So here is my situation, I got a 29% similarity on my final paper for my writing class, and the prof indicates that there is significant plagiarism in the paper of false attributions and fabricated quotations.
However, for the false attribution and fabricated quotations I was quoting some internet article into a wrong source, and as I followed what my TA said, I quoted some of my own words and put some random article name behind it. Dean talked to me yesterday and said I will be suspended for a semester. An appeal will be my last chance to ask for forgiveness. Below is what I wrote, please give me some advice, and ask questions if any part confuses you. Thanks
To Whom It May Concern,
My name is xxx, I am a first year transfer student, and it was recently discovered that on xxx that I had false attributions and fabricated quotations in my final paper for “xxx”.
First, let me state that I now understand just how serious plagiarism is. This was an act of plagiarism, though I wish I could claim this were an error on my part, I knew at the time that what I was doing was wrong. As a first-year transfer student, I began my studies in the lack of knowledge in plagiarism, and I was listened to my TA for quoting words, even I quoted my own words just because TA requires, I did so because I did not ask for clarification so I just quote my own words into an article which has similar idea as what my thoughts are. However, I admit that I was guilty of this kind of action just because I was being shamed to ask TA to clarify. Though out the paper, I researched so many useful sources and I quoted everything I searched on the web in the paper. However, for some of them, I was not sure what article to quote, so I put them under a source name which has the similar background as the quote means. Again, I still should ask my TA or instructor for clarification on how to correctly quote, and I understand the serious aftermath it leads to.
Although my error was unintentional I can’t deny that it happened. The lack of communication with my TA or instructor leads to this kind of situation I am having right now. I now understand how serious plagiarism is and I deeply regret my actions. What I did was wrong and there is no excuse for it.
I should have better cited my sources and ask my instructor or TA for how to correctly cite sources, and I should not put the quote under the source which it does not belong to.
At the time I was finishing my final draft for the paper, I had been diagnosed as testicular cancer and I was having many sorts of scans and diagnoses every day till three months ago, so I just had my surgery a three months ago after the winter quarter ended. I was really having a bad time and I did not ask TA or instructor for clarification because I was at the hospital every second after I had been diagnosed. I now feel truly regret what I did, and I promise I will ask any question or quoting to my TA or instructor to prevent this kind of mistake happens again.
Please accept my most sincere apology for a lapse in judgment and lack of experience at the beginning of my academic journey.
Are you saying that you made these mistakes because of lack of skill or knowledge, or as shortcuts because you were dealing with cancer? Does anyone at the school know you have been dealing with cancer? Did you consider a medical leave?
I don’t want to offend but your writing skills are not excellent to begin with. It makes me wonder how much experience you have had writing papers and citing sources. It would seem that you misunderstood something your TA said about doing citations for your own words, when they reflect ideas from a source. The point it, it isn’t just direct quotes that need sources- not jus words, but ideas too.
Did you just not keep track of your sources as you proceeded with writing the paper?
Next time, make sure to get a tutor and certainly talk to the TA. They are usually students themselves and understand.
Please go in person to talk to someone about this situation. I am not sure what you have written conveys your intentions clearly. You may be innocent of ethical violations and more in need of assistance than punishment.
And please tell them about the cancer. You should have had some sort of accommodations. You could have registered with the Office for Disabilities or spoken with a dean and gotten extra time on assignments, and other help.
First, compmom, thx for ur reply, no one except my families know I got cancer, and I am not sure should I include that in my appeal letter as an “excuse” or not?
Yes, what I mean by quotes also include ideas, some ideas from the paper is my own idea, and I just follow what TA said, so I quoted them into a random source. Which seems like violating the term of false attributions. Also some of the quotes from the web which I am not sure how to correctly quote, and I just quote them with a wrong source name, this seems like violating false attributions?
Am I understanding it correctly? And is the appeal above strong enough to make them reconsider?
Thanks
Is English your first language? If not, it’s possible that you genuinely misunderstood some instructions you were given, but I would not try to blame the TA for your actions.
I am sorry about your cancer and agree with @compmom that you should secure medical documentation and try to withdraw medically.
Thx @techmom99 for your reply, English is not my first language, and I am not blaming the TA, I am saying it is my fault that I did not ask the TA for clarification. And I wonder what should I do to withdraw the suspension medically?
“I was guilty of this kind of action just because I was being shamed to ask TA to clarify.” Or " I was at the hospital every second after…" But surgery was 3 months ago.
Honestly, before you mentioned the medical, I’d stopped reading.
Your problem is plagiarism, which most kids understand how to avoid. I’m not clear how surgery 3 months earlier led to misquoting.
If you need to prove the medical, you get copies if those records. But I’m not sure that excuses plagiarizing.
Just putting your own words in quotation marks isn’t going to lead to the plagiarism checker reporting a 29% similarity of your words with orher published sources. And you agree that you fabricated quotes and sources. If you feel that your cancer led you to do poorly in school, contact your advisor about getting a W in the course.
This is not something you can blame on the TA. It’s possible you misunderstood the rules for proper attribution, but as a college student it’s your responsibility to know those rules. You knew you couldn’t just make up sources or fail to attribute quotes to their author, right?
You could ask to take a medical withdrawal but I can’t imagine your university is just going to let the plagiarism go. If I were you I would take my lumps and use the next semester’s time to work on language and writing skills, perhaps working with a tutor.
You should have contacted the dean of students office and followed the procedure for a medical leave of absence. If you were going to be missing several weeks of classes, again the deal of students office could have informed you of the proper procedure for notifying your professors for an excused absence and then you most likely would have received extended time to complete your assignments.
I am still not clear on whether this was intentional or the result of lack of experience and skill.
I guess I am more sympathetic than some on this. The original post does not evidence a sophisticated person academically. I remember feeling a bit confused on the whole thing about quoting ideas versus words, and it also takes experience to keep track of citations while writing a paper.
Too bad also that many students don’t have parents who know about medical leaves, Disability Offices, accommodations and so on.
I think this was all a bit harsh honestly. I would try to talk to someone. If this was not intentional, then stop giving the impression that you knew it was wrong while you were doing it. If it was intentional, you have said all you can say.
By all means mention the cancer, not as an excuse but as information that can explain the stress you were under.
@lookingforward , I know the problem is plagiarism, but I mentioned surgery 3 months ago because the paper was due 3 months ago.
@CheddarcheeseMN , the teacher includes all quotes as similarity which means everything I quoted also count in the 29% similarity, and I quoted most of the sources correctly and originally. However, I still quote some sources from the internet by a wrong source name. And I don’t think the school will just let the plagiarism go even I medical withdrawal it.
@Sue22 , I am not blaming my TA, but I am just regard I did not ask them for clarification. And yeah, I now understand I cannot just make up sources or fail to attribute quotes to their author, but when I was writing the paper I was really lack of experience and not sure how to correctly cite, and I was being kinda lack in time as well. So I admit it is my fault that I did not ask for clarification.
@GloriaVaughn , yeah I hope I did so, but the paper was from my last semester and right now I cannot do anything with medical excused absence. The only thing I can do is to appeal the suspension, so that’s why I am asking for help
@compmom , I believe it is the result of lack of experience and skill, and also I was being a bit lack of time to ask my TA for clarification because I was doing lot of diagnose and dealing with the illness.
To sum up, my problem of plagiarism is because first I quoted my own words and ideas under wrong source names because I misunderstood what TA said, second I was lacking in time because I was dealing with cancer, so I did not ask my TA how to correctly cite internet sources so I put them in the source names which they do not belong to. Those two actions are because of lack of experience and skill, so it results in false attributions and fabricated quotations which the school thinks of. Therefore, I sincerely ask for advises on how to write an appeal letter on this, again thanks to everyone who replied, really appreciate your help.
I am with @compmom in thinking that the punishment is a bit harsh. Is there a way to get an appeal to a committee without such a long winded letter?Make it brief, and to the point, which is that you misunderstood, was unintentional, inexperienced, but still regret. Also, indicate that you will obtain help and clarification from TA and writing center in the future and are open to any other suggestions to keep this from happening again.
I agree with @compmom and @momprof9904 - keep your letter short and sweet. I was wrong, I misunderstood and w on’t let it happen again. Good luck. (and on your cancer, too)
I wonder if you could print this thread out and give it to them?! I hate to say this, but the lack of skill in your writing is your best support for the argument that you did this out of lack of experience and skill. Therefore, I hesitate to help you write the appeal.
Usually with this type of thread, some of us will attempt to edit or even write a sample for the student but if you hand in a polished appeal, it will argue against the main argument, which is that you are inexperienced and lack the academic skills and preparation to properly attribute sources, and misunderstood instructions on how to handle your own ideas in terms of citations.
I totally agree the cancer treatment would be an obstacle to seeking help and that is also a worthwhile argument (I have been through it myself!).
I feel that the thread has in some ways succeeded in clarifying what happened- since your post was quite confusing because you simultaneously attempt to explain what happened as being a result of innocent mistakes, while also apologizing for your guilt.
I think it is much closer to the truth that you didn’t know what you were doing- and due to illness didn’t have the ability to get help.
A larger issue, frankly, is whether you are adequately prepared for college and whether you need remedial help. But the plagiarism charge implicates your character, not your skill, and it is that that I think may be unfair.
Seriously, consider printing out this thread and submitting it!
I don’t think the OP really understood how to do citations or what plagiarism was and was in the middle of cancer treatment and just kind of ballparked it. The question is whether there was intent, and I am not sure there was.
In terms of an appeal, a well-written appeal letter is going to contradict what I see, an original post that barely articulates the issue and shows a lack of skill and preparation that could account for the OP’s actions versus a more sophisticate intent to deceive. It would seem there was a sort of desperate attempt to get by during a time of stress, on the part of a person who really had no understanding of citations.
This isn’t just about suspension since this charge may follow the OP for a long time. I think the OP lacked proper guidance during cancer treatment and proper remedial help for writing papers- perhaps the two are connected. I really think this is a harsh treatment in the circumstances.
The only way to get across both the OP’s lack of skill AND a clear idea of how various people interpret the OP is to print out the thread! I do not want to help with a polished appeal letter that will negate the evidence of academic challenges on the part of the OP, including lack of writing skill in English.
@compmom, OP is a transfer student. Plagiarism and source citation should have been covered in English 101 at his previous school. He claims that he knew what he was doing was wrong, and I believe him.
I don’t think this is a case of ignorance. OP understood sources have to be cited and knew the quotes should have been assigned to the the sources they came from, but it doesn’t sound like he wrote down source information when he took notes so he just attributed the quotes to whichever title sounded best. He also made up quotes and attributed those to whichever articles seemed like the best fit. He must have done more than that for nearly 1/3 of his paper to be flagged by a plagiarism checker. Citing the wrong article and using a lot of material that apparently wasn’t cited are both serious errors in their own right. Making up quotes is a whole different level. You don’t have to understand citations to know that making up quotes and lying about where they came from is wrong. A semester’s suspension is getting off easy.
I think much of what we’re calling plagiarism here really falls under the umbrella of academic dishonesty. Here’s how I see this going down. Because of a language barrier and the OP’s hesitance to ask for clarification he did not understand the TA’s instructions. My guess is that the TA said something like “remember that you have to give credit to anyone whose ideas if you use even if you put those ideas into your own words” and the OP didn’t really understand what that meant. When the paper was due he was rushed due to his treatment, and didn’t have, or didn’t take, the time to check in with the writing center, classmates, or online citation instructions, and instead panicked and just made some things up. That’s pretty human, but obviously it was a mistake, and by mistake I mean he did something he knew he shouldn’t. The professor got a paper with quotes that didn’t sound like they came from a scholarly work and started to do some digging.
I do think it’s worth it to mention the cancer treatment because if I were a dean or the professor for whom the paper was written I would be much more sympathetic toward a panicky kid who made a mistake while under intense pressure than I would toward someone I thought was just being lazy and generally dishonest. It may not make a difference to the current suspension, but it might in the way this is viewed by the school in the long term.
I agree with ausyinmshauri. OP started the thread noting a 29% “similarity” on the “final paper.” And, “I knew at the time that what I was doing was wrong.” He states, “for some of them, I was not sure what article to quote, so I put them under a source name which has the similar background as the quote means.” That alone is sufficient to cause trouble for a college student, presumably a junior. He implies it was done consciously.
Now it’s a paper from 3 months ago?
And surgery after winter quarter that no one knew about? (Cancer surgery, after which normal activities are restricted for 2-3 weeks.) He somehow hid what he calls daily tests, “was at the hospital every second,” etc, but no one noticed, no absences, etc?
My sympathies, if there is a medical situation. But this needs to make sense. OP needs to make it make sense, not us.
