Did I plagerise?

DeadMoney

Hi, I did an essay assignment recently and I think I may now be guilty of plagiarism. At the time I really didn't think I was plagiarising as I don't exactly understand all the forms of plagiarism. Anyway my stupidity for not knowing more about it might have gotten me in to trouble with the college. I used boards.ie to get help with the assignment as I couldn't figure out how to approach it by using books and other online resources.

I contacted the lecturer when I was having trouble with the assignment and was told in response that the answer was in the notes we covered in class. Anyway I missed most of the lectures for the module as I was working a job during semester 1 while going to college. I don't know anyone in my course either so couldn't get somebody to give me the notes. Anyway I asked for advise on a forum and used some of the responses to tackle the essay. I wrote the essay completely by myself and referenced every source I used but I also used some of the advice that people gave me through boards.

These were only short responses so wasn't like I was copying word for word what people had said but I used their answers as guidelines for my essay and wrote it in my own words. I didn't think there would be a problem doing this and I thought plagiarism was when you copy something directly from a source and don't reference it. Pretty confused by the whole thing and could be in big trouble now because of it. Can anyone offer any advice?
Thanks

Karoma

Why do you think that? Have you been accused of plagiarism? If so, on what basis were you accused?

TirNaNog.

Hes a guilty DCU head

Red Alert

Is what've you handed up somewhere online (like Wikipedia) or just forum replies?

MrStuffins

You never said whether you were accused or not

DeadMoney

Karoma wrote: »

Why do you think that? Have you been accused of plagiarism? If so, on what basis were you accused?

Not yet but I have been contacted personally by the lecturer who wants to meet with me in relation to my answer. Also it has been made known to the class that there were a number of suspected cases of plagiarism a few weeks back and these cases have been confirmed now. Me being contacted pretty much confirms that I am one of the guilty parties. Haven't been provided any details yet though. Am freaking out to be honest, wasn't looking to find an easy solution to do the assignment, I genuinely couldn't figure out how to do it and wanted to make sure I submitted a good essay and not **** it up by getting it wrong.

El Siglo

You're in 1st year I take? You'll be fine, a stern talking to is all you'll get. I know people that plagarised in final year and got away with it. My experience of reading 1st year essays (I helped out a friend of mine who is a tutor in 1st year with essay corrections) is that 1st years tend to write stuff, which is good and in their own words, but they don't reference where the information came from. The trick to referencing is that, no matter what you write, if you are presenting something that you did not come up with, that you learned from somewhere, you cite it. No matter what you write, if it is not your idea you cite it. No matter how much you reword something, you cite it. Cite everything if you have to, you wont lose marks for overciting in an essay (unless you use only one source). Don't worry at all about it, but remember in the future to cite everything. No matter how trivial, cite, cite, cite!!!:D

DeadMoney

Red Alert wrote: »

Is what've you handed up somewhere online (like Wikipedia) or just forum replies?

No, just forum responses.

DeadMoney

TirNaNog. wrote: »

Hes a guilty DCU head

Yes I am in DCU but I thought I would get more responses on here as this foum has more traffic than the DCU one and DCU students are busy studying for exams starting next week.

El Siglo

DeadMoney wrote: »

Yes I am in DCU but I thought I would get more responses on here as this foum has more traffic than the DCU one and DCU students are busy studying for exams starting next week.

Release the hounds!:D

DeadMoney

El Siglo wrote: »

You're in 1st year I take? You'll be fine, a stern talking to is all you'll get. I know people that plagarised in final year and got away with it. My experience of reading 1st year essays (I helped out a friend of mine who is a tutor in 1st year with essay corrections) is that 1st years tend to write stuff, which is good and in their own words, but they don't reference where the information came from. The trick to referencing is that, no matter what you write, if you are presenting something that you did not come up with, that you learned from somewhere, you cite it. No matter what you write, if it is not your idea you cite it. No matter how much you reword something, you cite it. Cite everything if you have to, you wont lose marks for overciting in an essay (unless you use only one source). Don't worry at all about it, but remember in the future to cite everything. No matter how trivial, cite, cite, cite!!!:D

Thanks for the tip, I was always under the impression that you lose marks if you reference too much as you are just using somebody else's ideas. I am actually in second year but it is my first year in DCU as I transferred from another college last year. They seem to take it pretty serious in DCU by the sounds of things because the lecturer has already sent off the suspected cases to the exam board and everything. Really didn't expect mine to be one of them but once it was mentioned the boards.ie thing started to worry me a bit so not totally surprised.

I probably should have mentioned in the OP that I have since been completely exempt from this module as I did it last year in NCI and received a first. I only got awarded the exemption a few weeks ago though so I still did the assignment like everybody else as it was due back in October. The thing is if I am found guilty of plagiarism I don't think it will matter whether or not I am exempt as I would have still broken the college rules and would face the penalty regardless.

DeadMoney

Just got an email back from lecturer. Turns out I just didn't reference stuff properly, i.e, I didn't use Harvard referencing system properly etc. Not going to be penalized and just have to re-reference the paper. Phew!! Anyway lesson is I really have to learn how to reference properly and actually read them guides the college puts up. Thanks for support all.
GL

noodler

Nervous Nelly

ronkmonster

Did you verify the forum posts against other sources? Not referencing is one thing, but taking a strangers forum post online as fact is very risky.

noodler

ronkmonster wrote: »

Did you verify the forum posts against other sources? Not referencing is one thing, but taking a strangers forum post online as fact is very risky.

Complete understatement.

It would be utterly stupid to do that and you won't last long in any course if you get your source material from forum posts.

El Siglo

Yeh forum posts would be pretty retarded sources to go with, as bad as citing wikipedia. It's okay to find out what you're trying to do by using forums and wikipedia but never should you use them (i.e. these sources tell you the stuff in easy to read English but that's it). Honestly though, the amount of people I've come across that can't cite or reference properly is horrendous. Even now doing an MSc, 2/3rds of my class never knew of the Harvard system. Honestly, it's the one thing you should really nail down in college.

DeadMoney

El Siglo wrote: »

Yeh forum posts would be pretty retarded sources to go with, as bad as citing wikipedia. It's okay to find out what you're trying to do by using forums and wikipedia but never should you use them (i.e. these sources tell you the stuff in easy to read English but that's it). Honestly though, the amount of people I've come across that can't cite or reference properly is horrendous. Even now doing an MSc, 2/3rds of my class never knew of the Harvard system. Honestly, it's the one thing you should really nail down in college.

No wasn't just writing down what people recommended but were more guidelines of how to approach the answer and I just used them to research more about them and make sure they were correct. The forum replies were more of a nudge in the right direction and of course I verified them against other published sources.

Completely agree about needing to learn the Harvard referencing system, I've never fully learned it and this essay is proof that it needs to be learned and used properly.

ronkmonster

Well nothing wrong with discussing a topic online to get some pointers on how to proceed. As long as you get all possible points of view. Sometimes people will only discuss what they believe is the right answer.

phantom_lord

it wasn't about Durrr vs Isildur1 by any chance was it...

DeadMoney

phantom_lord wrote: »

it wasn't about Durrr vs Isildur1 by any chance was it...

No that would have been some essay!

adamski8

DeadMoney wrote: »

Anyway lesson is I really have to learn how to reference properly

I thought the lesson here is you can get away with plagerising in DCU

DeadMoney

adamski8 wrote: »

I thought the lesson here is you can get away with plagerising in DCU

Meh

cunniny3

All you need to know about citing and referencing

johnn

I think they pretty much let you away with most things in 1st year when you're writing opinion essays. I remember only really learning the system of citing and referencing in 2nd year, and looking back then was shocked I wasn't penalised for the 1st year essay, even in 2nd year i was slightly suspect nearly taking things directly from online articles!

I didnt cite anything properly until 3rd year, I used to just put in a bibliography at the end which was just a list of books! I didn't give any indication of the page no. or where in my essay i used it. thankfully by my thesis i sorted myself out

Although I wasn't as bad as the people who put "www.Google.com" down in their bibliography!

monument

johnn wrote: »

Although I wasn't as bad as the people who put "www.Google.com" down in their bibliography!

The way the rules on plagiarism has gone these days, you might be better off referencing it. You don't want to misleadingly take credit for all of its hard work, do you?

glenn3ie

Plagarising is one issue.

Not knowing anyone in your course and missing lectures cause you're working are far worst issues to be honest... The social side of college is just as important as the acadmeic side... Whats the point in paying to go to college and then not coming in?!

DeadMoney

glenn3ie wrote: »

Plagarising is one issue.

Not knowing anyone in your course and missing lectures cause you're working are far worst issues to be honest... The social side of college is just as important as the acadmeic side... Whats the point in paying to go to college and then not coming in?!

First of all, I am 23 and I have been in college before and absolutely no offence to anybody at all who who's goes out on college nites but I feel I am past it. I've done 3 years of it and while it was great fun I am back in college now to get my degree and thats pretty much it. Secondly, I am am not dependent on my parents so I must work a part time job to survive financially living away from home. Having been in college before I have a pretty good understanding of the value of attending lecture in my course and I have learned that some can certainly be missed.

I am not saying lectures are invaluable but anybody who does business will tell you that a lot of the course is simply 'text book' material. In other words getting the head down for a few weeks before the exams with the recommended study material is more than enough to pass business exams. Some lectures such as math based subjects or accounting would obviously be a different story and consistent attendance is usually required to not fall far behind.

Anyway while I do have to sacrifice some lectures to work, I still keep very up to date with what is going on in my course and my results have always been good to date so I'm happy. Oh and lastly, I don't pay any fees to go to college, the government do as I am on a grant and if I wasn't on a grant I would not be in college. The social aspect of college is definitely important and I am not trying to not get involved or meet people on purpose. I'm happy to chat to people in lectures and work well with people in my groups but just haven't made any sort of mates out of it, not a big deal. I view college like going to work anyway, and believe me I'd rather be elsewhere doing other things but that's just me, like I said I'm there for the degree.