for thesis submission. Only then ask for the official check. Bharathiar’s 2025–26 regulations also put plagiarism and authorship disputes before the university’s Ethics and Grievance Redressal Committee. Our Bharathiar thesis format guide shows where the check sits among the other submission steps. The tool itself is in our DrillBit guide.

What do TNAU, Karunya and Avinashilingam exclude, and how many checks can you run?

TNAU. Section 28.6 of the PG Rules and Regulations 2025 (available from the SPGS rules page) sends every thesis to the software in the Dean (SPGS)’s office. The certificate it produces goes in with the thesis. The request form, SPGS PF 37, tells you more than the rule does. It asks for the document’s total word count and whether this is your first submission. If it isn’t, you say how many times the thesis has been checked and what each percentage was. Beyond five submissions you record the fine you paid. There is also a self-plagiarism box. In it you list the URLs or DOIs of your own published papers, so they can be excluded. TNAU requires two published papers from the doctoral work, so list both.

Karunya. The 20% in the 2023 regulations excludes “those reflecting the works of the author of the thesis under consideration”. That covers your own papers drawn from the thesis. Your supervisor and head of department sign the report before submission.

Avinashilingam. The library’s plagiarism page asks for the thesis as one file, from the introduction to the bibliography. Leave out the declaration, acknowledgement, abstract, lists, contents, glossary, index and questionnaire. Scanning takes a day, and the report gives your percentage beside the acceptable maximum. The checking service page says you need an application form endorsed by your supervisor or head of department. Neither page limits the number of checks. Theses in Tamil, Hindi or French can’t be checked, as the library has no software for those languages. The July 2024 regulations add two papers: an undertaking from you, and a supervisor’s certificate vouching that there is no plagiarism.

What happens at Coimbatore universities when plagiarism is suspected in a thesis?

The procedures differ as much as the limits.

• Bharathiar University follows the UGC 2018 structure. Each department, affiliated college and research institution has a Departmental Academic Integrity Panel. It has three members: the head of department, a senior academic from outside the department and a person who knows anti-plagiarism tools. It reports to an Institutional Academic Integrity Panel within 45 days, and that panel reports to the Registrar within another 45. For a thesis, the penalties climb in three steps. Above 10% and up to 40%, you revise the script within one to six months. Up to 60%, you’re barred from resubmitting for a year. Above 60%, the registration is cancelled. Proceedings can start from a complaint, from an examiner’s findings or on the university’s own notice.
• Anna University centres apply the same three levels through the Centre for Research’s plagiarism policy. The enquiry happens at the Centre, under clause 23 of R2025. Our Anna University format guide explains where the similarity page sits in the bound thesis.
• Karunya is blunter. If you’re found to have copied a thesis, you lose the thesis and the registration and are barred from other programmes. Your supervisor loses recognition as a guide for five years.
• Avinashilingam forfeits the thesis or degree and cancels the registration. It has applied the UGC 2018 regulations since 2018–19.
• Amrita’s 2024 PhD policy treats plagiarism as a severe offence. It can lead to expulsion, or to the degree being revoked if it’s found after graduation.

That is why we won’t use paraphrasing software, character swaps or hidden text. A trick that lowers the score for a week can end up as evidence in an integrity panel’s file. Our ethics policy explains what we do instead.

Working with us from Coimbatore

Send us the report your university produced, or the closest you have. That could be a DrillBit report from the Bharathiar library, or the TNAU certificate from the Dean (SPGS)’s office. It could be the Turnitin or Urkund report Avinashilingam’s library returned. We apply your institution’s exclusions as we read the report. Then we work through the matches with you over video calls and tracked changes. If yours is a Turnitin report, our source-by-source walkthrough shows what we look at.

Timing follows your university’s paperwork. At Bharathiar, ask for the official DrillBit certificate only when our work and your other submission papers are done. The 15-day validity is the reason. At TNAU, keep official checks to a minimum. The form records each one, and fines start after five. Between those checks you track progress on our own report, from a standard checker and labelled with the settings used. It won’t match the university’s figure exactly. At TNAU and Karunya your own papers are excluded officially, but they may show up in ours.

If any chapter is in Tamil, tell us at the start. Avinashilingam’s library can’t check Tamil text, so ask your department how originality will be certified. We’ll tell you honestly what our own report can and can’t show for that chapter.