Plagarism

BMSF

I recently handed in my thesis (a couple of weeks early). It had to be submitted to turnitin, and i got an overall result that was very high for originality. However, I noticed that something highlighted was that I didn't include the page number when I quoted someone. I'm so worried now. I've emailed the thesis organiser and my supervisor, but I'm so worried that I'll fail.

Does anyone have advice?

hillbloom

The higher the originality percentage given when you submit your document, the worse your plagerism is unfortunately. It can be confusing to understand but originality on turnitin is in context to how original your document is to the original source of information. For example, a copy and pasted text from a website will result in 100% originality which is very bad, but if text is wrote which does not already exist (eg. from your own words) will result in a plagerism rating of 0% which is very good.

Download the document from turnitin and look at where your going wrong as turnitin will highlight plagerism by how bad it is. Make the changes and MAKE SURE TO RESUBMIT THE DOCUMENT IN THE SAME ACCOUNT....NOT A DIFFERENT ACCOUNT.

Your supervisor should help you out that's what they are there for.

BMSF

Thanks for the response

What I meant is that I got 8% in the plagerism checker including bibliography. So that means 92% origininality right?


Would they allow me to resubmit? I didn't know that I could do that? Would they fail me for this? Or would it go in my favour that I brought this to their attention.

It was 25 words...

BMSF

I've just noticed a direct quote the I didn't source directly. Oh I'm freaking out now. What will I do??

Plautus

BMSF wrote: »

I've just noticed a direct quote the I didn't source directly. Oh I'm freaking out now. What will I do??

I genuinely think you might be over-reacting on this one. Forgetting to include a page number in a citation = being docked a mark (or two) for accuracy. That is if it's even noticed.

Plagiarism is a matter of scale and wilful, repeated theft of another person's ideas. It's easy to distinguish between a plagiarist with intent and a person who simply forgot to attribute just one source in an essay with (I imagine) hundreds of sources. I think your turnitin score helps with the latter perception.

Relax. You're very, very, unlikely to have anything said to you - and the possibility of failing for a dodgy citation tends toward zero.

BMSF

But I took a direct quote from somewhere and didn't source that/ quote that. I just sourced the secondary source and now it looks like I was intentially stealing. I emailed my supervisor at 5am in a panic

hillbloom

BMSF wrote: »

But I took a direct quote from somewhere and didn't source that/ quote that. I just sourced the secondary source and now it looks like I was intentially stealing. I emailed my supervisor at 5am in a panic

8% on the plagerism checker is quite good. Can't you just insert the citation you left out and resubmit it. TBH relax and just get in touch with the supervisor...either way, you won't just fail on this mistake alone. Ask if you can resubmit it, this happens regularly in all colleges.

BMSF

I can't resubmit it, it won't let me.

But emailed my supervisor and he said that he doesn't think this will have a huge impact on my grade and it was a genuine mistake and to try not to worry. However, he's passed me onto the head of department.

I hope my honesty goes for me in this. I'm normally so an*l about referencing, but have had a pretty tough time of late and it just slipped my mind.

At the most would I just loose a couple of marks do you reckon?

5uspect

Did you include the quotation in the body of the text in the context of a quotation or did you write it appearing simply as your own work? If you simply made a mistake in your bibliography it's hardly an issue.

BMSF

For the first one I forgot to put the page number

For the 2nd I said e.g.
Smith (2000) found that X led to Y, this is a cause of futher issues in X

where the quote in italics, I should have referenced e.g. Murphy, 2000:1 as the Smith information came from Murphy

I have all the references in the bibilogrpahy

What does this mean?

5uspect

It means you made an honest mistake and no one should care.

BMSF

I've done it a couple of times.

I hope they let me resubmit

djpbarry

BMSF wrote: »

I've just noticed a direct quote the I didn't source directly. Oh I'm freaking out now. What will I do??

You will turn off your computer, make yourself a cup of tea, sit back and watch a movie (or some such).

You need to relax – do you really think you’re the first person to submit a thesis with a minor referencing error? It’s a total non-issue.

BMSF

Thanks for your help guys.

The head of the school got back to me and told me they had a look over my turnitin and I'd nothing to worry about. Phew!!


Think it was just a combination of stress over the past few months :-)

UglyBolloxFace

You were worried about 8% on Turnitin? We were told that anything under 30% was excellent. Glad to see you got it sorted out anyway.

Tar.Aldarion

UglyBolloxFace wrote: »

You were worried about 8% on Turnitin? We were told that anything under 30% was excellent. Glad to see you got it sorted out anyway.

think mine had to be under 5, 10 would be laughed at and 15+ wouldnt even be looked at! Mine was 2%. They did give us an account to test though.


OP nothing to worry about

Who Knows?

I want to submit my thesis this weekend. I do not have access to Turnitin? Is there a free version I can download or is it all licenced software?

Would any of you know of a good anti plagiarism software which I could use before I submit?

Many thanks.