A Formal Letter of Complaint

1 Letter of Review University of Western Sydney Dear Sir/ Madam, Re: Student Name: Harry D. O .B: 25/09/1990 UWS Student ID No: 998513 I sat for my final exam on Cell Signaling, subject 300544, over a month ago and was perplexed when I received the results for the paper. Initially I had done the same paper in which I admittedly did not do my best and ended up getting a score of 38 points, which necessitated that I do a retake the paper. Here is where my qualms with the supervisor of the subject, Dr. Peter Smith originated. A month after completing my retake exam, my results were not published on the UWS student’s records as is the normal case. After following up on the issue, I was told that I had only managed to score 46 points in my retake paper. I was shocked because I had expected to perform much better in the retake and an improvement of 8 points was not what I expected, not in the least bit. As per the UWS guidelines and procedures, I followed up the issue with my subject supervisor, Dr. Smith via an email.

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2 In the email to Dr. Smith I revealed to him the reasons as to why I felt that my performance ought to have received more than 46 points. To this effect, I requested for a remark of the paper. When Dr. Smith responded to my email, the response I got was not what I expected.

Instead of granting me a remark as per my request, he delved into an explanation as to why he graded my paper at 46 points. The explanation that he gave me was that my paper was a wreck of plagiarized answers. He specifically referred to the fact that my answers showed an unacceptable similarity with a PuBMed abstract. He noted that my answers had word-for-word duplicates of what appeared in the online PuBMed article. Dr. Smith however presented me with another forum whereby we would meet in person and he would then explain to me his rationale for his conclusion. He also gave me another alternative if after the meeting I still felt he was still in error to forward my complaints to an academic committee set up by the school.

Before my meeting with Dr. Smith I made an effort to go through the UWS student academic misconduct policy, just so I may affirm my reasons for lodging a complaint. I religiously went through what the university considers to constitute student academic misconduct. I specifically went through Section 2 which talks about plagiarism, collusion and cheating. In the meeting with Dr. Smith, when he brought up my alleged plagiarism, I calmly explained to him that I could not have plagiarized due to the format of the exam I had undertaken. According to the academic misconduct policy, plagiarism occurs when a student in their work uses ideas and words from other sources and incorporates them in his presentation work as being their own. The fact that the examination was a closed book examination meant that there were no sources allowed in the examination room, be they in written or electronic format. I tried to explain to him that since no external resources were found on my person during the examination, the issue of plagiarism should have no basis in the marking of my work.

3 Dr. Smith stuck to his guns that the fact that the material that appeared in my answer booklet for the exam was similar to another source was enough proof that I had plagiarized.

Despite the fact that I quoted the reason for the similarity of my answers with the information that appeared in another source, he still would not understand my explanation. As you may know, people have different ways in which they tend to process information during learning and this inevitably determines how that information is stored in memory. Personally, I normally process my information by going through stuff over and over until I have stored the information in my mind. When it comes to the recollection of said information during an examination, I normally retrieve that information by use of photographic memory. Dr. Smith still did not appreciate my school of thought and insisted that my recollection technique not withstanding, he still considered my answers as constituting plagiarized material. I felt there could be no progress reached with Dr. Smith and so I decided to follow up on the university’s guidelines and take my case forward to the student academic misconduct committee.

I am of the opinion that I am being judged unfairly by Dr. Smith based on my academic ability that has over time served me well to this academic level. For instance, I feel that my answers ought to be judged on the basis of whether or not the answers I provided in my examination are correct or not. In the face of the fact that no inappropriate materials were found with me during the paper, a failure by Dr. Smith to correctly mark my paper constitutes unfair treatment by a staff member of the university. In my understanding, UWS has in place contingencies and measures to deal with any form of academic malpractice and it is only fair that when a complaint is put forward these contingencies ought to be the basis of any judgment.

Failure by a senior academic staff member to follow on the same rules that the rest of us in the university fraternity are expected to abide by should not be tolerated by the university council.

4 Since Dr. Smith’s continues to challenge the credibility of my work, with the basis completely void of any of the university’s guidelines, I feel that the university council ought to investigate his conduct.

Continued insistence by the lecturer that I plagiarized is hurtful to my person since it is completely based on an unfounded basis and thus should not be allowed to stand in the way of my academic goals. I feel that were it not for Dr. Smith’s insistence of labeling my work as plagiarized material, I would probably end up scoring a mark that is closer to my own expectations. I have been successful in securing a meeting on Monday August 27, 2012 with the university chancellor Ms. Jane Collins, from 10.30-11.30 am at the Campbell town Campus. I look forward to a fair hearing by the committee regarding this matter. If the committee finds that Dr. Smith had exceeded his authority in breach of the university’s guidelines, it is only fair that his misconduct be looked into.

Regards, Harry.