Petition Letter
Dear Dr. Stephenson,
I am appealing a sanction that was applied to my PSYC 100 final exam grade. I was given this sanction because the Turnitin Report identified instances of plagiarism in the written answer portion of my exam. Prior to explaining what happened, I just want to acknowledge that I take full responsibility for my actions and recognize how this constitutes a departure from academic integrity. It was an honest mistake and I assure you that I will never allow this to happen again.
On April 14th, I had 3 hours and 45 minutes to complete the exam which was open book. I receive extra time on my exams because of my anxiety disorder, which I have been dealing with since high school. Exams are always a very stressful time for me, but this PSYC exam was particularly stressful as I did not have as much time to study for it as I would have liked. It took me almost 3 hours to complete the 90 multiple choice questions at the beginning of the exam because I was feeling so anxious that morning, and I had to take multiple breaks to calm myself down as a result. By the time I reached the written answer portion of the exam, there wasn¿¿t as much time left as I would¿¿ve liked and so I really had to rush my answers. As a result, I did not re-word my notes (which are from the class textbook) as well as I should have. I also realize now that I should have used a citation to acknowledge that I was using information from the textbook. When I had finished writing, I had run out of time on my exam and thus I did not have a chance to go over my work and realize my mistake.
The sanction that my instructor decided to apply because of my plagiarism is a 50 penalty to my exam grade. I believe that this penalty is too harsh because I have no previous record of departing from academic integrity. In addition, the online open-book exam format is still quite unfamiliar to me and so I am not used to having access to resources like the textbook while writing an exam (and thus not accustomed to having to include citations on an exam). This was a huge mistake on my part, but it absolutely was not intentional, and I hope you will take this into consideration when evaluating my request.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.
Best regards,
Elizabeth (Bess) Russett
20096016
I am appealing a sanction that was applied to my PSYC 100 final exam grade. I was given this sanction because the Turnitin Report identified instances of plagiarism in the written answer portion of my exam. Prior to explaining what happened, I just want to acknowledge that I take full responsibility for my actions and recognize how this constitutes a departure from academic integrity. It was an honest mistake and I assure you that I will never allow this to happen again.
On April 14th, I had 3 hours and 45 minutes to complete the exam which was open book. I receive extra time on my exams because of my anxiety disorder, which I have been dealing with since high school. Exams are always a very stressful time for me, but this PSYC exam was particularly stressful as I did not have as much time to study for it as I would have liked. It took me almost 3 hours to complete the 90 multiple choice questions at the beginning of the exam because I was feeling so anxious that morning, and I had to take multiple breaks to calm myself down as a result. By the time I reached the written answer portion of the exam, there wasn¿¿t as much time left as I would¿¿ve liked and so I really had to rush my answers. As a result, I did not re-word my notes (which are from the class textbook) as well as I should have. I also realize now that I should have used a citation to acknowledge that I was using information from the textbook. When I had finished writing, I had run out of time on my exam and thus I did not have a chance to go over my work and realize my mistake.
The sanction that my instructor decided to apply because of my plagiarism is a 50 penalty to my exam grade. I believe that this penalty is too harsh because I have no previous record of departing from academic integrity. In addition, the online open-book exam format is still quite unfamiliar to me and so I am not used to having access to resources like the textbook while writing an exam (and thus not accustomed to having to include citations on an exam). This was a huge mistake on my part, but it absolutely was not intentional, and I hope you will take this into consideration when evaluating my request.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter.
Best regards,
Elizabeth (Bess) Russett
20096016