I am retaking GCSE english (The english cousrse you do in high school and you need to get into university. I'm in college at the moment). I joined the course late and handed in my first piece of written work last week, It was titled "Noah's ark: Fact or fiction" And I basically summed up my opinions and views on noah's ark. (I also posted parts of it in the religios forum here, but have since deleted it.)

Today, The tutor handed it back to me and said "Where did you copy it from?" He thought I'd downloaded it from somewhere because I used the word "gotten" which apparently is an american word so he presumed i'd downloaded it from an american site.

I am thoroughly annoyed about this and have no way to prove that is is my own work. I have deleted it from the religious discussion forum so that it can't be found on the internet anywhere. The only thing I took from the internet was a fact. "There are 10-30 million species of animal" and I cited my source.

He said it would be an A-Grade piece of work. I dont see how he can't accept it! It was the first piece of work i've handed in so it's not like I've handed in a load of D grade work then suddenly improved to A-Grade. That would be suspicious.

What do you think I should do?

I'm annoyed and also rather sad


(Sorry for the rant but I needed to let off some steam).

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WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF PEANUT!!!

[This message has been edited by TheJkWhoSaysNi (edited December 03, 2003).]

fight the system.

Seriously, he's making the positive claim (that the work is not your own) so it is up to him to back that up by finding evidence (ie, finding it online or in an article somewhere).

If he insists on not accepting it without proof, go to the dean and explain the situation.

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Tia mi aven Moridin isainde vadin
http://www.writings-emag.net The next big thing since individually wrapped cheese slices (coming soon).

Make him prove that you plagerized. If that can't be done, then there is no case

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I'm not an actor. I just play one on TV.

Honestly, that has to be the most stupid reason for rejecting a paper that I have ever heard.

Sarn and Avenger have said all that you can really do.

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They came to sieze and take whatever they please,
Then all they gave back was death and disease.

Strange.
Have him type in a quote from your paper and do a google search online.

On a side note, one of my former co-workers owns and runs this site.
www.plagiarized.com

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To artificial life, all reality is virtual.

I ever committed one of those dead giveaways, I would shoot myself. Repeatedly. For being that stupid.

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"LC Tusken: the idiot is the person who follows the idiot and your not following me your insulting me your following the path of a idiot so that makes you the idiot"
Jack Chick preaches it
NMGOH

That's the biggest load of [INSERT WORD HERE] I've heard in a long time. Did he just assume that you'd gotten it just because of one stinking word you'd gotten from only your head that you'd gotten since before you'd been gotten birth? I used GOTTEN 4 times here, and I made it up myself! If he still doesn't believe you, consider making him check it on turnitin.com (that's what my teachers use, though I think it costs like 30 bucks to register). Who cares that I'm American, I know stupid things when I see them!

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We are Slaw of Borg.
You will be assimilated.
Resistance is futile.
-Darth Slaw, Dark Lord of the Borg

Unfortunatley, He's not very computer literate. If i showed him he'd probably think of it as some kind of trick

I will, take your advice and tell him that without proof there is nothing he can do.



Yeah that's what I thought. Unless I missed something. Just because I typed "gotten"

I guess he's just had a lot of problems with people copying stuff from the internet. The fact that I included a website address in my piece diddnt seem to help. Not that he actually looked at the website at all. All that was on it was info from a biology site which I used to back up one of my claims. *sigh*

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WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF PEANUT!!!

How are you supposed to prove it's your own work? You obviously can't find it anywhere..heh..

He made the 'accusation'..so it's up to him to prove.

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The Truth about Bowling for Columbine

When doing work on the PC (espically English coursework), I periodically save as <title>x01 through to sometimes <title>x09! Therefore, if my teacher asked me to prove it was my own, I could hand in a disk which contains the work in stages of developement (and it's not just stuff added to the end, which would be easy to fake, it is also corrections, changes and ammendments in the previous sections.)

As original writing goes (I've submitted three pieces now), I've always got A*s, and the same with all my classwork and other coursework, so the teacher has never suspected me.

FYI, I've actually uploaded my original writing coursework to the Internet. The ones I submitted are "The Weirdest Thing", and "The Noble Gas (part 1)"

http://www.fictionpress.com/profile.php?userid=382399

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GhostOfYoda - General doer of stuff.

[This message has been edited by GhostOfYoda (edited December 03, 2003).]

Wow....yeah I'd definitely take this to a higher authority. That is a complete and utter joke.

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

Also, you'd naturally pick up "Americanisms" such as "Should of" (instead of Should have), and "gotten" (instead of got) by talking/posting on the Internet, and reading things written by Americans! Try explaining that to your tutor!

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GhostOfYoda - General doer of stuff.

I had an English teacher (ENG 102) who once wrote a comment on a paper that I turned in stating something to the effect of "if you're going to use someone elses ideas, cite them." I was aggravated with his statement and confronted him to see what he was talking about. He pulled up a thesis that someone had written years ago (some professor online) where the author had some VERY similar ideas. I ended up changing much of my paper due to this, even though I honestly came up with the ideas on my own.

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http://www.napalmdeathsquad.com

talk to the dean.

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IMPORTANT NOTICE PLEASE READ

Employees dying on the job are faling to fall down. THIS PRACTICE MUST STOP as it becmes impossible to distinguish between death and the natural movement of he staf.

Any employee found dead in an upright position will be dropped from the payroll.

If he's not good with computers, that's his own problem. Like everyone else has said, it's a ridiculous claim - if he can't prove it, he has no reason for giving you that grade.

oh, and from that website...



hah..I don't even know what to say...




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Pyro Universe The ultimate place for fireworks lovers! Learn how to put on your own show! Fireworks diagrams, instructions, pictures, safety tips, links, and a message board.

You know, MentatMM's reply made me remember something I thought of a while back. This is also involved with that turnitin.com site I mentioned (checks for plagiarism, etc by comparing the submitted work with all papers submitted to it and books, etc it has on record. Whew, that was long).
The odds of someone having similar wording for something compared to another's, though they could have made it up themselves completely, will become, if not already, very high. There are only so many combinations of wording you can choose from. After about maybe 10 years, 10's of 1000's of papers will have been turned in, and all the possible phrases you could use in your paper would have been used up. Just wait until a 100 or so years from now, when the entire paper someone can write will have to be quotes and paraphrases, or they'd have "plagerized".

Oh, BTW, I completely agree 100% with Katt and everyone else about this whole thing. It's just rediculous. I know not everyone here (maybe no one) is American, but "innocent until proven guilty" fits the case perfectly.

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We are Slaw of Borg.
You will be assimilated.
Resistance is futile.
-Darth Slaw, Dark Lord of the Borg

[This message has been edited by Darth Slaw (edited December 03, 2003).]

In defence of tutors (namely me), I would like to say that it is necessary to be suspicious, as people will try multiple ways to scam someone else’s work, although some tutors go overboard. I usually let minor transgressions go without making a fuss, but make a note of it on someone’s report (like “should this be referenced?”) as I suspect a number of items that look plagiarized are due to forgetting to put in the reference, or forgetting about something you read that gave you that idea.



While in your case, the tutor probably over reacted, especially since there are so many American influences around in the media and a grammatical discrepancy doesn’t indicate plagiarism. But in most cases it is always up to the student to prove that it is his or her own work. When you hand in your work, you are essentially claiming that all the work contained therein is your own except where due reference is made. So contrary to what everyone else is saying, the student is the positive claimant, and with the exception of blatantly obvious cases of cheating, the tutor is not saying "You cheated", but more like "This is similar to previous work, please provide evidence that it is your own work"

In the interest of being fair to other students, any concerns need to be raised so that marks are awarded on the basis of your effort and content and not your ability to use copy/paste. If the tutors were less vigilant in this, then it would be exceedingly unfair to the students who put the effort in to do their own work, as cheaters would be able to get away with it. I realise it’s a royal pain in the arse, but the upside is that you can be sure that people aren’t getting away with cheating. As a general rule though, you should avoid internet references as most tutors do not look favourably upon them.

As long as the rest of your report is referenced appropriately and it is only that one word that has caused a problem, I would be highly surprised if you were failed for it. Speak to the tutors immediate boss first before taking it any higher.

This just reminded me a some dopey students this year, these idiots plagiarised the lecturer who ran the course and then had the audacity to dispute their failing grade. These were also the same idiots who, when they realised they were failing, wrote to the lecturer and asked if he could pass them so they could go overseas to work.

I marked a few blinders this semester too. These were lab reports (Intro, results, discussion) and one clever individual copied and pasted their intro into the discussion, added two new paragraphs at the top and expanded some abbreviations in the text and then submitted it. That was very easy to mark.


[This message has been edited by Run (edited December 03, 2003).]

How am I supposed to do that though? If I could do that then i'd have no problem.

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WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF PEANUT!!!

Evidence of previous drafts, previous assignments (preferably ones that have "gotten" in them), ensuring that rest of your writing is appropriately referenced. Maybe sit down with tutor or his boss and search the net using the disputed strings of text. I'd make the point that a foreign word doesn't indicate plagiarism.

Whoa whoa whoa. "Should of" is an ERROR, made by people who rarely use the written language and write it like they hear it ("should've when spoken sounds like "should of")
"Gotten" is an older word that Americans still say, but has dropped out of use in other places. It's not an error.

Damn GoY, that's the best idea I've ever heard!

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Have a good one,
Freelancer

Evidence of previous drafts: I only have one.. and it's not really much different. I moved a few paragraphs around, added very little

Previous Assignments: As I said, I joined the class late and this is the first one I've done.

I can however, do as you say and help him search the internet. Namely for the sentences where I had used "gotten". I only used the word twice.

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WARNING: THIS POST MAY CONTAIN TRACES OF PEANUT!!!

The past assignments don't necessarily have to be from this class, it would help you to establish a precedent, being that you have used this word before, and is part of your vocabulary and not the product of CTRl+C.

I suspect that if the tutor wont budge, his boss will probably be more reasonable. If necessary, work your way up through the heirarchy, don't just go straight to the head of the department or uni or however it works where you live, that will just put peoples backs up. Best of luck.

Very true.
I could use Y'all instead of You all. Doesn't make a difference, It's still my wording (I'd use you all in an English paper anyway ).

Hope you get this resolved quickly and painlessly.

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We are Slaw of Borg.
You will be assimilated.
Resistance is futile.
-Darth Slaw, Dark Lord of the Borg

[This message has been edited by Darth Slaw (edited December 03, 2003).]

Show him assignments from other classes with the usage of 'Gotten.'

You could also try teaching him a lesson by tying him up and beating him with wet noodles until he grades the paper properly...

JediKirby

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"I was driving along listening to the radio, when Judas Priest comes on. It was 'You've got another thing coming.' All of a sudden, I enter 'VICE CITY RAMAGE MODE' and nearly ran some guy over"
- ]-[ellequin

Looks like painlessly isn't an option with jEDIkIRBY. Still, it's more fun to pelt people with wet noodles ...

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We are Slaw of Borg.
You will be assimilated.
Resistance is futile.
-Darth Slaw, Dark Lord of the Borg

That it is...

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"I was driving along listening to the radio, when Judas Priest comes on. It was 'You've got another thing coming.' All of a sudden, I enter 'VICE CITY RAMAGE MODE' and nearly ran some guy over"
- ]-[ellequin

I don't think there's much you can do. I mean, you can make your case, but you really should have done a rough draft.

This situation is exactly why high school teachers are always after students to do multiple drafts of assignments.

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Shut up. I'm GOING to do this whether you like it or not.

It sounds like he just doesn't like you (or your paper) and can't think of a better reason to fail it. Seriously... "gotten"? That's hardly grounds for assuming a document is plagerized. That's like using a Spanish word/phrase in a document and being accused of plagerism for it - except this is an even dumber reason than that. Reminds me of the time I was accused of plagerism for using a footnote.

If he can't prove you plagerized, he has no grounds to accuse of such an act.

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"The Just shall live by faith." -Galatians 3:11
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." -Hebrews 11:1
"There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us[/i] is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ." -Ephesians 4:4-7

The Giant Internet IC Masturbator - the most complete index of IC chips on the net.

gotten isn't the only word we've stolen. We've stolen the entire English language. It's ours. Ours you here. Hell, we're starting to steal spanish too.

Of course, maybe he is super religious and is pissed that you completely debunked Noah.

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Man: Baby, I've been sleeping with your sister.
Woman: *gasp* Well, which one?
Man: All of them.
Woman: *gasp* Well, I've been sleeping with your best friend Jake!
Man: Yeah, well me too! And I've been sleeping with your dog Woofy!
Woman: Woofy?! You *****! Well, I'm also sleeping with your pet goat!
Man: That goat doesn't love you.............

I'm Australian and gotten is a word I use all the time. It has a different meaning to "got".

"I have got a nice computer" - I possess a nice computer.

"I have gotten a nice computer" - I recently have attained a nice computer.

hmmmmmmm...kill em all.

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Here Ociffer, hold my beer while i look for my license.
*Remnant Temple beta taking a bit longer than planned but ill get it done*
Light And Darkness

I second that. Just don't use guns like they did in columbine, use wet noodles. Now THAT'S original.

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"I was driving along listening to the radio, when Judas Priest comes on. It was 'You've got another thing coming.' All of a sudden, I enter 'VICE CITY RAMAGE MODE' and nearly ran some guy over"
- ]-[ellequin