A comment to the Daily Tar Heel on plagiarism

The following is a comment made to the Daily Tar Heel made by one Tarh33l, related to a proposed teaching module about plagiarism at UNC :

I think most cases of plagiarism are obvious: you either copied someone else’s work and tried to pass it off as your own, or you didn’t. For specific assignments, professors would need to specify to what degree of collaboration is acceptable. These expectations vary from assignment to assignment and class to class. Also, it should also be up to the student to be accountable. We should be intelligent enough to use common sense and sound judgment when entering a POTENTIALLY dicey situation. I don’t think the Honor Court just slaps people with plagiarism violations for fun. If you haven’t figured out what plagiarism GENERALLY is by now, then I am not sure you are a strong enough student or have a sufficient moral system to be here.

The commenter Tarh33l is right, and various defenses about "not knowing" about the impropriety of plagiarism, as in the Poshard matter, have always been a bit silly.