UCAS Plagarism o_o

I forwarded my application last week to my referee which was easy and yeah... it felt good to finally get the ps stress off my shoulders. However, after seeing the amount of newbie TSRians who accidentally post their personal statements and PS helpers telling them that their content probably got detected by the UCAS plagarism software made me really curious.

So I decided to type in the first line of my personal statement (out of curiosity, I haven't published it online) AND A RESULT CAME UP. There was a sentence in the website which has 5 words which are literally identical to the five words I have in my personal statement. And what's worse - I've never looked online for sample ps statements or anything but the 5 words that are identical to mine in my personal statement is in some way connected to the sort of degree that I'm applying for.

HELP?! Would having 5 words (through no fault of my own) be flagged up to UCAS and make them go ER THIS GIRL COPIED A SOURCE WHICH IS CLOSELY RELATED TO HER DESIRED COURSE and penalise me? Panic, panic, PANIC.

x

Okay maybe I was slightly over-exaggerating about it being the first line of my personal statement; it is perhaps there a few sentences into my first paragraph (but it was in the opening of my first couple of drafts) . Then again, what I said was normal, it was like me saying "I love cake with all my life" and someone else coincidentally writing the same thing waaaay before me. Do you reckon I should still flag this up to my tutor and take it out?

I'd take it out. If other people have said similar things even if it doesn't trip the plagiarism detector it isn't very personal or adding anything of value to your statement.

If you find something similar online then believe me there will be dozens/hundreds/thousands more that an admissions tutor has read.

UCAS mainly pickup if you have over 10% of your personal statement as someone else so you should be fine. Change it if it reassures you though, but in all probabilty it'll be fine

UCAS mainly pickup if you have over 10% of your personal statement as someone else so you should be fine. Change it if it reassures you though, but in all probabilty it'll be fine

I copied most of my ps and just changed some words mid sentences. Got all offers.

It's nowhere near as strict as people make it out to be.

This is scary. I emailed my personal statement to friends who are at uni and teachers. Getting paranoid now.

If you know they are not applicants, and assuming they are not stupid enough to mail it on to anyone who is, then you have no problem.

This is scary. I emailed my personal statement to friends who are at uni and teachers. Getting paranoid now.

You will be fine. If it's just a generic sentence and is detected is won't matter at all. There are so many personal statements, people are bound to say the same thing


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i doubt ucas will be able to look into your inbox to try and dig out that personal statement :h as the poster above said, as long as it's not shared and/or the person doesn't print it out and accidentally forget it somewhere, you'll be fine! :h

2 sentences flagged for similarly is the level that trips the UCAS software.

It sounds like your opening sentence is a bit generic - regardless of the plagiarism factor it's probably worth removing it. Don't reword it - it'll still flag as similar (and unoriginal). Take it out completely. Often PSs benefit from taking off the opening sentence in my experience - you're not alone in using something quite clichéd. It feels like a safe thing to do to open with something generic or cliche. Usually the interesting and personal/unique stuff comes in the following sentences which makes for a better opening.

When I copy and paste into google I just get results where the words I used are just scattered so is this ok?