Okay let me start off by saying that I am fuming right now because I am being accused of plagiarism by my English professor. We had to write a 5 paragraph argument essay on a random topic (Mine was Three Reasons Why Not to Drink and Drive). I wrote the essay yesterday and followed the proper procedures in order to prevent plagiarism. Today I get to class and she tells me to go to the class website and to see what percentage of plagiarism TurnItIn.Com gave our essays. Mine was 42%!!! What in the flying fuck is up with that? Anyways, she tells us to go talk to her before class is over if we had over 25%. This random kid next to me had 32% on his paper and when he went to go talk to her she told him not to worry about it and that his paper was fine. I go and talk to her and tell her I had 42% and I try to calmly explain to her how stupid things like the title of my essay and sentences *I* wrote were found on other websites (therefore indicating that I plagiarized even though I didn't) and she goes "Well 42% is a high number, the problem is not that you quoted things from your sources, the problem is the fact that you didn't write the essay in your own words." And I go "What do you mean?! I spent a few hours last night writing this essay.." and she cut me off with this annoyed look on her face and told me she'd "check it out" and see. Anyone been accused of plagiarism because of that bullshit of a website? I am so upset right now because she pretty much called me a liar and I wrote that fucking essay myself and the things I took from other websites I put in quotes and gave proper credit to and even then stupid shit like the fucking title of my essay is part of that 42%. Fucking bullshit. I am going to give her and that fucking website HELL if she gives me an "F" on a paper I fucking wrote following her guidelines. I was having such a good day because I passed by CPR certification test and now I have to deal with this bitch and this stupid fucking website. Sorry for the rant.
UGGGHH, I understand man, I fuckin HATE turnitin.com... I mean, of course you're gonna have a lot of words that are the same, especially with a topic as overdone as drinkin and driving; there are probably hundreds if not thousands of drunk driving essays out in the world. ANd it's not like it's a subject with a vast variety of terminology. The most used words are probably "alcohol" "drunk" "driving" "intoxicated" "accidents" etc... It's bullshit. Maybe talk to your professor about this. Maybe you can manage to milk out an excuse for being accused of plagiarism when your topic is such an overplayed song (not literally, metaphorically, lol, i'm high). Not to insult your topic choice or anything, lol...
I chose that topic because she told the class to PICK AN EASY topic so that the essay will pretty much write itself. Other topics were why you should not smoke (tobacco) and easy peasy topics like that. Look at this article my friend sent me on FB about that garbage of a website. News: False Positives on Plagiarism - Inside Higher Ed
Never had a problem with TurnItIn because my college was more hands on and less bullshit writing. However you should of made your topic "Why You Should Ingest Marijuana".
I'm sorry to have to say this, but your problem is a bit greater than simply getting an F (probably). Where I go, they basically tell us that we'll be expelled if we plagiarize. I would assume that's so and push hard to resolve this in your favor.
FUCK Royk! that blows... In the colleges that i know of(and mine) if you plagiarize you get expelled. Just do some research on false positive plagiarism from turnitin.com as a last resort.
She told us something along those lines as well. And if she threatens to expel me for a paper I fucking wrote I swear to jesus, buddha, alla, god, etc I will make her life HELL. Oh yeah and someone in my class got 90%. That fucking sucks.
Wow, that sux some serious stuff. Luckily, I took all of my writing/essay/paper/research classes the first couple of years of school, before these plagiarism checking sites became popular. Seriously though, every class at every university has so many of the same topics with very very similar essays. EVERY SCHOOL in the COUNTRY! So, of course there are going to be similar, if not almost identical papers. You can write on a topic only so many times before it is the same as a bunch of others. If your prof does not understand this logic.... then wow, he/she should NOT be teaching the youth of our nation. Best of luck though!
What a retard cunt bag of a teacher. Why would she tell people to pick an easy topic and then bitch about it when it turns out *surprise* you wrote an essay that happened to be similar in content to other essays of this extremely common topic? wtf?? >:[ Why not print off that article you just posted and show it to the professor? And if she doesn't accept your claim to honesty, you need to go to the people in charge. This is your integrity, your grades, and possibly your entire future put on the line if the punishment turns out to be worse than you think it is. Make a big deal about it. Fight it. Not even kidding...
I thought this was some kind of public site so I went there to test one of my own papers only to find that it's like this proprietary paid product thing between schools and their company and I couldn't try it even once for free. That kinda reeks of political bid rigging. When it scores you, does it explain how it reaches that score? Does it cite passages that are allegedly plagiarized and compare them with the allegedly borrowed-from text? I think at the very least you deserve an opportunity to address problems in your paper being identified by this bogus website, but somehow i'm expecting you to tell me that they don't even do anything more than score you (which would be FUCKED for sure).
Absolutely. I am fighting it now regardless. I wrote that fucking essay myself and gave proper credit to the sources I mentioned in my essay. I didn't even think about the expulsion shit until right now. And yes I am going to print a copy of the article and show it to her next class if she gives me an F. What it does is you submit your paper, and then after it is submitted you go to another page, click on the percentage of plagiarism and it opens a new link and it highlights parts of your essay in different colors on the left side of the page and on the right it shows where you supposedly got that sentence, paragraph, etc. from. A lot of the websites I saw where websites I never visited.
At least you know what you're up against. Is it flagging like small stuff or big stuff? If it's like phrases and shit, no one owns any particular grouping of half a dozen words or so. If it's bigger stuff, I'd reword it (if thats an option) just because you know it will be compared to this site. Plus, if you're flagged on complex sentences or paragraphs, regardless of whether you did plagiarize, people are going to think you did.
Nope, not complex sentences or paragraphs. Normal everyday sentences and even the shit I gave credit to was highlighted. Shows how flawed it is. Lol, I don't let things like this go easily. This is my grade and my future at stake.
Absolutely lol. She didn't want to hear me complain today but next Thursday when I return I am going to talk to her (if I end up getting an "F") and I don't give 3 fucks if she doesn't want to hear it or whatever. She is falsely accusing me of something I wrote because some bullshit website says so. In other words, they've fucked with the wrong person.
I was shitting bricks when I had a 30 something percent after a research paper with pretty big citations but it also found shit I had said in my own words too. It makes me so paranoid. I got an A tho and the teacher didn't say shit. Could have something to do with it being a summer online class at No Other Choice college.