Turnitin uses two pieces of information to identify quotations:
- Quotes must be surrounded by double quotation marks (“...”), for Turnitin to recognise the text as quoted material.
- The author of the source must be acknowledged following citing and referencing guidelines, for Turnitin to recognise the quote as a correctly cited source.
If both of these elements are used to include the quote in your assignment Turnitin generally will ignore this text, however this can depend on the settings used by your unit coordinator. If your unit coordinator has set up the assignment to include text within quotation marks, you can temporarily change the settings to focus on other parts of the text while reading the report. To access that option, click on the filters and settings icon 
on the right-hand navigation bar when viewing the Similarity Report. The settings will revert to their original state when you close the report.
Some referencing styles (such as Harvard) require single quotation marks (‘...’), however Turnitin only recognises double quotation marks, not single ones. So, Turnitin may incorrectly identify these as text matches rather than quotations. It is more important to follow the guidelines for the specific style you have been instructed to use, than to worry about your similarity percentage in Turnitin. If you have quoted the source correctly following relevant guidelines, your lecturer will take this into account when assessing your work.
As mentioned, both elements listed above are needed. So, if you have not cited the source of the quote, it will be flagged by Turnitin even if it is included in quotation marks. This would represent an issue of Academic Integrity, so it is important to make sure that you correctly cite and reference all your sources. Turnitin will not always identify the actual source of information - it will indicate a matching source, not necessarily the original source. If you have lost track of which source you were quoting, you need to either find the quote and author in materials you have read or find other evidence to cite instead.
It is also good to consider whether all the quotations you have used are relevant. If you have a high percentage similarity mostly due to direct quotes, perhaps you are relying too heavily on quotations. In that case, even though the similarity percentage is not an issue, you may still lose marks because you have not sufficiently demonstrated your own understanding of the topic.
