Being accused of Plagiarism - what do I do?

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Reply 20

ItHasToBeTrue

No one answered my question, what do you think they meant by "irregularities" in my essay?

Reply 21

kpwxx

Original post by ItHasToBeTrue

No one answered my question, what do you think they meant by "irregularities" in my essay?

They probably just use the word because they can't make claims that you copied when they don't actually know, so they say 'irregularities' to avoid false accusations on their part.

I know it must be hard but I would try not to keep going over and over what they said in the letter and just keep calm for your meeting. If you haven't done anything wrong you shouldn't have anything to worry about. Make sure for the meeting you have a clear idea of where everything in your essay came from- if it was from your own head then be ready to explain how you thought of it, and if not make extra sure you didn't miss a reference out. Like someone said above it's most likely an automated thing where they follow every + x% essay up with a meeting just to make sure- purely policy. If that's the case they'll probably just tell you to do a little less direct quoting.

Good luck,

xxx

Reply 22

mabrookes

Original post by ItHasToBeTrue

No I didn't but I looked at turnitin which said I plagiarised a certain section worth 4% and when I looked at it, it was a judgement by Lord Diplock about a paragraphs length however I said "as stated by Lord Diplock..."

That is not referencing on its own though you did the proper refence didn't you? If that is all you said you would be in trouble if you were here. As for punishment, it is a gauranteed fail for the module if found guilty here but I can't speak for your uni - and it would be up to the board if you get a chance at a supplemental or not, and normally if they do let you it would be as a second attempt at the year instead. But again I can't speak for your uni.

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 23

ItHasToBeTrue

Original post by mabrookes

The percentage is meaningless, you could theoretically have 90% and it not be plagiarised at all if it was referenced correctly (it wouldn't be plagiarism but it would almost certainly be a fail when marked for obvous reasons).

That is not referencing on its own though you did the proper refence didn't you? If that is all you said you would be in trouble if you were here. As for punishment, it is a gauranteed fail for the module if found guilty here but I can't speak for your uni - and it would be up to the board if you get a chance at a supplemental or not, and normally if they do let you it would be as a second attempt at the year instead. But again I can't speak for your uni.

So what you're saying is basically the turnitin percentage is unrelated to the likelihood plagiarism? So they could have other sources of information?

Reply 24

mabrookes

Original post by ItHasToBeTrue

So what you're saying is basically the turnitin percentage is unrelated to the likelihood plagiarism? So they could have other sources of information?

Not unrelated, if you had 90% on turnitin you would have to work much harder to make sure you didn't plagiarise I suppose. My point was more you don't have to base it on the percentage, as long as every bit of that percentage, whatever the number, is referenced it can't be plagiarised.
They would use that as a guide to check easily, so for your 30% thats 30% of the essay they can immediately verify that wouldn't have been anywhere near as easy before it came about.

Being accused of Plagiarism - what do I do?

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