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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To plagiarise my essay? - part 2

15 replies

Flojobunny · 25/07/2013 16:56

So when I made a casual reference to copying n pasting a concluding paragraph and rewording it, I got heavy criticism so after carefully going through my essay and making sure everything was cited perfectly. It seems I have plagiarised myself Confused apparently Turnitin stores past essays and matches them. This essay is similar to my last module, in that the other was about psychotherapy treatments to depression and this one is medical treatments to depression. So I copied n pasted my own work on the definition of depression etc and Turnitin has highlighted everything. With the deadline only hours away what on earth do I do? Surely I can't plagiarise myself?

OP posts:
Rebelrebel · 25/07/2013 17:01

You can plagiarise yourself - I was warned against this by my tutor during my diploma - had two essays covering similar ground. You need to reword it as best you can, I guess.

TigerseyeMum · 25/07/2013 17:01

I'm on a psychotherapy postgrad training and we can't plagiarise ourselves. You need to change your wording enough otherwise turnitin will pick it up when they run it through.

Plagiarism is a real no-no. Change it ASAP!!!

TigerseyeMum · 25/07/2013 17:04

Oh, and now you have run it through it will pick your essay up when they run it through, but don't panic, they should spot that.

I avoid running it through prior to hand in, I just make sure I don't plagiarise, which is hard as there's only so many ways you can define things or make your own comments! It's a pita!

LRDYaDumayuIThink · 25/07/2013 17:04

Can you not just put a footnote and reference your previous essay? Then you will be fine. It makes sense to me you would want to use the same phrasing for a definition.

You can definitely plagiarise yourself, though, and you mustn't.

Reality · 25/07/2013 17:07

urgh. I have a banner ad for Grammarly up there. Hate this direct ad stuff, gives me teh willies.

raisah · 25/07/2013 17:08

Speak to your faculty/department office and see what they advise. Failing this, write a brand new conclusion because the software has 'remembered' your previous essay so will not accept this new one. That's all I can advise I am afraid.

Flojobunny · 25/07/2013 19:57

Won't accept it?
Oh no, I've haven't time to rewrite 2 pages. Surely it will source my other essay and they will realise and say that's fine?

OP posts:
Flojobunny · 25/07/2013 19:57

Emailed tutors and no one has got back to me, deadline is today.

OP posts:
Mumsyblouse · 25/07/2013 20:00

In most courses, you cannot submit repeated material again because you have been marked for it once, you are not allowed to resubmit a substantial portion of the same material. You will have to rewrite the descriptive bits, changing it as much as you can. It will alert them not that you have copied someone else, but you are resubmitting already marked work- that's probably not allowed (and sadly you don't have time to check).

Pobblewhohasnotoes · 25/07/2013 20:02

I thought you could plagiarise to a certain percentage before it wouldn't accept it? For example in my last essay Turnitin highlighted the title as it was the same as everyone else's in the class, obviously.

FatherReboolaConundrum · 25/07/2013 20:09

you cannot submit repeated material again because you have been marked for it once

This. If you've seen it on Turnitin, so will your marker(s). In my university, self-plagiarism is treated in the same way, with the same sanctions, as any other form of plagiarism. If it's just a paragraph, we ignore the paragraph - i.e. treat the essay as if it's missing that section of text. This normally brings the mark down significantly.

If you really don't have time to change it then the best thing to do would be to at least acknowledge that you're doing this by putting quote marks round it and referencing your previous essay. They'll think you're a bit of a knob for citing yourself and will tell you off, but they won't treat you as a misconduct case.

FatherReboolaConundrum · 25/07/2013 20:12

Pobble, that's not plagiarism! Turnitin will also highlight acknowledged direct quotes (quotes with quotation marks around it) and that's not plagiarism either. Markers don't just take the percentage of unoriginal material highlighted on Turnitin as evidence of plagiarism, they look at whay it has been highlighted.

aldiwhore · 25/07/2013 20:34

The reason you are plagiarising yourself and WHY it actually is plagiarism is because you have already been awarded a MARK for those words, in that order, on that line of argument. Those words were submitted and you've already taken credit for them.

It can seem unfair especially when some points and lines of argument can be similar from module to module but that's the point; that you think and write and research, you expand your knowledge, you should never HAVE to repeat and nor should you because you're going further into the subject and are showing that you possess wider reading skills, which carry hefty marks.

And yes what FatherReboolaConundrum mentioned. There is a huge logic to Turnitin, and it's very difficult to get past it for all the right reasons. Academics can tell very quickly (as can admin) whether the percentage is just or not, it takes expected terms into account (like the title). We had a student, who was gobsmacked when she found herself in deep trouble. She'd used an essay that she'd found online, because she hadn't studied her subject enough, she didn't realise the author of this essay was in fact a professor at our university.

The only way to impress, gain marks and get the mark you deserve is through a lot of reading.

Hand something in, whatever you do HAND SOMETHING IN! If you fail this module, it's not the end of the world, you can retake the assessment, you may only be awarded 40% maximum (a scrape pass) but it won't fuck up your studies entirely. Too late for an extension now I should think... I think you need to book a session with your personal academic tutor ASAP.

Don't knick yourself, it's the academic language and rules you need to nail, so seek help from study skills. I struggled with this side of things too, it doesn't mean you should give up or can't be very good. My grade massively improved when I really understood the game play/structure/rules. Good luck.

AnnabelleLee · 25/07/2013 20:39

just reference your last essay. Thats perfectly valid.

PenelopePipPop · 25/07/2013 20:55

"So I copied n pasted my own work on the definition of depression etc"

This is your problem. If you thought it was acceptable to do this and it did not set off huge alarm bells in your head then you have not understood the idea of academic integrity at all. Aldiwhore explains it very well.

Copying work for which you have already received credit elsewhere is a form of fraud. That is why we take it so seriously. BUT your university should offer plenty of resources on developing your academic writing skills so that you understand what plagiarism is and why it matters, at that point it stops being so frightening because you instinctively do not do it and would never dream of copy and pasting from an earlier essay.

If your uni is not offering decent courses on academic writing skills and understanding academic integrity raise it with your course director. Academic integrity isn't intuitive for many students. You are not alone - I teach law at a pretty good uni and around 25% of our students get told off committing some form of plagiarism in the first year, in computer science where plagiarism is incredibly easy to spot because no two computer programmes are the same plagiarism runs at closer to 50% and I think they find similar figures in most natural sciences - these are mainly naive first years doing things like copying bits of each others projects or failing to attribute quotes, not people ripping off whole essays from the internet and we try and put the fear of God into them over this. The figures drop massively in the second year.

Don't worry about the fact that you have run your current essay through the system once already though. Turnitin is set up for this - when it highlights similar text it highlights the source of similarity and if the source is an essay that was submitted a few hours before the deadline with a 100% or 99% similarity academics are usually smart enough to work out what has happened!

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