I can never do anything right!

[tachik]

I have to meet with another professor about possible plagiarism. I don't know what is the issue? My paper shows 2% online. And it is not an official submission....it was a draft for a future paper and I wanted prof's feedback/suggestions.

[fuzzylogician]

You have another related recent thread about a similar concern, if I remember correctly. Has that other meeting with your professor happened already, and what came of it? 

I suggest that you schedule a meeting with your advisor and/or the director of graduate studies ASAP to learn how to cite things correctly, to keep this from happening again. Clearly, there is something that you are missing. The 2% I assume means that you didn't straight up copy and paste things from some other source, which is a good start. But this kind of service can't say much about whether you are citing your sources correctly (=not only paraphrasing others' thoughts and ideas, but also giving them credit for it, in the form of a citation, every time you take something from someone else's work). I would bet that is where the problem is. The professor can probably recognize ideas from published work that appear in your paper without appropriate credit being given to the source. 

[rising_star]

To me, it sounds like you need to meet with someone from the Writing Center ASAP to learn what you're not doing but should be doing, in addition to meeting with your professors to talk to them about it.

[tachik]

Omg, the professor could not provide any evidence. Has anyone experienced similar situation? Why would a professor suspect me without any evidence?

[GeoDUDE!]

Perhaps the professor doesn't believe you have the ability to produce the work you have turned in. 

[MonstersU-Terp]

Omg, the professor could not provide any evidence. Has anyone experienced similar situation? Why would a professor suspect me without any evidence?

Can you elaborate on exactly what happened and what the professor said? It's hard to give advice if we don't know the situation. I know you're really upset but try to keep a cool head and provide us with the details in an objective manner. 

It's hard to imagine that he/she would accuse you without having a solid reason. 2% is really, really low so it must be something other than just that number that caused the suspicion. 

[tachik]

Prof says Im using another prof's research ideas, but my paper hasn't even been conducted before......

Edited October 30, 2015 by tachik

[Eigen]

The % something something shows only catches wording changes, not ideas- and based on the most recent post, I'd assume they are saying you're using ideas without attribution, not copying wording.

[GeoDUDE!]

Prof says Im using another prof's research ideas, but my paper hasn't even been conducted before......

Perhaps you are doing something similiar, or building off someone elses ideas (even though it hasn't been done before) and you are not giving proper credit. Just because you haven't READ a paper that you need to cite doesn't mean you don't need to cite it. We all miss papers we should cite (when your citing 50-100 papers that happens) but perhaps you haven't done enough research and thus are being caught with plagiarism. 

To give you an example, my prospectus, which is a pre-dissertation proposal paper we write in my program after our first year was only 8 pages double spaced, but had 45 citations. I'm not saying your paper has to have a reference density like mine, but what you do have to do is convince the readers that you have properly researched your topic and failure to do so is risking looking like you have copied someone elses ideas when someone has done it before. 

[fuzzylogician]

Prof says Im using another prof's research ideas, but my paper hasn't even been conducted before......

You're still not giving us enough information, but my guess based on this is exactly as it was in my first reply: your paper contains some ideas that have been proposed in the previous literature that you failed to cite. Now there are two options: (1) you were unaware of this previous work and came up with the idea yourself. (2) you read the previous work but didn't cite it appropriately. Your professor seems to suspect something along the lines of (2), or perhaps a version of what GeoDUDE suggests -- that you should have known about this paper and cited it, and failing to do so means you didn't do a good lit review, which led to (unintended) plagiarism. 

Whatever happened, you do need to cite previous work, there is no doubt about that. If you came up with the ideas independently of this earlier work, then hopefully you can demonstrate that that is the case. At the very least, you could talk about the process of coming up with the idea. You're not fully in the clear, but as long as this is not a regular occurrence, you want to convey the message that you were just sloppy, but you are not a cheater. The fact that it hasn't been implemented(?) before (I'm not sure what you mean by "conducted") is a bit beside the point, if the problem is that the idea you're building on isn't cited correctly. 

Again, some guesswork here, because we don't have all the relevant information.

[TakeruK]

The situation that fuzzy (and others, but fuzzy summarized it really well) wrote about is fairly common in graduate school, especially for new students unfamiliar with research, or unfamiliar with the norms of the field. 

You have written a few posts here now about similar problems and it's not clear if you're writing about the same problem or if there are a lot of problems going on all at once. In any case, but especially if you are facing multiple problems at the same time, I think it is really important for you to make sure you understand what the professors are really saying when you do meet with them.

From the posts here, when you say things like "2%" or saying the prof does not have evidence etc., to me, it sounds like you are approaching this the wrong way.

Of course, you should expect the professors to have evidence if they are going to sanction you for academic misconduct. However, before it gets to that, you should stop thinking about this as "the professor is wrong and I am right" or basically the view that the professor has to show you why you are not meeting expectations. Instead, drop your previous thoughts on plagiarism and really listen to what the professor(s) are saying. Suspend your own beliefs about whether or not you plagiarized and just listen to what the professor is saying. They will identify things that they think you are doing wrong (e.g. using another person's idea without attribution) and then you should talk to them about how you can change it. 

The goal is not to prove your innocence or guilt. If it ever comes to that, then you will be facing expulsion from the program. Instead, right now, it sounds like what you should be trying to do is to understand why your work isn't acceptable and fix it. However, if you continue to treat it as an accusation and that these meetings are like "trials" then I think it will soon lead to a more serious discussion where the outcome will be to decide whether or not you can continue.

[tachik]

Hi everyone, thanks so much for your responses!

In the paper I just mentioned that I will be using a prof's data tool (who has interest in being one of my supervisors). That was all. All other references were from lit articles and books. The paper was written in hopes that 2 profs can supervise me. It was just a basic draft in preparation for next summer. No profs signed any documents yet to be my supervisors. This paper had nothing to do with any of my courses. I started writing the draft in early September and was showing the draft to a couple of professors.

Edited October 30, 2015 by tachik
spelling

[Eigen]

So what is this paper for if it's not for a course? And why are you showing it around?

The professor's you're showing the draft to, are they the ones you want to work with?

I think at this point some general idea of your field might help, because what you're discussing (writing a draft without the professors you want to supervise you as co-authors, using someone else's data tool, writing a draft before you have the data) all seem unusual for me, but might seem less so if I knew what field you were coming from.

[rising_star]

Eigen, I read the writing a draft as writing a draft of one's research proposal, so there might not be any data yet. But that then sounds like it should be more like what GeoDUDE! said, in that there should be lots of references to the relevant, related literature.

tachik, I think fuzzy and TakeruK are right on track here. If you're using someone's data tool, you have to cite that. You also want to explain why it's useful for what you want to do and how your ideas are different from what's already been done. At the same time, your ideas need to be clearly grounded in the extant scientific literature, which means citing the ideas, findings, and tools you are building on. For reference, my research methods students have to have at least 15 peer-reviewed references in the introduction to their research papers (based on an experiment we do). You, as a graduate student, should have far more.

[tachik]

It is actually an idea for next summer, and I did mention all citations, etc. And the reasons i showed to those professors if because I would like to work with them. 

Edited October 30, 2015 by tachik

[GeoDUDE!]

It is actually an idea for next summer, and I did mention all citations, etc. And the reasons i showed to those professors if because I would like to work with them. 

You've obviously done nothing wrong (mistakenly or not) and your professors are crazy. 

Edited October 30, 2015 by GeoDUDE!

[tachik]

One of the profs could not even provide evidence of plagarism. The prof is also not an expert in the area. I don't understand why they would accuse me when no official documentations to be my superviser(s) for next summer are signed.

[fuzzylogician]

One of the profs could not even provide evidence of plagarism. The prof is also not an expert in the area. I don't understand why they would accuse me when no official documentations to be my superviser(s) for next summer are signed.

So someone else did provide evidence?

This has been said before so I'm not sure if you're really hearing what we're saying, but we are not talking here about copying words from another paper, we are talking about copying ideas. You can't use a detection software on that. It's not always possible to provide direct evidence that someone intentionally took someone's idea without giving them credit--that would require showing that they knew of the idea ahead of time but chose not to cite it, and usually your professor won't have that kind of knowledge. What is possible to show is that there is a similar enough (or identical) idea out there in the literature that you used in your paper, but you didn't cite the appropriate source.

Despite your protests, I still believe that's what's going on here. I see no other reason why multiple professors would say that your are plagiarizing. If there is another reason, or some misunderstanding, you need to explain it. If you insist on not telling us what field you're in and what your professors actually said in the meetings with you, and instead that you did nothing wrong and everyone is out to get you, I think at this point there isn't much more that we can do to help you. Apparently you are right and everyone else is wrong, and therefore it would appear that you don't need any more advice. 

[tachik]

No one could provide evidence during the meeting.

Edited October 30, 2015 by tachik

[fuzzylogician]

That's funny, you responded to one line and ignored the entire two paragraphs that follow it. 

[Eigen]

What I still don't understand is *why* you're showing drafts to professors who aren't your advisor (or potential advisors) and what you're asking them to do with it.

[tachik]

I only showed the draft to 3 profs (my 2 potential advisors and the prof who is teaching research methods).

Edited October 31, 2015 by tachik

[GeoDUDE!]

I only showed the draft to 3 profs (my 2 potential advisors and the prof who is teaching research methods).

and all of them say you are plagiarizing ?

[tachik]

Just two are accusing me, which is weird because they could not provide evidence.

Also, when I first showed draft to those two earlier this month, one of them delayed deciding to be my advisor. The other one asked me if it's funded (which is not because my idea hasn't even been out there). When I asked both for feedback (at separate times), one said "Im still reading" and the other said "no it's fine". I think it is an internal issue.

Edited October 31, 2015 by tachik

[GeoDUDE!]

Just two are accusing me, which is weird because they could not provide evidence.

Also, when I first showed draft to those two earlier this month, one of them delayed deciding to be my advisor. The other one asked me if it's funded (which is not because my idea hasn't even been out there). When I asked both for feedback (at separate times), one said "Im still reading" and the other said "no it's fine". I think it is an internal issue.

You are being so cryptic it's impossible to form an opinion. I can only conclude that you posted this in order to get everyone to agree with you and not actually get insight on your situation.