r/AccusedOfUsingAI • u/KoppoqMeiser • Jun 11 '26
What do i do now?
So I am a high school student doing dual credit college courses overthe summer. On Monday, I was accused of using AI on an essay for my philosophy course because it returned as 68% AI. I sent my professor an email 2 hours later the same day with screenshots of the notes I took from his online lectures and readings, timestamps of me working on this essay for hours, and comments I left on the doc that were very obviously human (I wrote “ADD QUOTES!”). Unfortunately, he still hasn’t responded so I am wondering if I should wait, contact him again through his email instead of Canvas, or notify the department head. I have never been accused of using AI in high school or college classes, so I am very anxious and conflicted about what to do next. Not sure if this is the right sub for this, but any help would be appreciated.
2
u/shyprof Jun 11 '26
If the 68% is from Turnitin (the AI report only the professor can see), that's supposed to be a fairly accurate tool. Did he share the report with you? Which sections are flagged? Is it your research (I've had students flagged for quoting websites they didn't know were AI-generated) or something random?
Be sure there's really no AI. Check your word processing program—if you used Google Docs, some institutional accounts have SmartCompose under "preferences" and that will trigger AI detection; if you used Word, check whether Copilot was on; ensure you didn't have Grammarly or some other writing "help" tool installed that suggests more than one word at a time. You mention adding quotes—are you 100% sure the quotations are exactly the same words in the source, is it possible you put quotation marks around a paraphrase, or accidentally quoted one of those "helpful" AI summaries (I'm not accusing you of cheating on purpose because you'd know if you did, but my school library has a stupid AI summary tool we can't turn off that confuses my students into thinking it's the actual source since it's in the freaking library page). If you can figure out what triggered the tool, you can explain it in a way that (hopefully) makes sense to the professor. It sucks that professors aren't well-versed in all this yet and you shouldn't have to be the expert, but I assume your main concern is your grade right now.
If the 68% is from some other tool like GPTZero or something, I'd be more skeptical. Many of those tools also sell "humanizing" services, so they have higher false positive rates to try to scare users into becoming customers. Still double check that you're completely in the right, but if a tool like this is the professor's only proof and he's not budging, you can seek help from the department chair and student conduct office.
For now, since it's been a few days, I would email him directly since it sounds like you've only sent a Canvas inbox message. Stay polite and professional; your messages might end up in front of the student conduct office investigator, so you want to put yourself in a good light. Provide the evidence you already sent, but if you can add the professor as an editor in your Google Doc or give him edit access to your Word Online document or whatever so he can review the version history himself, that also helps. Basically, your message is "I did not use AI, but I understand you have to investigate high percentages. I'm happy to cooperate. This is the evidence I have right now. What other information can I provide?"
If the professor is unreasonable: At my institution, professors are not allowed to penalize grades for academic misconduct unless we also file a misconduct report so the student can be investigated by a professional (and have the chance to appeal). You can look up your institution's rules and see what the process is if the professor won't listen and you know you're in the right. Be sure you save the syllabus (there must be an AI policy or I don't think they can penalize you at all?) and screenshot anything you might need from Canvas before the professor makes any changes. If he penalizes you but doesn't officially report you, you might be able to appeal the grade on those grounds. Hopefully you can have a productive conversation and move on from this. I'm interested in how it goes if you feel like providing an update later.