<p>I don't even know why I'm posting this but I guess I would like some feedback. Well heres the story: About 2 weeks ago we were given a Nietzsche excerpt from Genealogy of Morals to read. I wrote some notes on the back of the excerpt and I have forgotten where I got them from.</p>
<p>I had a midterm due today (take home write an essay kind of midterm) in class, but first I had to submit it in turnitin.com first, anyway, I submitted it last night, and early morning I get an email from my prof saying that one of my sentences is paraphrased from sparknotes. Now I realize that it is paraphrased from sparknotes, but at the time I was doing it, I simply didn't realize this because I had forgotten where I got the notes on the excerpt from. </p>
<p>Anyway, I guess that is minor plagiarism, but does anybody know of a good defense? Also, if my prof doesn't believe me, does anybody know what happens when someone fails a course due to plagiarism? I mean, will that just basically ruin me? It seems something so little would **** me over in the future and I'm getting more depressed just thinking about it.</p>
<p>Here's the thing: it's not little. Plagiarism is a big deal in the academic world. You were wrong to write notes on the back without keeping track of your source. The fact that you didn't keep track of the source isn't a defense: it's part of the "crime".</p>
<p>I'd check your school's academic integrity policy and your class syllabus to see what the potential consequences are. And then I'd take responsibility for what you did wrong, apologize, accept whatever consequences you agreed were fair by enrolling at the school and staying in the class given the rules, and do better in the future. If you're mature about it, people will recognize that you made one mistake and learned from it. People can be remarkably forgiving when it comes to someone who makes a mistake once and takes responsibility. If, on the other hand, you maintain that this is "so little" and that you aren't responsible for it anyway because you behaved in a way that pretty much guaranteed that you'd end up plagiarizing, people will recognize that this is a reflection of the low standards you have for yourself.</p>
<p>Fortunately, it was just one sentence. I don't think anyone could look at that and say you were trying to avoid doing your own work. It was perhaps not the smartest thing to use the notes once you realized you could not remember where they came from, but, to my mind, this is different from sitting at the computer with the book in your hand trying to do as little original work as possible. It doesn't sound like you are trying to avoid responsibility, which should also be counted in your favor. I think the "defense" here is just to tell the truth about what happened. Hopefully, your professor will be understanding.</p>
<p>Yeah you guys sound right, but what I meant from a little mistake was that if one puts this into perspective, its a little mistake to fail a course for, thus wasting a lot of money for credits, thus getting ones GPA destroyed, thus not getting a great job in the future due to a bad GPA and having this in your records.</p>
<p>if your proof said "paraphrased from" that has wiggle room</p>
<p>gut tells me he wanted to let you know he was looking and to be more careful. I would think if he hqad found more, he would have made a bigger deal</p>
<p>Defense: "paraphrasing"- um isn't that kind of what we do when we right a paper anyway? put it into our own words?</p>
<p>Well, no. Giving credit to the thinkers on whom you rely is at the foundation of academic pursuit.</p>
<p>You made several choices. You chose not to credit the writer in your notes so that you could use the idea without plagiarizing. You chose to use the idea on your midterm despite being unable to do so without plagiarizing. You made those choices despite having been informed of the significance scholars attach to academic integrity, despite having been informed of the consequences getting caught plagiarizing would have, and despite having been warned that your instructor required turnitin.com.</p>
<p>It seems to me that aside from not valuing education very much, you don't value the things you think your track record in college can get you very much. If you really cared about those things, you could have written "sparknotes" on the back of the paper with the Nietzsche passage. Why would anyone who really cared about getting an F and messing up their GPA skip something so important and so easy? If you really cared about those things, you could elect, instead of complaining about how you shouldn't have to comply with the norms of academia in order to reap the benefits of academic success, to be a grownup and put yourself in a position such that when someone asks you about this class in a job interview you can honestly say that you made a mistake, took responsibility, and didn't make it a second time. Why would anyone who really cared about convincing people down the line that they can be relied on to do a job well choose a course of action that makes it clear that even when they're being supervised closely enough to make catching them easy they don't see a problem with doing a job badly?</p>
<p>The more honest you are, the better it will be. Don't try to come up with a defense, don't try to lie, just go meet your Prof. during office hours/appt. and take your notes and explain the situation.</p>
<p>Yeah, I'm just going to be honest, and everything I wrote in the first post was exactly what happened to me. And I DO care about an "F" or even getting into this kind of confrontation with the teacher, I just made a simple mistake, something humans are capable of believe it or not.</p>
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It seems to me that aside from not valuing education very much, you don't value the things you think your track record in college can get you very much.
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<p>That's quite a conclusion you drew from a simple mistake, which, as the OP mentioned, humans can and most certainly do commit, rather often I might add. I can flat out guarantee you that you have made your share of dumb decisions in your life, whether they caused you trouble or not.</p>
<p>nontraditional, you are jumping to many conclusions. no one is perfect believe it or not. we all make mistakes, big and small, at one point or another in our lives.</p>