So I got called out for plagiarism by a teacher on a take-home question. It was a question to be done and submitted before the first midterm and it was worth 15/100 points on the first midterm. It essentially asked for a 1.5-page explanation of DNA replication in prokaryotes. Initially, I thought this was a false and unfair accusation and emailed her politely but firmly stating that I did not understand where the accusation came from. Then I closely examined the source she pointed out and my text and realized that despite a few changes, the overall vernacular was essentially the same. Upon realizing this, I emailed her back and feverishly informed her of the revelation that I actually may have accidentally plagiarized since the source she referenced was one of the sources I used. At the time of writing, I thought I was golden as I submitted the essay into several plagiarism checkers and never came up with anything worth looking into so I went ahead and submitted it. Now, I know that I clearly didn’t do a good enough of a job to explain things in my own genuine vernacular. I admitted my mistake to her and now this is officially the first time I’ve ever been involved with any potential cheating/plagiarism in academia.
At the time of writing the essay (and she knows this next part), I was going through a death in the family as well as several other serious issues including issues with “self-harm” with certain family members among other things like the actual looming physical exam the day after the submission. I guess I was just stressed out and subconsciously took the easy way out without realizing it until three weeks later (as we submitted them three weeks ago and are just getting the grades back now).
I emailed her with this realization, explanation and a sincere plea for any help or intervention that wouldn’t potentially end with me getting booted from the university or getting an F in the course (I’m actually doing fairly well in the class despite this hiccup). This is the first time i’ve ever dealt with cheating/plagiarism and i’m kind of at loss as to what to do or expect. What if anything else can I do in my case? What should I expect? …Am I lower than pond scum?