Dear school,

I am writing to appeal for the course ENGR4002 Advanced Engineering research. I hope that I can be using this email to explain myself about what happen. I am a good and diligent student so I will never do such act to compromise my studies.

I have started this assignment by following on the marking rubrics and the assignment requirement. Some of the contents are also taken from the lectures that we have gone through in class. I am very puzzled as to why my paper is flagged out as misconduct as I have followed the materials from school and complete the paper individually.

I have visited the school website on the policy of academic misconduct in our school and I have found out the seriousness of academic misconduct. It has been listed that:

The following is a non-exhaustive list of examples of academic misconduct which will be considered under these Regulations:

Plagiarism

representing another person’s work or ideas as one’s own. For example, by failing to correctly acknowledge others’ ideas and work as sources of information in an assignment, and neglecting use of quotation marks. This also applies to the use of graphical material, calculations etc. in that plagiarism is not limited to text-based sources.

Collusion

cooperation in order to gain an unpermitted advantage. This may occur where students have consciously collaborated on a piece of work, in part or whole, and passed it off as their own individual efforts or where one student has authorised another to use their work, in part or whole, and to submit it as their own. A colluding student does not have to gain an unpermitted advantage in their own summative assessment for academic misconduct to have occurred.

I have fully understood the terms above and how serious the outcome is. Therefore, I would not commit any of the academic misconduct mentioned above. I feel that the matches with other students might be due to the content used in class and it can be common for students to write similar things based on what has been explained in class.

At the beginning of the term, I received a handbook and I have made some attempt to check the requirements with my classmates and asked about some key terms that to be included in the assignment way before I start to do the work. I have drafted the plan entirely by myself and only had some verbal discussions with my classmates about the requirements of the assignment. Some of the matches such as deliverables, there are some of the standard things that we have written in the list. However, the other part of the papers are entirely done by myself without the help of others.

As seen from the Turnitin report, the part on deliverables are in match with the school system. I am quite surprised as I have no idea why this has happened. I have thought of the deliverables which is following the timeline that has been given to me by the professor during lecture, and this might be the reason why this part is matched. As for the subsequent parts, I have used the MatLab and FEMM which are the commons tools to be used in research. Those tools are effective to find out relationship which is suitable for this research.

I have to admit that I have discussed the structure of this plan with my friends as I really want to do well in this case. I want to score high marks and that was why I have thought of how to approach this plan with a structure. However, I am very sure that we have not crossed the line and we have not engaged in any form of collusion to discuss our content. We wrote our parts separately only with reference to the structure.

I have been a good student showing good attitude in school. I have been always working hard in my life and I have been a good student since primary school. Despite facing times when I want to give up, I always tell myself that I need to give my best to finish my higher education. I have been actively attending lecture and seminars to make sure that I fully understand the module content. I took the courage to even apply for overseas University as I understand that a good university with a good result can help me to get where I want to go in the future. My parents and relatives have high hope for me as well. They are very proud of me since young as I have always top in my studies. They supported me financially and mentally in my life and I do not want to disappoint them. I am very worried about this case and I hope that I will not be charged of misconduct as this will affect my future. As I have future intention to advance my studies, I hope that the school can consider my request. I will also be seeking future help from school to make sure that such high similarity will not happen again. I will make sure to be more careful in terms of discussing and using materials from school and I will make sure such will not happen again. I have studied very hard for this module and I cannot afford to fail this module. Considering that the match is very minimum, I hope that the school can help me and do not charge me for any misconduct.

I am really sorry for this incident and I understand how serious this can be. I sincerely apologize to the university. I will definitely study hard and improve my personal level in the future. I am really very disappointed in myself for not managing my time wisely for this incident. I will stay communicated with the school in the future if I am faced with any difficult situations. This is my first time and this was actually due to my personal reason. I hope that this can be considered and give me another chance to submit the paper. I will treasure this chance and do a good job.

Yours Sincerely,

XXX