Getting out of academic dishonesty

Question

This is a case of accidental academic dishonesty. What are ways that I could get out of it? WHat should I tell my dean?

Answer 1

If they don't have pure and exact prof that you were dishonest they can't do a thing to you. Try telling them that if they don't have it. If they do, then you are in alot of trouble my friend.

Answer 2

There is truly no accidental academic dishonesty.  You either committed plagiarism or you copied on an exam.  If

you copied on an exam, you know that’s not accidental and you just have to explain and take the consequences.   The only idea that could be accidental would be if you wrote a

paper and used an idea that originated with someone else but were not aware that it originated with someone else.

If that is the case, you are not guilty; you have been unjustly accused of plagiarism.  If that is the case, then you should be able to get out of his convicting you.       The only other

concept I can think of that you might describe as accidental is that you obtained some important information for a paper from a source on the internet, copied and pasted it.

or perhaps assembled an entire paper by copying and pasting the ideas from sources you found on the internet.

You are guilty as h*** of the charges.   However, if no teacher has explained the concept of plagiarism to you and

you have been permitted to do this and receive grades of B or A in the past, you may have been ignorant.    You need

to explain to the dean the facts surrounding the situation, be

honest and if you did not know what you did was academic misconduct and now know, express sorrow and remorse and ask the dean to allow, or encourage your teacher to give you a make up assignment.      

There is another context where you can be charged with academic dishonesty where you might truly be guilty.  That is in exam cheating where you are accused of making your

answers visible to bird brains who cheated off you.   You are truly the victim in the instance, and are guilty only if you

knew students were copying off of you and did not cover your answers or make them unavailable to the dishonest rats.   If those rats are your best friends, you will look guilty.  

I hate exam cheaters; they corrupt the process of determining a person’s actual level of competence.  If I catch one and do not have to use a judicial process, I prefer to multiply the raw score earned on the exam by

-2 and average it in with their grade.   That means if your

knowledge level was zero and you did not cheat, you would

just receive a 0. .   However if you cheated, got a raw score of 70, and got caught, your grade is now -140.    If there are

only two exams and a final and your other grades are 100 and each grade counts equally, your grade for the course would be (100+100+ -140)/3 = 60/3 = 20% and of course

that guarantees an F or F- if the latter grade is available to assign.     At least, with the zero,  your grade would be

(100+100 + 0)/3  = 200/3 = 66.67% which is usually a D

If the class is a difficult statistics or physics class, that could be a C or a B- , or in traditional or strict older fashioned schools 66 may be an F also.    

Best of luck with the academic dishonesty charges,, I hope I

listed your situation and provide a context to explain yourself.    Most deans and administrators attempt to handle these situations as judges or lawyers would.   If you

are at a school that has a written academic honesty code, be sure you read it, understand it, know it and can quote it if necessary, and be able to compare the facts of your case with what is written in the academic honesty code.    If you've ever taken business law or studied a little law in your social studies classes, its now time to use what you have learned.