(Archive) Results withheld/ deferred

All those can join n comment who have concerns regarding thr result withheld n rap referred to ACO

This is a very stressing phase of my life being referred to an ACO is worst than even failing

Hi same to me.
Being so impatient about any incoming mail hoping i will be contacted ASAP.
Please if anyone get contacted i will be glad to know , All the same am hopeful and pray it doesn’t take long.

@doeen, hi there your ACO should contact you back in a few days n tell you why you are upheld for this. He might say you have 40% plagiarism as per turnitin. And you need to justify that by telling him how you did your research.
Please let everyone know about any further emails.
Regards

All I know is that there are several ACO Officers and they probably conduct the process slightly differently e.g. some send out a preliminary email just to say they will be looking at the case and will be emailing again when they have done their investigation, whereas others do not make contact until they have done the initial investigation and just email the student the details e.g. the evidence of 40% plagiarism above (which means that Turnitin identified their work as being 40% the same as other students’ work and / or sources on the database – this could be books, journals and internet articles)

Someone sent me this once from the email they had from their case officer: “Cases vary in complexity and the time required for investigation and evidence gathering and therefore I am unable to give an exact time period for when I shall be able in a position to present you with the results of my preliminary investigations.” However it seems that some students are now receiving these type of details.

Hello All,
I received same from ACO, an intro email telling me he was the one doing my investigation.Later another email , Content: …..% plagiarism…and required a couple of clarifications from me on my RAP before a specific date.
Waiting! Waiting!! Anxiously!!!. I am patient but still impatiently!!!! waiting!!!!!.

@vinessen – if you did the work yourself then you should have nothing to worry about. There are various things that can flag a referral to the ACO. Even if a student has done the work themselves if they have copied and pasted direct citations from online sources and another student has used the same source and done the same then the electronic checking system would spot the similarities and indicate that their work is copied. This is why referencing is so important and also why you should try to paraphrase rather than copy and paste as I point out in my article on Referencing.

The other thing that can trigger a referral is the student thinks they did the work themselves but the mentor helped them. Never let the mentor edit your work – I have heard that some mentors are suspected of writing bits of students work and if you use one of those mentors your chances of referral increase…

The ACO usually ask in depth questions about how you went about your work and expect to see drafts. These are crucial to show that you did the work yourself (and anyone saying that they have lost their USB stick and don’t have any drafts and notes anymore won’t wash – these guys have been marking for years and have heard all the excuses in the book by now !)

Means most of your SLS is not original. I thought they sent you a copy of the Turnitin report and if so the coloured passages show the sentences and passages that the system has recognised from previous submitted SLSs. Did your mentor lend you and others examples of SLSs?

@sunny45 – ok let’s first look at the facts. 3% plagiarism score would have been calculated on the total number of words in your submission (report + SLS) so roughly 3% equates to 285 words (assuming you used the maximum number of words but in terms of the SLS is about 14% if this was 2,000 words. (Did they send you a copy of the Turnitin report by the way? ) Although it was serious enough to refer to the ACO if this was the only reason for referral then it is more hopeful for you in terms of potential outcome.

Next what are you up against? Some of the ACO officers are ‘tough cookies’ – they have seen it all before and heard every excuse going so personally I think anyone who thinks they can lie their way out and take on an ACO Officer is likely to come off worse. Also these guys and dolls don’t take kindly to students playing them for the fool! Also lying if you are found out incurs a penalty in addition to the charge of plagiarism.

So what would I advise: make a confession along the lines of the one you made above. If you got the Turnitin report it should be obvious that your statement about the research is true and your report I trust is proof of it (the T. Report should only be showing minor matches to referenced sources which you can ignore – or the odd one or two you forgot to reference and maybe some very minor matches to other students)

So the penalties: essentially they have to issue some penalty but this tends to be based on a combination of how ‘hard’ a student makes it for them e.g. holding out and protesting innocence in the light of mounting evidence that they are guilty, the severity of the initial offence and any mitigating factors e.g. an honest confession. The worst I think you would get IF your only offence is 14% plagiarised SLS and you own up straight off and plead you were negligent in using the internet source is probably a zero grade. This effectively means they fail you and you get no feedback and it counts as a submission. They could insist you change topic and company for you next submission or it might be slightly lighter and they allow you to resubmit on the same topic & company.

At the other end of the scale if they are convinced a student is guilty and persists in lying it is both reported to ACCA and referred upwards to the University’s Misconduct Committee. The UMC is a quasi-legal process and the student is cross-examined like in a court (over Skype if living overseas) I understand that the chances of coming out of the UMC unscathed are slim as the evidence of guilt is usually insurmountable I am told students end up distraught and there are financial penalties and they could also face an ACCA disciplinary hearing. If anyone finds the referral to the ACO harrowing it seems they ain’t seen nothing yet in terms of stress compared with what will be in store if it goes to the UMC – hence my advice is always fess up, accept the consequences and put an end to the misery.

@vinessen – of course you should respond and say that you did not receive the Turnitin report (as otherwise you cannot comment on the similarities). I expect they forgot to attach it but if you politely point out that you haven’t got this with the email I am sure it will be sent.

The report shows all the sources (some of these should be fine if you have referenced properly so you can ignore). It is the match to student papers you need to concern yourself with – these will be in different colours depending on how much has come from each source (according to the program). As I mentioned in my earlier post if students use the same source then it will often match it. The SLS should in theory have very few matches apart from the questions and the occasional phrase as it is supposed to be unique to each student’s experience.

@vinessen – Obviously I can only comment on from what I know about this program and they may have used a different version/ or report format from what I have seen but usually every source is shown in a different colour/ shade. The largest match will always be shown in red and each time this source is appears it is prefixed by a red number 1, the second largest match is in green and passages will be prefixed by a green 2 and third largest in blue and they have a blue 3 (then there will be other colours for smaller percentage matches each with a different number).

There should either be a section at the beginning or the end of the report that shows the overall score and then this is broken down into percentages for Internet sources, publications and student papers, followed by a list that breaks down the sources with a score for each source.

If your work is a resubmission then the red text would normally be matches the system has found to your previous submission(s) so obviously this would not be wrong but lots of red would be suspicious in a first submission. Text that the system believes is original is shown as black text. So any sources given a large percentage in the breakdown other than to your own previous work are probably what the ACO are interested in, or if your Turntin report is coloured like a rainbow. In this last case even if each source is listed with a low individual score the fact that there is so much colour indicates that the sentences and passages have been taken from elsewhere (and where there is a bit of text in say orange followed by a couple of words in black and then more orange it tells them that the student has just substituted a word or two here or there but essentially has imported the passage from the source identified by the prefix for the orange source).

What I am saying is that students who think they can make up a story and say they just looked a someone’s work for a few ideas just won’t wash – the evidence of similarities when the percentages are large is more or less proof that they couldn’t have just ‘looked’ but copied or reworded.

You probably don’t need to worry too much about the publications score (this represents books and journals) – focus on internet and student papers and the red, green and blue text. If they have sent you the detailed individual breakdown this may show you the actual source it has matched your work to but normally unless they have told you the student reg. no. you can’t tell who it is (but they can).

The other thing that you won’t be able to see/do from the report (but they can do on the program) is call up the other papers your work is matched to and I think they can actually then view them side by side and see exactly who the other student is. They also of course have full electronic copies of everyone’s submissions that they can call up and see everything that student has ever submitted (you have to agree when you submit that the University can retain your papers) so they can then compare reference lists, spreadsheets and Presentations.

Hi Trephena,

I received a mail from ACO and they are saying overall match is 38% but they have highlighted two names to which one is 18% and 4% match.
The 18% match is to someone i know but i have not copied his work at all. Although we had same companies but i have done all my research work myself.
I have evidences to proof that. Only question i want to ask you is that should i mention that i know him?
Pls help me. Thanks in advance.

@trephena. Thanks for your reply.
No we had different mentors. Only one article i took from the same source. Rest all referencing used was different. Yes i did use some passages and rephrased them. Basically only the intro part.
Is that a big problem now?
For sls, i did some rephrasing as we living in same country faced same limitations.
But rest of my research work was my own.
I m really scared now!