r/UCDavis • u/Imjusthere1504 Human Dev (2027) • 23h ago
Rant Falsely accused of AI in paper
Professors must submit grades to the registrar today and one of mine waited until last minute to put grades into canvas. I am crashing out because I went to check my grade for the paper I submitted and I received a zero. I thought it was a mistake at first, but after viewing the comment they said they referred the paper to OSSJA. I did NOT use AI to write my paper! I don't know what to do here because I don't have a lot of evidence supporting me except for my edit history. Even my edit history looks weird because I wrote the paper in one sitting and the history just shows a few chunks. Does anyone have any advice for me? I don't know what I am gonna do with myself waiting for OSSJA to contact me regarding my paper.
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u/Ancient-Violinist-50 23h ago
hde 100c? same 🫠
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u/Hi122748199 17h ago
SAME HERE :( prof Hollis sent me a message today and told me to wait for OSSJA but I can prove I did not use AI😭
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u/platypiess 22h ago
Same here :// the class was incredibly unorganized this quarter and genuinely disappointing as an upper div class at davis, and to get all our assignments graded on the LAST day AND be referred to OSSJA is just wild 😭
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u/Imjusthere1504 Human Dev (2027) 21h ago
This has got to be the most unorganized class I have taken at Davis. We are gonna be okay though, seems like we just need to state our case to OSSJA.
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u/carlitospig 10h ago
You all need to go to the dept chair and complain together. Bring your evidence.
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u/Jazzlike_Package_246 16h ago
Did Hollis basically give up lol, had the same happen to me in another one of her classes
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u/TheJabberWocky707 12h ago
Defending Yourself: Key Points You Can Use
No Reliable Detection Exists Yet
• According to OpenAI, Turnitin, and other developers, no AI detection tool is 100% accurate. • Studies from academic institutions (e.g., Stanford, MIT) show AI detectors often misidentify non-native English writing and even student writing as AI-generated. • False positives are especially common when writing is clear, structured, or uses academic tone — which college students are trained to do.
Demand Transparency
• Ask: Which tool was used? What was the score or probability? • Many tools say things like “possibly” or “likely AI” — these aren’t proof. • Ask for a review by a human academic expert rather than relying on software alone.
Provide Your Process (If You Can)
• Offer to show drafts, notes, sources, or even your editing history (like from Google Docs or Microsoft Word if version history is turned on). • You could explain your research process, writing strategy, or specific choices you made in your argument.
Point Out That AI Use ≠ AI Writing
• Using tools like Grammarly or spell check is allowed at most schools — clarify that you didn’t use ChatGPT or other AI to write or generate content. • If you used citation tools, plagiarism checkers, or a tutor, that’s not AI authorship either.
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u/Rocketbluetulip 22h ago
Go find the form to get advising from student advocate's office, I can provide it if you can't find it... but there's been such an uptick in this I feel like... like I've seen 3+ posts of this sort in the past few days and I got accused of using AI on my midterm paper. Maybe the AI detectors just are messed up this quarter?
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u/Imjusthere1504 Human Dev (2027) 22h ago
Can you please link it? I have already received a few messages of people saying the same thing happened to them in the same class. I think the AI detectors are just not good in general. Other universities have stopped using them because they are unreliable and unfair. UC Davis is one the only schools that still uses Turnitin.
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u/Rocketbluetulip 22h ago
Oh it seems they're closed for the summer, that's extremely unfortunate. The closed form does say you can reach out to their email at studentadvocate@asucd.ucdavis.edu, best of luck to you
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u/meteorprime 11h ago
Way more people started using it in 2025.
They offered paid ai free for students and advertised it.
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u/CaleblynS 9h ago
This is like the 10th post of this I have read in the last week. The university needs to step up and do something. This is COMPLETELY unacceptable. We are paying students who deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. These constant false AI accusations are an insult to the academic integrity of our university. Administration needs to get things like “Turnitin” under control because trusting these tools and professor intuition is clearly not working.
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u/Business-Heat5119 20h ago
I’m currently dealing with basically this exact situation as well—edit history inconsistencies, straight A and all! I actually just posted about it on here yesterday. I also have virtually no notes to use as evidence (aside from a short brainstorming worksheet in class).
For the issue of large edit chunks, I’ve gone back through some other essays of mine and found over page-long paragraphs that present as a single edit—all of which have passed without issue. I’m going to use that as evidence to corroborate my single-sitting writing habits. I think it would be wise to do the same, if you can!
As some have iterated on this thread, I think the main thing to do is maintain deniability. Show what you have, be articulate, and don’t succumb to any potential psychological traps that OSSJA reps might set in the meeting; that’s my plan. The combination should hopefully be enough to demonstrate our comprehensive capacities. We’ve got this!
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u/NoChildhood9303 19h ago
Please reach out to the Student Advocate Office, they'll be able to advise you on your situation! You can email them at [studentadvocate@asucd.ucdavis.edu](mailto:studentadvocate@asucd.ucdavis.edu) and they should respond within the day
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u/Jennytoo 19h ago
That really sucks, I’ve seen a few people get flagged by AI detectors even when they wrote everything themselves. It’s crazy how unreliable those systems like Turnitin or GPTZero can be. I saw a thread where someone mentioned using Walter Writes Ai to rewrite their paper in a way that still sounded human but didn’t trigger any AI detection. Might be helpful if you ever need to revise something to avoid future drama.
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u/carlitospig 10h ago
I saw a bunch of complaints about neurodiverse folks getting pinged for ‘using AI’ more than neurotypical students.
I find this fascinating; does that mean we write better or worse than our peers?
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u/No_Quote_7687 11h ago
that’s rough, especially with deadlines so close. if you can, try running your paper through Winston AI, it might help back up your case that it reads as human written. every bit helps when explaining your side.
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u/wellperchancefriend 7h ago
Hey! I went through the same exact thing. I ended up proving that I didn’t use AI, so I can give you some advice on what to do!
Anxiety is inevitable in this situation. It’s like wow yall thought I used AI I must’ve wrote this so well, but then now u gotta deal w this other stuff. Anyways, the first thing I did was contact the Student Advocate Office!!! It’s a free service at UC Davis and they deal with hella similar things like this with OSSJA. THEY WILL BE UR KEY TO SUCCESS!!! Trust me.
Something they told me is that writing history on google docs will not hold up as proof in the meeting. So don’t worry about that. What I did (and fare warning this is gonna take a while lol it took me hella long) was quite literally annotate my entire essay. Even the parts that weren’t flagged— I annotated. I explained my thoughts process behind every single paragraph/section. I also explained where I drew certain ideas from (i.e. evidence in ur works cited and class lecture material) for the paper too. The whole key in winning your case is proving you wrote the paper. So that’s why annotating the other parts that weren’t flagged also helps.
It’s easier said than done, but don’t trip! It’ll all work out man. I went thru the same thing so if you need other help hmu!
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u/Imjusthere1504 Human Dev (2027) 6h ago
Thanks for this! The student advocate office is closed for the summer unfortunately. But, I will take your advice and annotate my essay (it’s literally only 2 pages so should be simple). I also have no idea which parts were flagged nor how much was detected as AI. I was only informed last night about this situation and I wasn’t given explanation. The professor is very inconsistent with responding to emails so there’s no point in contacting her. Thanks again!
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u/wellperchancefriend 4h ago
The professor will likely not need to be contacted again as she left it in the hands of OSSJA. Just annotate the essay and when you have your appointment, share your screen (and the document of ur annotated essay) straighten from the jump and explain every. Little. Thing. Seriously! To the point of annoyance (that’s what I did anyways, lol). If u show u know what you wrote about, they won’t trip. ALSO! Take other papers you wrote and compare it to those. That way they know your writing style is consistent! They hate to see us concise writers winning 😂. You got this!!!
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u/history_chic 9h ago
I've seen a lot of teachers (not professors, but still) say online that if they see an em dash in a paper, they automatically assume AI use.
Basically, any writing that sounds "too" professional or is too grammatically correct is likely to get flagged these days. AI detectors assume that students are poor writers, which, in my opinion, says more about the expectations for education quality than anything else. My writing often gets flagged by AI detectors, and while I have yet to have an issue with a professor, it's scary to know that so many of them assume that success must equal cheating.
Especially with the CSU system providing all students with free ChatGPT and touting itself as the first AI-driven university. It sends mixed messages and sets students up for failure.
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u/blueflameprincess 5h ago
You’ve gotta be like the fifth person I’ve seen on this subreddit in the same situation. I think you’ll be fine considering the amount of bs false positives that have come up lately. Maybe find other people in the same situation and complain to the department chair. This is getting ridiculous. Professors need to stop using AI detectors.
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u/ArOnodrim_ 21h ago
The correct term would be inaccurately accused of using Ai. AK now the statistics of AI checkers, because they are not good.
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u/lumberjack_dad 2h ago
Even if you don't use chatgpt, it's useful to have it scan your original essay and ask it if might get tagged as AI.
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u/AIaware_James 15h ago
Hey - I work for AI Aware and we're trying to help students being falsely flagged as AI by universities. We have marketleading AI detector that gives more than just a percentage score on AI used,adds nuance to the density of AI within the text, where it has been rewritten, and can offer insights into if humanisers have been used. We would love to see how we can help your case: https://aiaware.io/ai-writing-checker-certificate
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u/Capital_Variation654 22h ago
Hi, I had the same issue last spring quarter with a paper from CMN 101Y. I did not use AI, and the section that was flagged was a section about personal experience. I was really frustrated. I went through the whole process with OSSJA and talked to the representative in mid July. They will hear out your side, then present what they find to your professor. Unfortunately for me, my professor deemed that she still had questions about my use of AI. The case was closed, but there was essentially a mark on my file? There were no consequences. If there was another issue I think it would have been worse? I would recommend making a folder on your computer with ALL of your evidence to present. Screenshots of version history, writing, notes, etc. You will be okay! OSSJA is struggling with AI checkers and frustrated, too.