Submit an Academic Petition or Appeal

Petition Letter: Dear Dr. Jenn Stephenson,

My name is Tuana Sanlier, I am a first year student at Queens University in the Bachelors of Arts Honours program. I am writing this letter regarding the finding of a departure from the academic integrity report I have received on February 9, 2022. I am appealing the Faculty's decision that my PSYC 100 Midterm Exam was plagiarised on December 8, 2021. I am surprised and very upset to receive a letter informing me that my exam constitutes a departure from academic integrity under the regulations of plagiarism. I am writing in the hope that you will re-evaluate the written section of the exam after reading my letter and reviewing the supporting evidence, that includes an explanation to all the highlighted parts, my search history on December 8, 2021 and notes I took during my lab. I have included all of this evidence with my appeal.

Upon reviewing the Turnitin pages, I noticed a few major points that contributed to the extremely high Turnitin mark. I have received a 55% plagiarism mark that has been submitted through Queens University, however it is visible that I have copied the exam template given by Queens University for my PSYC 100 Midterm Exam. These highlighted parts in red are the questions that were mandatory to answer on the exam. With the amount of stress I was under at that time to get the written part completed by 12:20 pm, I decided to paste the exam questions onto the document. I wanted to submit to make it easier for myself to look at the questions rather than continuously switching back and forth between tabs to see the questions. Due to the replication of the test template (which includes the instructions, question 1 with the graph illustration, and question 2), the red highlighted areas of the paper indicate plagiarism. I submitted my exam exactly at 12:20 pm. Since Turnitin had already evaluated other students' papers, I am convinced that I was one of the last students to submit their exam immediately before the submission box closed, which is most likely why my exam was tagged as plagiarism.

In addition, the red highlighted parts in some other situations were fixed terms and passages I wrote indicating what the question and the media article provided in order to address the question in greater depth. Other highlighted parts of my exam were also fixed terms, and definitions of these terms. I did not search up anything on the internet, I used my prior knowledge and notes I took in PSYC 100. The key words I used to explain a term or a point in my written exam may be similar to those found in other statements.

Although I am not the brightest student in PSYC 100, I am still very interested and love learning in this course. This exam is worth 30% of my final grade, I honestly do not think I deserve a 0% on this exam for an offence I did not commit. I have put the time and energy into studying for this exam despite the personal struggles I dealt with at that time. I understand that plagiarism is a very serious matter, from now on I will do my best not to paste the instructions and questions on a document which I will submit to Turnitin unless I am told to do so. I value the privilege to have my education and I would never jeopardise my academics. I, Tuana Sanlier, can assure you of my honesty.

Sincerely,
Tuana Sanlier