I do not know if this fits to this forum but im desperate. I have been notified by my instructor this evening that a paper I turned in was plagiarized and a case is going to be filed to COAM. I have used several online plagiarism checkers and after seeing that it was safe, I had turned it in and this still happened… i am very confused and scared myself since I honestly do not know what I copied and plagiarized and if I was copying something, I thought that I cited it. I got a bad grade for this course and was repeating it so I really do not want to fail… if i were to be failed, can I repeat this course one more time? ( then Im taking this course three times; i am in the first semester of my second year)? what would happen to me now? What should I do? What are the processes? Please help me I am desperate
Is it possible to ask the professor the nature of the plagiarism? Was it citing something incorrectly? Referencing works not specified in the assignment prompt? Too-close paraphrasing? Knowing the nature of the plagiarism will allow you to construct a better defense (or at the very least, learn your lesson.)
You sure you didn’t plagiarize anything? Out of all the essays I wrote in college, I never even thought to use a “plagiarism checker” before turning a paper in, while you claim to have used several for a single essay…
You ran your own paper through “several online plagiarism checkers.” Why would you do that if you knew you wrote the paper yourself?
When you are accused of plagiarism, you can ask the instructor to explain which parts of your paper were found to not be original. You will can get specific information from your instructor on this, and you can respond to the accusations.
I used to run my papers through plagiarism checkers because I was worried that quoted text would set them off.
You shouldn’t directly copy anything without putting it in quotation marks, even if you indicate the source somewhere.
^ But if the text is a) quoted and b) cited, why does it matter if it sets the plagiarism checkers off?? Of course it will, because it is directly copied, but that’s irrelevant because it’s cited properly.
Why would someone check that so obsessively if they did everything honestly?
It was one of my first college classes. I thought I could be punished for having a high percent of similarity to other works, regardless of the reason.
Another possibility: By running them through the plagiarism checkers, those systems might store your essay, and then when your professor ran it, it matched against your essay.
Assuming you did not plagiarise, what I would do is ask the professor what the process is. Have your drafts and your sources and show how you cited the information.
Not sure about the OP’s situation, but currently all students are advised to use the university subscription to the plagiarism checker. It’s a good idea, I think. It can help you find items that you quoted without citation so you can correct that before turning it in. These students are still learning. The problem is not finding something in the checker, the problem happens when you did not correct it. It’s also possible that the OP’s original paper was copied by someone else and they are bringing both students in to determine what happened. OP don’t get ahead of yourself. Figure out exactly what you did (and didn’t) do, and be ready to speak honestly with the administration. Good luck.
To all: okay I am awfully shocked that majority of people do not use the plagiarism checker before turning their papers in because I do just in case and many of my friends do to. And I do not know why some of you just assume that I plagiarized and not being honest here… Lol I do not see any motive to lie on a forum that I want to get help with getting involved in such case
Also, the professor emphasized: do not plagirize and studd cuz we are going to be running checkers, so I ran more plagiarism checkers than usual simply to be more careful
I have been talking to the instructor and it might not even be the problem with copying somebody’s work, it was just some other complicated stuff that I had evidence for and explain, so shame on you if you just assumed that I was lying
I’m actually shocked that there are students who did use plagiarism checkers before turning in papers. I just cited my work, and I’d read through it again before turning it in to proofread it (for things like grammar and citations). I never once considered using a plagiarism checker. Why do you and your friends do it? To look for errors where you forgot a citation? I could understand why someone who has never used a plagiarism checker might consider it odd and suspicious that another student would feel the need to put theirs through several.
I think just about everyone suggested you just talk to your professor and figure out what is going on. I don’t think anyone was being malicious about it.
You plagiarized, end of story. A professor would not take this to the Committee on Academic Misconduct if he thought this was just a minor mistake. Trust me, it takes a chunk out of their time. They don’t go after plagiarists unless there is a mountain of evidence and they have a smoking gun.
Alternatively, you could have just spent that time actually writing your paper in your own original language. People who don’t plagiarize never have to run plagiarism checkers.
You might have plagiarized an idea, too. Did you consult the internet to “get ideas” and then incorporate them into your paper without proper attribution? Because that’s plagiarism too. It isn’t just about taking someone else’s words.
Did you submit a paper you wrote in another class? Because that is also plagiarism.
Whatever you did, own up to it. COAM likes to see people who are sorry for their mistakes. You won’t be expelled if it’s your first offense.
Most plagiarism checkers record every document in a data bank. The prof probably ran it through the same checker you did, false positive.
What school? For my undergrad, I never once used a plagiarism checker. Why would I, I wrote the thing from scratch. In my masters, again, never once used a plagiarism checker. And for this one, I graduated in 2014. If you simply copying large chunks of text from sources, you probably didn’t write much of your own words. I’m assuming this is because you aren’t at a very good school, and thus the professors know most students get tripped up that a paper isn’t just copying sections of text
So wouldn’t that mean a school telling people to use a plagiarism checker prior to turning it in is actually a terrible idea? Wouldn’t every student who follows the school’s suggestion get flagged for plagiarism? Or does your school specifically not use a checker that stores submissions @thingamajig ?
“I have been talking to the instructor…it was just some other complicated stuff”
So OP is handling this.
No one should jump to conclusions. You can sometimes get dinged for using your own prior work, depends on the standards. Let’s hope this works out for OP.
There’s no way to get a false positive. It’s true that quoted material will, of course, show up on a plagiarism checker. But if it’s quoted, it’s not plagiarized.
If language in your paper is identical to language somewhere else online, then I’m putting a large amount of money down on the fact that you plagiarized.
I work with plagiarism checkers all the time. I have also caught quite a few plagiarists. There’s no way to just have a simple misunderstanding when it comes to this stuff–your language is either identical to someone else’s, or it isn’t. Obviously most professors know how to sift past the ordinary stuff that gets flagged (quoted material, titles, names, common phrases). But when plagiarism shows up, it’s unmistakable.
If the professor is moving it forward to the committee on academic misconduct, then it’s pretty serious. COAM at OSU doesn’t fool around with small potatoes. They don’t even hear cases unless there’s a preponderance of evidence.
Preponderance is a tricky word.