Module 6 Assignment
Rhetorical Situation 1: Formal Letter of Apology
Name
Address
City, State, Zip Code
Date
Professor’s Name
Course Title
University Name
University Address
RE: Apology for Academic Dishonesty
Dear Professor,
I hope that this message finds you well. I am writing to sincerely apologize for the incident with my recent assignment submission, which was flagged for plagiarism. I recognize that my actions were an academic violation and an embarrassment to you, my teammates, and myself. I am genuinely sorry for the decisions I made; it will not happen again: Module 6 Assignment.
I was so eager to finish the assignment that I had the unfortunate idea of copying some content from a website. Procrastination and the distraction of spending the weekend at the beach placed me under stress, left me with little time for the assignment, and had to submit quickly. As the team captain, I know that my actions are not only my own but also reflect my teammates, who look up to me. I also know I have risked my scholarship and academic standing.
I have taken this matter very seriously, and I want to assure you that I am very committed to learning from it. At the moment, I am looking for resources that explain academic integrity and plagiarism so that I can understand it in depth and avoid dishonesty in the future. I hope that you will trust me again and that I can live up to our academic community’s values. I thank you for your understanding and sincerely appreciate your guidance.
Sincerely,
Name.
Rhetorical Situation 2: Journal Entry
Date:
This has been one of the most challenging days I have ever lived through. As I sit down here to write this entry, my mind races on repeat with the events of what has happened to bring me to this anxiety and regret. I cannot believe that I let procrastination and peer pressure lead me to make such poor choices.
I decided that instead of spending time on my assignment, I would spend the weekend at the beach and leave my work for the last minute. I am now dealing with the consequences of my actions.
The second I got the email from my Professor, my heart sank. I panicked, knowing the weight of what had just transpired. With the level of my basketball scholarship, the thought of being reported to the Academic Honesty Committee is terrifying.
Every bit of effort I have put in to get to this point is seemingly slipping away. I can only wonder how my team will react to this news because that is what I have been trying to instill in them: To strive for excellence. Today, I failed to measure up to that standard.
I have always written in this journal to process my thoughts, but tonight, it has to be done. I must take this moment, not just the disappointment but the lessons I want to learn from it. I hope I will recall this regret and feeling, and whenever I do, it will tell me that I should never repeat these same mistakes. I hope overcoming this hurdle can help shape me into a better, more responsible, and more resilient human being.
Rhetorical Situation 3: Blog Post
Title: My Experience with Academic Plagiarism
Today, I faced one of the most humbling experiences in my academic journey. I have a new assignment for my English class, and I submitted it, unaware that it was flagged for plagiarism. I copied significant parts from a website in my desperation to avoid a zero due to procrastination.
I never expected to be reported to the Academic Honesty Committee. I write this blog post as I sit here to share my story and bring to light the profound implications of academic dishonesty.
Plagiarism is not a small matter and can have lasting effects on one’s academic and professional life. The inability to uphold academic integrity represents a complete crisis because I risk losing my basketball scholarship. I have dedicated to reading several accounts of people who faced this same struggle.
The stories of others make me feel understood since I understand that my difficulties are shared by others. It brings excellent dishonor to witness that my actions let down my schoolmates and the teaching staff. Academic activities require integrity because it stand as their backbone. Every action reflects our identity regardless of the temptation to give in under pressure.
A crucial period of my life presently awaits me as I use this moment to show others the errors students should avoid. I accept the full responsibility for all my personal experiences. My present decision is to maintain my commitments as priorities and live each action based on honesty and integrity standards.
Rhetorical Situation 4: Essay Introduction
Title: The Implications of Academic Dishonesty in Education
Student plagiarism has surged steeply because information access through the internet meets academic pressure to present outstanding academic records to peers and instructors. Notably, academic dishonesty, particularly plagiarism, significantly undermines the integrity of educational institutions and has far-reaching consequences in both academic and professional settings, necessitating comprehensive strategies to detect and address its causes.
The study conducted by Miles et al. (2022) reveals that academic dishonesty perpetration exists among 68% of students from the beginning to the end of their academic journey (Smith, 2022). The excessive number of academic dishonesty cases forces educational facilities to develop new methods for detecting plagiarism while identifying its causes in student behavior. The consequences of academic dishonesty affect educational records and negatively impact reputation and professional performance among students who cheat.
Students who opt for cheating neglect their educational process while lowering their peers’ performance levels (Waltzer & Dahl, 2023). This writing investigates the magnitude of academic dishonesty and its rising causes and lifelong influence on students and professionals. Examining these aspects, it becomes plain that accurate handling of academic dishonesty is not mere punishment but a pivotal stride toward building up an honesty and liability society in educational settings.
Mini-Reflection
I understood what was appropriate for each genre by considering the expectations of each format. For the formal letter of apology, I recognized the need for a respectful and sincere tone. In the journal entry, I used a personal and reflective style, this style allowed me to have emotional expression.
The blog post required a conversational tone in order to engage a broader audience, while for the essay introduction, I used a formal and academic approach, using clear arguments and academic evidence.
In the formal letter, my audience was my professor, and therefore, I needed to be respectful and accountable. And also convey sincerity. In the journal entry, the audience was myself, allowing me to write freely and in a casual way, focusing on my emotions.
The blog post targeted a wider audience, and therefore, I used relatable language and shared personal anecdotes so that I could connect with readers. Finally, the essay introduction was directed at an academic audience, and therefore, I had to use formal language.
All my experiences in writing in different genres have enhanced my learning. I had to change my writing style, tone, and language according to every rhetorical situation’s intended audience and purpose. For instance, in the formal letter of apology, I had to maintain respect and sincerity in my apologies, acknowledge my fault, and be committed to learning from my mistakes.
In that situation, I had to be very professional in addressing my Professor. I knew that for this genre, I had to follow the conventions such as clarity, politeness, and a structured format. I also knew that for a letter of apology, I had to express remorse and a commitment to change.
On the contrary, my journal entry was more personal and reflective. I had the freedom to write about myself and, hence, could write about my emotions with less focus on the forms of the language. It was a genre that offered me the liberty to delve deep inside myself and learn how I am feeling, processing it honestly and therapeutically. I was free to choose the language and content since the audience here was only myself.
The journal was different from the letter because a more informal tone was appropriate. That tone allowed me to explore my feelings without the constraints of formal language. Because of the casual language, the journal felt like a safe space in which I could be vulnerable.
In comparing the rhetorical situations of the blog post and the formal letter, I realized that they have significant differences. The blog post targeted a broader audience to make people aware and tell my story to other people who might have a similar story. In this case, I considered that the blog audience would appreciate a conversational tone, and therefore, I used it in order to engage them effectively.
The adoption of a more conversational tone and adding personal stories in order to interest the readers. However, the formal letter was written to my Professor, which required me to be sincere and accountable without casual language. The purpose of the blog was to connect with other people and potentially make a change, and the letter was meant to ask for forgiveness and take responsibility.
I now understand genre, audience, lexis, and rhetorical situation, which are affecting my writing choices. I know how to give my message and handle my readers through each aspect. This assignment taught me to bend to the needs of the audience and genre while maintaining uniformity in expectations. From now on, I will use these lessons for other writing assignments in my classes, ensuring I think about my audience and the reason for my writing in each piece.
In conclusion, this assignment has been a good learning experience. This has further affirmed my notion of the importance of academic integrity and how one should adjust one’s writing to various genres and audiences. I will make use of this knowledge to enhance my writing and academic performance in the future.
References
Miles, P. J., Campbell, M., & Ruxton, G. D. (2022). Why students cheat and how understanding this can help reduce the frequency of academic misconduct in higher education: A literature review. Journal of Undergraduate Neuroscience Education, 20(2), A150. https://doi.org/10.59390/LXMJ2920
Waltzer, T., & Dahl, A. (2023). Why do students cheat? Perceptions, evaluations, and motivations. Ethics & Behavior, 33(2), 130-150. https://doi.org/10.1080/10508422.2022.2026775
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Question 
MODULE 6 ASSIGNMENT PROMPT
In this writing you will demonstrate your genre, audience, and lexis awareness by making choices to shape various texts to reflect these concepts. While you will be provided with one specific scenario, you will need to respond to several individual rhetorical situations created by this scenario, composing each required text to a specific audience, following the conventions of a specific genre, and including appropriate language for that audience and that genre.
Please, label each Rhetorical Situation clearly with a subheading, and compose your response to it beneath the subheading. The last subheading will be “Mini-Reflection,” explained at the end of this prompt. Essentially, you are putting yourself into the following scenario, so you are the student in it.
Here is the scenario:
To say that today was one of the most disappointing and stressful days of your life would be an understatement of great proportions. The assignment you submitted in your English class has been flagged as plagiarized, and rightfully so.
You did copy significant chunks of the writing from a website, just to quickly submit something and not get a zero because you procrastinated and then your roommate talked you into going to the beach for the whole weekend.
You have been notified by your English professor that he was reporting you to the Academic Honesty Committee, and chances are that you will be suspended for this infraction. Your basketball scholarship depends on your grades, so now you are worried.
Module 6 Assignment
Rhetorical Situation 1
You now must write a formal letter of apology and email it to your English professor, as advised by your basketball coach. He is disappointed with you and hopes that your scholarship is not revoked because as the team captain, you have inspired many of your teammates and the outcome of this is clearly visible in the number of games that the team has been winning lately.
As you compose this letter, consider your audience by deciding what content you should include, what details, what language should be prevalent in this message, and anything else that would be appropriate to help you accomplish the purpose of the letter.
Rhetorical Situation 2
This stressful day is almost over, but you cannot sleep and reach out for your diary/journal to record your thoughts that are now keeping you awake. You have been journaling every night before going to sleep. This is a commitment you made to yourself as you got accepted to the university on your basketball scholarship.
You thought it would be a great idea to write down now something that later in your life you would be able to reminisce about. Clearly today was rough, so you are now using the pages so “make sense of it all” in tonight’s journal entry. Consider the audience, language, details for this journal entry.
Rhetorical Situation 3
You cannot sleep and do some searching on your phone about academic plagiarism, only to stumble upon a blog where people share their stories about how plagiarism impacted their personal, professional lives, for some, completely changing the trajectory of their lives.
These stories and the fact that it is now late are beginning to make you feel like a profound change is about to happen in your life, and you decide to add to this open forum for anyone who wishes to share.
You post a detailed account of what happened to you and your feelings about it. As you compose this entry, consider who the audience is and how you will be addressing that audience, with what detail, what you will include and omit from this entry to meet the conventions of a blog.
Rhetorical Situation 4
As part of your plagiarism awareness training class, you are now enrolled in after your paper was identified as plagiarized, you must write an essay, supported by sources from the library’s databases, on the topic of academic dishonesty and its prevalence as well as its consequences in the academic and the professional field.
Write a comprehensive introduction to this essay, complete with the thesis statement in which you make an explicit point about plagiarism, citing at least one peer-reviewed academic source from the databases and including all sources on the Works Cited. As you compose this introduction, keep in mind the conventions of this type of writing, such as the formatting, the point of view, the audience’s expectations, the details expected in and relevant to an introduction of an academic research writing.
Mini-Reflection on Genre, Audience, and Lexis:
Keep in mind that this Mini-Reflection section will be the longest part of the entire assignment as it provides a comprehensive look at all the writing you have completed for it.
Please, label this section clearly as “MiniReflection.”
Reflect on the experience of writing in different genres and for different audiences in each rhetorical situation by answering the following questions:
1. How did you know what was appropriate for each genre?
2. For each scenario, how did your audience impact what and how you chose to say?
3. Compare any two scenarios and discuss the significant differences in rhetorical situation (discuss purpose, audience, intended outcome, and appropriateness of writing style and lexis for each).
4. How does your understanding of genre, audience, lexis, and rhetorical situation influence the choices you make in writing?
5. What aspects of this assignment can you apply to writing assignments you are currently working on in any other classes? In other words, what did you learn by completing this assignment that you can now transfer to another writing situation?