Failed my dissertation for plagiarism

Original post by hellodave5

This is what I would like to know. It sounds like he's entitled to one...?

He's entitled to nothing because he's committed plagiarism. This is the single-biggest offence you could possibly commit at a university.

Reply 24

Snikle

9

Original post by Hal.E.Lujah

I'm not being funny but I'm struggling to believe they would throw your MA away because of a mixed up upload. :redface:

If it's not being given to you at the hearing, which is a panel of reasonable intelligent adults interested in your future potential, then most likely case is you kinda plagiarised. Sorry.

I have to agree with this...

Original post by PG_Student

Yeah, I did plagiarise but it wasn't the document I wanted to upload. I hadn't referenced anything in this. It was just a working draft where I had pasted in direct source material with no reference. I admit my mistake. I just want to complete my MA. It was irresponsible but I want the opportunity to rectify my mistake.

Having done a module in Forensic Linguistics, we were given the opportunity to look at how Turnitin actually works.. The software isn't claver enough to tell the difference between what you have quoted and what you have written yourself, therefore everyone submits essays that's somewhere between 30-60% plagiarised. It highlights these bits and then it goes off to the tutor who looks through it and decides whether or not it really is plagiarised or if the software is picking up a quote/well-used phrase etc.

I will reiterate that tutors do not take the software's analysis blindly, because it will flag up plagiarism if you write something as simple as "this interests me because". Thus their conclusion must be from manually checking your dissertation, as well as the software.

If they saw that the copy was vastly different from the hard copy, they would have wondered why. Or if you don't submit hard copies... they would have seen that the formatting was different from your usual style and questioned it (btw, who the hell doesn't reference as they go? On a dissertation no less?! That's plain crazy). Either way, missing out a bibliography is one thing, you would have probably just been marked down for that. But actually not referencing? Yeah. That's plagiarism. The Turnitin software only flags up areas that tutors should look at, it doesn't tell them in black and white that a student has copied.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 25

Original post by PG_Student

Yeah, I did plagiarise but it wasn't the document I wanted to upload. I hadn't referenced anything in this. It was just a working draft where I had pasted in direct source material with no reference. I admit my mistake. I just want to complete my MA. It was irresponsible but I want the opportunity to rectify my mistake.

Other than the above response from Klix, nulli etc which I agree with, I find this just completely confusing. What did you intend to do with this as a draft, go back and try figure out all the references after the fact? I think not as that is simply completely impractical, if you have absolutely nothing as a reference - how do you know where to look? Surely even in your draft you have some sort of references, even if they are not complete? Something is not adding up for me ...

Btw the prolonged thread drift about undergrad vs postgrad masters etc has nothing to do with the original topic...

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 26

Jantaculum

10

Like sj, I'm confused.

I had Turnitin problems - I uploaded my draft dissertation twice to different boxes (which wasn't supposed to be possible) and hence my final dissertation came back as 97% plagiarised. The panic that this caused in the department made me realise the severity of the situation, and the admin staff earned my eternal gratitude by sorting it out - took two people the best part of a day, including correcting the Turnitin error that allowed it to happen in the first place.

I then had to attach all sorts of documents to my paper submission to describe the Turnitin sequence of events, and how I'd plagiarised myself....

I can't understand how it got so far with the OP - didn't you check the Turnitin report after submission? I was OK because I reported the error to them, if it'd been the other way round I could have been in trouble

Posted from TSR Mobile

Reply 27

Original post by Jantaculum

Like sj, I'm confused.

I had Turnitin problems - I uploaded my draft dissertation twice to different boxes (which wasn't supposed to be possible) and hence my final dissertation came back as 97% plagiarised. The panic that this caused in the department made me realise the severity of the situation, and the admin staff earned my eternal gratitude by sorting it out - took two people the best part of a day, including correcting the Turnitin error that allowed it to happen in the first place.

I then had to attach all sorts of documents to my paper submission to describe the Turnitin sequence of events, and how I'd plagiarised myself....

I can't understand how it got so far with the OP - didn't you check the Turnitin report after submission? I was OK because I reported the error to them, if it'd been the other way round I could have been in trouble

Posted from TSR Mobile

Not all Institutions allow students to see turnitin reports.
But the more I think about it the more the issue I highlighted above doesn't make sense. I dont see in any practical tems how a draft full of cut and paste with no referencing would even be useful as a basis to work from as you wouldn't know what to reference when using it... I can't help thinking we don't have the whole story here.

Reply 28

Jantaculum

10

Original post by sj27

Not all Institutions allow students to see turnitin reports.
But the more I think about it the more the issue I highlighted above doesn't make sense. I dont see in any practical tems how a draft full of cut and paste with no referencing would even be useful as a basis to work from as you wouldn't know what to reference when using it... I can't help thinking we don't have the whole story here.

Didn't realise that Turnitin reports aren't accessible to everyone. I found it very useful, especially when I messed up!

And I agree completely - if it was obvious that a cut and paste draft had been submitted, you'd think that the university would have just asked for the correct document. It doesn't add up.

Reply 29

nulli tertius

Original post by sj27

Not all Institutions allow students to see turnitin reports.
But the more I think about it the more the issue I highlighted above doesn't make sense. I dont see in any practical tems how a draft full of cut and paste with no referencing would even be useful as a basis to work from as you wouldn't know what to reference when using it... I can't help thinking we don't have the whole story here.

I wonder if it went something like this:-

Original Submission

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Revised Submission

Everyone¹ accepts that monied² bachelors³ wish to marry⁴.

1 The totality of people
2 Those with substantial amounts of wealth
3 see C. Richard: Bachelor Boy 1963
4 The state of entering matrimony

And that is plagiarism

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 30

jelly1000

Original post by nulli tertius

I wonder if it went something like this:-

Original Submission

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.

Revised Submission

Everyone¹ accepts that monied² bachelors³ wish to marry⁴.

1 The totality of people
2 Those with substantial amounts of wealth
3 see C. Richard: Bachelor Boy 1963
4 The state of entering matrimony

And that is plagiarism

surely the revised bit is paraphrasing?

Reply 31

nulli tertius

Original post by jelly1000

surely the revised bit is paraphrasing?

But there is an important reference missing. The idea was neither that of the dissertation writer nor of Cliff but was formulated by a lady from Steventon and she isn't referenced.

Reply 32

jelly1000

Original post by nulli tertius

But there is an important reference missing. The idea was neither that of the dissertation writer nor of Cliff but was formulated by a lady from Steventon and she isn't referenced.

ah of course

Reply 33

Original post by nulli tertius

But there is an important reference missing. The idea was neither that of the dissertation writer nor of Cliff but was formulated by a lady from Steventon and she isn't referenced.

Exactly. So the usefulness of this even as a draft is questionable because the final version would still not have any references, unless OP basically went back and re-read everything to find what this (and everything else) referenced. Though from the comments OP made about cut and paste, it might be that the copied, pasted,unreferenced draft version said something like:...

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. But a good heart these days is hard to find. So son, you'll be a bachelor boy until your dying day.

Reply 34

Original post by jelly1000

surely the revised bit is paraphrasing?

It's plagiarism as long as they reasonable person would that as your own words and/or ideas which in this case it really isn't.

Reply 35

Original post by Jantaculum

And I agree completely - if it was obvious that a cut and paste draft had been submitted, you'd think that the university would have just asked for the correct document. It doesn't add up.

Or they would just fail him this time and let him resubmit it again.

Reply 36

Original post by Jantaculum

Like sj, I'm confused.

I had Turnitin problems - I uploaded my draft dissertation twice to different boxes (which wasn't supposed to be possible) and hence my final dissertation came back as 97% plagiarised. The panic that this caused in the department made me realise the severity of the situation, and the admin staff earned my eternal gratitude by sorting it out - took two people the best part of a day, including correcting the Turnitin error that allowed it to happen in the first place.

I then had to attach all sorts of documents to my paper submission to describe the Turnitin sequence of events, and how I'd plagiarised myself....

I can't understand how it got so far with the OP - didn't you check the Turnitin report after submission? I was OK because I reported the error to them, if it'd been the other way round I could have been in trouble

Posted from TSR Mobile

If you hadn't realised it you'd be able to explain yourself in the hearing definitely in this case.

Reply 37

kittyb99

11

Original post by jadys10

Masters aren't postgrad, that's a phd

Of course a Masters degree is a postgrad! Anything after your undergraduate is a postgraduate degree, and no, you don't apply through UCAS for either the Masters or PhD.

Reply 38

Tasha1986

7

OP:

Unfortunately for you in this situation, the nature of taught postgraduate study is that you will not be able to "take your credits with you" to another university and just complete a dissertation. The OU is not an option because they state on their programme page for their MA in English that you cannot gain credit for study done elsewhere. Your only option is to start a new MA over again from the beginning.

Should you decide to apply somewhere new you will have a lot of explaining to do, and I would advise you to take the skepticism of many who have posted here about the way you have explained your situation as an incitement to have a better, more detailed (and, I'm sorry to say, more believable) explanation for why you have been expelled for plagiarism.

Reply 39