You are allowed to bring an attorney or other representative to these board hearings at your discretion. If the turn it in showed 24%, you are going to have to work to point out that this is a minimal amount and then you are going to have to demonstrate how the portion of the paper they are accusing you of was human error and was not an intentional plagiarism. The problem with these cases is that a student either plagiarized or they did not, it is a fairly black and white issue as to the plagiarism itself as it is apparent in the paper. Thus, the attack has to be based on the fact it was NOT INTENTIONAL and it was an accidental error because of forgetting to insert a citation and how everyone makes such human errors and you need to push that even though they may choose to find you guilty the punishment should be no more severe than a verbal reprimand which typically can be removed from your file after 1 year.

To help prove this was human error you need to bring the volume of your resources to show the sheer volume of those compared to what was in your paper and it is up to you to make them understand how the mistake took place. You need to focus on how this was a mistake and not something you intended to do and how it would have not made sense, especially given your long clean record, to do this intentionally knowing that the paper would be checked through a plagiarism site.

One other thing you can do, which may be a little underhanded, is to get some papers written by your professor and perhaps anyone you may know on the board and check them through turn it in as well and see what comes up. Sometimes, you may be surprised, you may find that one of them has done the same exact thing and you can then seek to use that to your advantage by showing that it can happen to anyone. For a professor, plagiarism, even some that took place before their hiring, can devastate their career and again, you never know what will pop up with your search, so it is worth you spending your time.

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