Hi everyone,
I have a question about the UC plagiarism policy.
I used StudyMoose website to check the plagiarism for my PIQs and one of them appeared to have about 6% plagiarism. Although I used my own ideas I didn’t visit that website to read their content.
Does this mean my application violated policy? Will UC cancel my application just for this?
Thank you, everyone.
A 6% score is negligible and means nothing. It probably means that you happened to put a thought together using some of the words that the site in question used (which can easily happen unless they are all in the same sequence and not a common phrase), or that you used a quote (even if properly quoted) found on that site.
Remember – the percentage matched is only to alert readers to a potential problem, not to confirm a problem. Most teachers and professors would not even bother looking at a 6% match, and I can’t imagine the UC admissions team will, either.
6% similarity likely reflects common phrases and shouldn’t impact your application.
If you didn’t plagiarize you have nothing to worry about. On the other hand if you’ve checked because parts of your PIQs are not your own writing then you indeed have reason to be worried. UC checks against writings that StudyMoose does not. Not only is the paid checker they use likely to be more comprehensive than the free one you used, it has been fed every PIQ UC has received. I remember a post here a while back from a guy who used paragraphs from his sister’s earlier UC essays and UC caught it.
How did he find out? DId they contact him and specify that they had detected plagiarism? I’m actually pretty surprised that they would bother to inform him, rather than just auto-trashing the app and moving on.
Applicants suspected of plagiarism will be contacted by the UC’s and given the opportunity to prove that the PIQ’s are original.
Applicants will be provided instructions on how to provide information regarding the authenticity of their PIQ responses. The information applicants provide will be reviewed by several campus admissions officials, and applicants will be notified of a decision on the authenticity of their PIQ responses.
Failure to respond will result in cancellation of the UC Application.
That’s great that they give applicants an opportunity to address the issue.