Received an accusation of possible academic dishonesty, need some advice.

College Majors Business Major
1

<p>I just received an accusation of possible academic dishonesty for one of the course I'm taking right now.</p>

<p>Here's the situation:
There was a writing assignment, it's a short essay that's about 1 page long and fairly easy. My girlfriend who is also taking the class used my computer to type the essay because MS Word does not work on her computer. She did not delete the file after she submitted hers.</p>

<p>I started working on the assignment after she was done with it, but after I finished with mine, I renamed the wrong file(renamed her file instead of mine) and submitted it without double checking. </p>

<p>As a result, Turnitin.com found a 100% match, and I received the accusation of possible academic dishonesty.</p>

<p>I made an appointment with the associate dean after I received the email, and I also explained to him what happened but haven't heard back from him yet. The recommended sanction for this is an 'F' for the class, so I'm planning on scheduling a formal department hearing for this.</p>

<p>About me:
I'm a senior Business student majoring in Marketing, my GPA is not really good but it's around 3.1, and I have a clean record with no previous violation of academic honesty. My grade in this class is like a B before this(got an A on the first writing assignment and B on the exam.)</p>

<p>Personally, I have no reason to cheat on this assignment, since it's pretty easy(takes about 25 minutes), we can turn it in late, and it's not worth cheating on. Plus, even if anyone cheat, why would they take a current student's paper and submit it without changing a single word? </p>

<p>But I don't know how the professor and the dean views this as a mistake, or think that I'm intentionally cheating and stupid enough to just copy someone's paper without making any change to it.</p>

<p>What do you think I should do to minimize the penalty? I mean, I'm willing to take a zero for the assignment for my mistake but I think receiving an 'F' for the course is too much.</p>

2

<p>Just explain that…
Explain how
A. you’re a senior. Am I really gonna jeopardize the last 3+ years?
B. It’s a little busy work assignment worth a small portion of my grade. If I was gonna cheat, would I really do it on something so insignifigant?
C. Would I really not even attempt to change 1 word?</p>

<p>Also, see if you still have the two separate (different) files on your computer. There should be a time-stamp on there for when they were created and such.</p>

3

<p>Nardox, in such a situation, appear as confident as possible. Confidence is key to success. Confidence will show the associate dean and professor that you were not at fault. Also turn it on them. Start asking them questions (exactly what Binks09 said). Binks09 has the right idea.</p>

<p>Remember…CONFIDENCE. If there is anything that would make a higher authority uncomfortable in such a situation is seeing confidence from a student.</p>

<p>I should have been a lawyer. I would have probably ended up getting you extra credit on this assignment.</p>