Because many students write their references in the same way (for instance in APA Style), a plagiarism checker finds many similarities with these sources. A reference found by the check is not a form of plagiarism. Therefore, there is no need to take action.

Can you plagiarize a reference list?

No. Taking someone else's bibliography, reading those papers, and writing some words of your own about those papers is not plagiarism. Don't restrict yourself to just those papers, though. In all likelihood, the thesis writer won't have cited every resource that is useful or relevant to your work.

Is it plagiarism to copy references?

Anytime you copy and paste verbatim from a source and do not give the source credit it is plagiarism. If you do copy and paste a passage word for word, you must put the information in quotations (i.e. " ") marks and give credit to the author. ... However, you do not want to fill your paper with direct quotations.