[Englecturers] First plagiarist of the term--need quick advice

[jonesbk at ucr.edu]

Hi, all. I'm teaching tomorrow, and I just caught a plagiarist
tonight. I need some quick input if anyone cares to write
back. I expect that I'll grab a few people in the halls on
Tuesday and ask for advice, but I'm covering my bases here.

I have solid evidence of the plagiarism and have printed out
two Internet sources that the student used. She altered some
of the phrasing, but this is a clear case of plagiarism. As
per departmental policy, I will be asking her to meet with me
and discuss the matter. If she admits to cheating, I will be
sending along a copy to Rise Axelrod and Student Judicial
Affairs. At this point, I don't know whether the student has
cheated before.

What is the problem? Well, first of all, this is not a formal
paper. The assignment was to write up a scratch outline of an
essay from A World of Ideas and do a couple of other little
exercises. Instead of a scratch outline, the student wrote up
a mini-paper summarizing and explaining the reading selection
and giving some historical background. The entire assignment
is worth 15 points and is semi-optional; the entire course is
worth 1000 points. 

It's not that I have any qualms about failing a student for
the course--I've done that before--but does that penalty seem
out of proportion to the crime? My impulse is to treat this
case just like any other case and give her an F for the
course, but I've never caught anyone cheating on a
fifteen-point homework before. (Not to mention that it's only
Week 2, though why that should bother me, I'll never know.)

On the other hand, giving the student a zero on this
particular assignment is ridiculously lenient even combined
with sending her to Student Judicial Affairs. I don't consider
this a realistic option. I take a dim view of cheating, as you
might imagine.

Any advice or observations would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Benedict Jones

P.S. When I say that the assignment is semi-optional, I mean
that there are several homeworks from A World of Ideas. Each
homework is worth 15 points, and students can do as many as
they want, and whichever ones they want, until they reach 60
points, at which point they top out and stop accruing points
in this category.