Plagiarism at Lancaster University

Genuinely freaking out because every post I’ve seen about plagiarism ends with someone getting expelled or getting a 0% on the module which is just as bad ig because you can’t continue to your next year anyways.
I had to resit a second year module which is 100% coursework. I was unable to hand in the coursework originally and was granted a ‘first-sit’ due to exceptional circumstances. I’ve been flagged for plagiarism as apparently I have mainly used three articles to loosely structure my essay and haven’t credited those articles. The reason for this is because I went to where they had cited the original authors in the article bibliography and cited them instead as I thought that would be more accurate and didn’t want to just credit a second or third party source. And in regards to paraphrasing my essay only has an 11% similarity score so that’s not the problem.
I genuinely thought I was doing a good thing in going to the original articles source and citing them instead of the articles I originally found the information if that makes sense.
I don’t know how to go about my hearing in a week so any advice would be appreciated, or if anyone has gone through the same thing at Lancaster that would be helpful.
I have all my essay plan that has all of my notes (paraphrased in my own words) as well as the references underneath each paragraph
😬😬

Reply 1

martin7

20

Original post by Anonymous

Genuinely freaking out because every post I’ve seen about plagiarism ends with someone getting expelled or getting a 0% on the module which is just as bad ig because you can’t continue to your next year anyways.
I had to resit a second year module which is 100% coursework. I was unable to hand in the coursework originally and was granted a ‘first-sit’ due to exceptional circumstances. I’ve been flagged for plagiarism as apparently I have mainly used three articles to loosely structure my essay and haven’t credited those articles. The reason for this is because I went to where they had cited the original authors in the article bibliography and cited them instead as I thought that would be more accurate and didn’t want to just credit a second or third party source. And in regards to paraphrasing my essay only has an 11% similarity score so that’s not the problem.
I genuinely thought I was doing a good thing in going to the original articles source and citing them instead of the articles I originally found the information if that makes sense.
I don’t know how to go about my hearing in a week so any advice would be appreciated, or if anyone has gone through the same thing at Lancaster that would be helpful.
I have all my essay plan that has all of my notes (paraphrased in my own words) as well as the references underneath each paragraph
😬😬

If you haven't approached your Student Union for advice, then you should do that as soon as possible.

You may have gone back to the earlier sources, but does that mean that you took nothing at all from the later article that wasn't in those earlier sources?

Did you correctly and accurately give citations for the work you use from the other articles?

Your university is likely to have a range of penalties for plagiarism offences. These are likely to range from a warning up to and including expulsion. But it's almost inconceivable that a first offence would lead to expulsion. What's more likely is that you'll be required to redo the work for a capped mark -- and be aware that that cap might be at zero -- but if you produce work that merits a pass you could be still awarded the credit for the module anyway even if you're awarded no marks for it. (The punishment would that the mark of zero would pull down your overall average.)

But hopefully you'll be able to show the panel that you didn't plagiarise, or that if you did it was more 'poor academic practice' than actively cheating.

Reply 2

mike23mike

16

Its good that you can show them the history of how you went about writing the essay - shows that you did not use an essay mill. For a second year to only rely on 3 academic sources all from the core text is a little weak (but nothing to do with plagiarism). I am sure you were taught how to reference properly in year 1 so why did you not follow that?

You can only plead ignorance - it will be up to the uni to prove that you had been taught how to reference correctly. Worst case, you will get a zero and be asked to resit the module. Depending on the regs, your resit mark could be capped at 40% which will impact your average grade for year 2. If your year 2 marks go towards your final mark - in lots of unis that is the case - then you have to do well in year 3 to get your marks up.

Reply 3

Em_0404

Original post by mike23mike

Its good that you can show them the history of how you went about writing the essay - shows that you did not use an essay mill. For a second year to only rely on 3 academic sources all from the core text is a little weak (but nothing to do with plagiarism). I am sure you were taught how to reference properly in year 1 so why did you not follow that?
You can only plead ignorance - it will be up to the uni to prove that you had been taught how to reference correctly. Worst case, you will get a zero and be asked to resit the module. Depending on the regs, your resit mark could be capped at 40% which will impact your average grade for year 2. If your year 2 marks go towards your final mark - in lots of unis that is the case - then you have to do well in year 3 to get your marks up.

I used three main sources to find all of the further authors and articles I used (which was between like 15-20) which I now realise to be a poor decision on my part, but I genuinely thought that referencing the original sources other than the articles I had originally found the information from was more accurate. To clarify, I have never received any negative feedback on my referencing before, I have some mitigating circumstances that made it really difficult to complete the coursework with enough time which is probably why I took this approach. I am currently working on applying to retake the year with these exceptional circumstances.

Original post by Anonymous

Genuinely freaking out because every post I’ve seen about plagiarism ends with someone getting expelled or getting a 0% on the module which is just as bad ig because you can’t continue to your next year anyways.
I had to resit a second year module which is 100% coursework. I was unable to hand in the coursework originally and was granted a ‘first-sit’ due to exceptional circumstances. I’ve been flagged for plagiarism as apparently I have mainly used three articles to loosely structure my essay and haven’t credited those articles. The reason for this is because I went to where they had cited the original authors in the article bibliography and cited them instead as I thought that would be more accurate and didn’t want to just credit a second or third party source. And in regards to paraphrasing my essay only has an 11% similarity score so that’s not the problem.
I genuinely thought I was doing a good thing in going to the original articles source and citing them instead of the articles I originally found the information if that makes sense.
I don’t know how to go about my hearing in a week so any advice would be appreciated, or if anyone has gone through the same thing at Lancaster that would be helpful.
I have all my essay plan that has all of my notes (paraphrased in my own words) as well as the references underneath each paragraph
😬😬

If you've got all your notes and you can explain your process, you are probably at the lesser end of the scale. You can explain that you thought you were doing the correct thing by going back to the original sources. However, you need to also acknowledge that now you understand that you should also have cited the first three authors because you were using their intellectual work, as they chose those further references that you did cite.

Plagiarism at Lancaster University

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Articles for you