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Accidental plagiarism


egyptianmau

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I'm in university and I accidentally submitted an assignment that I forgot I didn't finish rewording and it's totally on me.

 

I talked to my professor about it and apologized a lot and explained myself and she was kind enough to let it slide with a warning not to do it again (which I will ALWAYS double check my work now) but I feel so bad about it.

 

Has this or something like this happened to anyone else? I feel so crappy about it cause I never even meant to and my prof was so kind about it

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So to clarify, you didn't plan on plagiarizing, but you forgot to "re-word" it (in your own words) so as to avoid it looking as if you plagiarized it?

 

I don't know, sounds a bit fishy that you would "forget" something like that.

 

That said, imo you shouldn't be using another author's theories/ideas/words anyway, even if you re-word it. It's still considered cheating, no I have never done it, and it was quite kind of your professor to let that pass.

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Yeah, you can't avoid citing just by paraphrasing. I get you could get knocked down quite a few points for not demonstrating an understanding enough to put a concept or information into your own words, but so long as you provide proper citations, there's pretty much no way you should be getting dinged for academic dishonesty. That kinda takes an effort to accomplish by accident. Maybe your school and field's a bit more lax, but that'd be an even better reason to stand out above your peers by employing more integrity in your academic writing.

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It happens. The point is you spoke with your professor and you got the affirmation from her that you are receiving a warning and your entire course grade is not jeopardized. Learn from this and let it go. You may feel mortified but the trick is in learning from your mistakes and not making them again. Move forwards.

 

One of my undergraduate degrees is in the arts. A degree takes awhile to earn. I've written a few of papers in my time - some clear, some not so clear, some cited well and others not so well. While you're earning that degree, mistakes happen. Keep learning. It will get easier and easier with time. What you're doing during your education is practicing your skills. Keep practicing. One day when you are a professor yourself or an expert in your area or when you are publishing studies of your own, you will be a lesson yourself to your students and have a number of bloopers to share. Take it in stride and keep practicing.

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SO you copied someone else's work, intended to reword it, vs doing the research and coming to your own conclusions? You need to go back to the drawing board on learning to research and write papers.
The sources were cited at the top since it was a summary assignment. It's just the way I've learned how to summarize: write it down so I understand the info > reword > change to summary. If there's a better way any advice would be appreciated
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Yeah, you can't avoid citing just by paraphrasing. I get you could get knocked down quite a few points for not demonstrating an understanding enough to put a concept or information into your own words, but so long as you provide proper citations, there's pretty much no way you should be getting dinged for academic dishonesty. That kinda takes an effort to accomplish by accident. Maybe your school and field's a bit more lax, but that'd be an even better reason to stand out above your peers by employing more integrity in your academic writing.

 

Not exactly true. Even if you paraphrase another person's words, they are still not your own and the words must be cited, according to MLA.

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Yeah, you can't avoid citing just by paraphrasing. I get you could get knocked down quite a few points for not demonstrating an understanding enough to put a concept or information into your own words, but so long as you provide proper citations, there's pretty much no way you should be getting dinged for academic dishonesty. That kinda takes an effort to accomplish by accident. Maybe your school and field's a bit more lax, but that'd be an even better reason to stand out above your peers by employing more integrity in your academic writing.
The full citations were listed before the summary of each paper. I guess I should change my strategy in writing summaries so this doesn't happen again lol.. Lesson learned, just gotta find another way to do these that won't put me in this position :v
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It happens. The point is you spoke with your professor and you got the affirmation from her that you are receiving a warning and your entire course grade is not jeopardized. Learn from this and let it go. You may feel mortified but the trick is in learning from your mistakes and not making them again. Move forwards.

 

One of my undergraduate degrees is in the arts. A degree takes awhile to earn. I've written a few of papers in my time - some clear, some not so clear, some cited well and others not so well. While you're earning that degree, mistakes happen. Keep learning. It will get easier and easier with time. What you're doing during your education is practicing your skills. Keep practicing. One day when you are a professor yourself or an expert in your area or when you are publishing studies of your own, you will be a lesson yourself to your students and have a number of bloopers to share. Take it in stride and keep practicing.

Thank you for your comment, I literally felt like my education was doomed ahaha ill have to be extra careful this doesn't happen again and change my summary writing ways
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You shouldn’t get in the habit of copying and pasting things into papers unless you’re intending to do it as a quote.

 

Most universities can expel you over this.

Yea, you're right. I completely forgot quoting was a thing cause I write a lot of lab reports and I was told I can't use quotations. So this was just me being stupid on all parts haha.

 

My professor told me about the expelling thing too but since it was a first ever offense and it's never happened in my years of uni I think she was a little nicer to me about it

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Yea, you're right. I completely forgot quoting was a thing cause I write a lot of lab reports and I was told I can't use quotations. So this was just me being stupid on all parts haha.

 

My professor told me about the expelling thing too but since it was a first ever offense and it's never happened in my years of uni I think she was a little nicer to me about it

 

Stop making excuses. Even in lab reports, you SHOULD NOT copy and paste. It NEEDS to be in your own words.

 

I was a TA for an English class. If I saw anything like this, I would immediately have to report it to the academic dishonesty council. It’s a group of peers that assess if you should stay in school, keep your scholarships, even pass the class.

 

This is serious.

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Ahaha I've memorized APA so I'm good on that front. This was just me being stupid on all fronts. I was panicking but I've calmed down now so I'm going back and paraphrasing

 

Paraphrasing with citations, right?

 

And adding your own spin to it? Making it reflect your thoughts?

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Stop making excuses. Even in lab reports, you SHOULD NOT copy and paste. It NEEDS to be in your own words.

 

I was a TA for an English class. If I saw anything like this, I would immediately have to report it to the academic dishonesty council. It’s a group of peers that assess if you should stay in school, keep your scholarships, even pass the class.

 

This is serious.

Hey, it wasn't an excuse just a reason no need to get so defensive. I understand what i did and I owned up to it so Im not understanding why you're being so aggressive?
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Paraphrasing with citations, right?

 

And adding your own spin to it? Making it reflect your thoughts?

Exactly! And using their research to support my paper (of course with full and in text citations) with my opinions in there like you said.

 

I figured posting this would get bad reactions but I do like discussions and stuff as any outside info is valuable and so far I've gotten A LOT of good replies

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I don't think anyone's being aggressive. It just seemed an awful lot like you very fundamentally and dangerously had your own version of academic integrity in your head. Folks are doing you a kindness really drilling it home. You can submit a fully quoted paper, and so long as you've properly cited it, you're not going to get dinged for plagiarism. In fact, if you ever have to conduct a meta analysis or write a legal case review, that's pretty much precisely what you'll be doing. But in your case, with proper citations, you'd just be stating up front, "Hey, this isn't my paper. Here you go." You're just going to get a zero and your paper ripped up for it being a fully-quoted paper. That you were potentially on the hook for academic dishonesty would suggest there was much more wrong with the paper than not rewording something.

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Not being aggressive. Just making sure you understand this isn’t funny, silly, or anything like that.
I think I was pretty clear that I knew how bad I messed up on this and I didn't defend what I did in any of my comments either. Just because you know a lot on the topic and I'm assuming you're very good at summary and citing and all that because you were a TA I understand how to you I might be coming off as not understanding how big of an issue this is but again, I wasn't defending, I was explaining.
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I don't think anyone's being aggressive. It just seemed an awful lot like you very fundamentally and dangerously had your own version of academic integrity in your head. Folks are doing you a kindness really drilling it home. You can submit a fully quoted paper, and so long as you've properly cited it, you're not going to get dinged for plagiarism. The citations and quotes are stating up front, "Hey, this isn't my paper. Here you go." You're just going to get a zero and your paper ripped up for it being a fully-quoted paper. That you were potentially on the hook for academic dishonesty would suggest there was much more wrong with the paper than not rewording something.
Hahaha I'd have to want to waste my whole tuition to hand in a fully quoted paper! Omg, I think that's really funny but I also don't have the spare money to retake courses for a joke, though I wish I did
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I guess I should change my strategy in writing summaries so this doesn't happen again lol.. Lesson learned, just gotta find another way to do these that won't put me in this position :v

 

So in your mind, cheating is okay, you just have to try harder so as to not get caught?

 

How about doing the research yourself, forming your own conclusions, and summarize with those conclusions?

 

Take a writing class if you don't feel you summarize well.

 

What you're doing is the lazy way out, and you're taking a huge chance of getting yourself expelled.

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