<p>First I did not plagiarize, but I’m worried I might be convicted of it. I’m in the the business school and I worry I’ll be convicted of plagiarism for a management class. This is a 1-page assignment, worth 5% of our grade. We submit it on Blackboard through safeassign and it also shows a report of how closely our wording matches others’ students, online articles, etc. So for this assignment I had a high match (50%). </p>
<p>But half of my submitted assignment is actually the directions of the assignment and it looks like at least one other student also submitted that too, so obviously, we had a word-for-word match. My actual written parts had a sentence (or part of a sentence) that matched 100% with another student as well as another sentence in which we used the same example (almost word for word too). However, my wording isn’t anything unique; it’s something I or anyone else would probably use typically. It’s all just an unlucky coincidence but i can see how someone can view it as plagiarism. </p>
<p>I hope, since this is a relatively small assignment and it’s assumed any washu students holds high academic integrity, no one even bothers to check. If they do suspect me of it, how would I prove my innocence? For the record, I’ve never had any record of violating academic integrity, not in washu, not in my life.</p>
<p>While I know they’re pretty strict about it, like any other college which remotely cares about academic integrity, I also have to assume they are fair about it. While I haven’t had any encounters regarding this situation, I would guess that assuming your examples were general/common enough then the people in charge would recognize that and act accordingly.</p>
<p>True but I fear this could be more serious. Plagiarizing internet sources can be common because students simply forget to cite them. But in this case i have a few sentences (at least parts of sentences) that match another student’s. Granted I admit, the assignment I had submitted was actually a wrong version. I had the one I intended to submit with the seemingly plagiarized sentences changed, because they sounded awkward. Of course, no one would believe me that i submitted the wrong version and even so, it’s too late now. So really I think my situation can also pass as a mistake but still, if you were a professor, would convict a student with no prior violation records of plagiarizing. Again, this was a pretty small assignment.</p>
<p>“Granted I admit, the assignment I had submitted was actually a wrong version. I had the one I intended to submit with the seemingly plagiarized sentences changed, because they sounded awkward.”</p>
<p>This is strange. How come you and another student get an equally awkward sentence??? An equally correct I understand. For instance, many people could start a paragraph like this: "As President John F. Kennedy once said, ‘Don’t Ask What Your Country Can Do For You . . . Ask What YOU Can Do For Your Country’ " </p>
<p>However, if two students were to open a paragraph like this "As Inpersonal once said, ‘Dont’ ask for more sushi… Eat the frigging sushi that is in your darn plate already’ " Then I would for sure suspect of plagiarism.</p>
<p>Yeah i realize, it looks bad. At the same time couldn’t it be coincidental? Not likely does not mean impossible. And the “plagiarized” sentences were definition types (meaning they’re there to define something) or to describe something that’s part of the assignment for everyone. Besides, we’re taught to write sentences in the most clear and concise way possible so that already narrows down our wording.</p>
<p>Overall, again it’s a small assignment. If professors accuse me of plagiarism it’d be taken to the honor council, which is just time consuming. Plus I’ve never heard any stories of plagiarism on campus yet.</p>
<p>It’s not the first assignment of the semester and my previous ones had little match with others in SafeAssign. Also, my professor specifically is new and we actually turned this assignment in over a month ago and still haven’t gotten it back…I also asked the TA for feedback and he didn’t really mention plagiarism and said I was fine because half of submission was actually the directions</p>
<p>@Inpersonal, I thought it didn’t sound well for me but maybe it did for that student. While the assignment was the same for every student, we picked different things to analyze. Again it’s not really obscure sentences or quotes. When trying to write nearly every sentence as clearly and concise as possible, there might actually be only one right answer.</p>
<p>Please don’t take this the wrong way. But with your recent post about worrying about grades, and suspicious wording in your first post, are you sure you didn’t plagiarize…even a little? It may be better if someone contacts you to come clean, rather than deny it. </p>
<p>With that said, I doubt anyone will contact you if what you said is true.</p>
<p>I won’t deny the truth. But I just don’t want to be in a situation where I face failure or expulsion. It’s a lot of pressure that I’ve just never faced before; that’s why i’m worried. It’s not so much about grades; I know won’t do well on this assignment and with the risk of plagiarism, there’s much more to worry about than grades. I only mentioned 5% of grade to denote the possibility that maybe no one would care since the assignment isn’t worth a lot, but right now, I’m kinda just bracing for the worst.</p>