When I was in college a few years ago, I was amazed at how different it was from my high school years. I always thought that high school was hard, but college was a whole other level. I had always excelled in my English classes in high school, but I was having trouble with my college English class. When my professor told me that I had to rewrite essay that I had spent over a week on, I was really devastated. He told me that it was not because it was not good, but that I had not put some ideas into my own words.
I told him that I had not copied anything at all from the research papers I had studied, and I knew that he believed me when he said that he knew I had not. He told me that some of it just did not seem natural though, as if it was in my own words. He gave me two days to rewrite the essay so he knew without a doubt that it was 100 percent my own work and not something he thought may have been unintentionally copied.
I did understand his point of view on this, and I worked hard on making sure my edited essay showed more of my personality than anything else. I also found a tool on an online site that helped me change a few of the words to make them seem more of my own than something that may have been copied. When I reread the essay after doing this last step, I knew that I was going to get a good grade because even I could tell that the tone was different than what I had originally turned in. I used the same approach for the rest of my college career, and I graduated with highest honors!