David Oh

While reading and seeing the article and movie about plagiarism, one sensitive problem was the seriousness of the punishment of it. Even reading the same article, sometimes it seems too heavy, but sometimes it seems too heavy. Maybe the teachers and the student who were in that case would agonize about it also. For that reason, there should be a general standard rule of the plagiarism. How much student plagiarized? How many times they plagiarized? Were they educated about plagiarism in public organ? These things could be the criterions. For example, Haley plagiarized two times, 20% of her paper was not her own; moreover, she knew that she was plagiarizing, so she had most harsh punishment. In Marita’s case, it was her first time and she did not know that she was plagiarizing. The author did not mentioned about the punishment, but maybe it was not very serious. However, there could be some special situation, so the teachers should not only hold fast to the rules but also need some flexibility. For instance, William made Jamal to use his sentence but not allow mentioning his name, so he got caught for plagiarism. As a movie, he should not punish for plagiarism.