Q: What do I need to do to fight a plagiarism accusation?
My professor accused me of plagiarizing a small portion of a case briefing I had to write.
The assignment was to write a case briefing in my own words on the Brown v Board of education case. The case mentioned a state statute that I felt was vital to the case. I tried my best to put the statute into my own words but when I submitted my paper to turnitin.com she accused me of plagiarizing the statute from a high school students paper from 3 years ago, which I have never seen before this accusation. I have tried to explain that the information I got and tried to put in my own words was from the case that she provided but I have been unable to convince her.
I am supposed to graduate at the end of this semester and would never do anything so stupid to jeopardize that. I have tried to plea my case to her but she is convinced that I plagiarized. Do you have any advice on how I should proceed?
A: If you were simply trying to quote the state statute, that is not plagiarism, unless you took a lay description from another source instead of simply quoting the statute. If I were you, I would write a statement of how you did your research and writing regarding the particular part you are accused of plagiarizing. You can actually do a Google search on the exact language you used to find out if it exists prior to your using that language in your paper. In the future, always quote the exact language of a state or federal statute and cite the source you used to obtain it.
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