Plagiarizing and "ratemyprofessor"

And so the holiday season is well underway.  We have passed Christmas and are but a mere day away from New Year's Eve.  Yet, here I am still grading.  Life could be worse, after all, I am accompanied by a dog sleeping in her bed, a roaring fire and a nicely spiked eggnog.  It is the occasion for the grading that has me miffed, a converging of events that has resulted in leniency and an extended work schedule.  The occasion for such holiday cheer is plagiarizing.  Normally I would have sent the student away with a semester/quarter grade of an "F" and would be done with it.  Stealing, in any form, makes me grumpy.  So, how did I get suckered into a "second chance"?  I read my "ratemyprofessor" review and got spooked.  In 3 posts I have acquired it was mentioned that I am "strict", but in less flattering elaborations than I will give vent here.  Needless to say, in a fit of insecurity about my policies in general, and on plagiarizing in particular, I caved.  The student in question also happened to do quite well in all the other assignments and seems to be a damn nice human, so that didn't hurt.  The combination of the student being quite nice and overall attentive on other assignments, as well as in class, the "ratemyprofessor" commentary and my fear of being unnecessarily punitive has resulted in the holiday grading vortex.

Why, however, do students plagiarize?  I catch them every year.  They do not seem to take the beginning of the year warning about plagiarizing seriously or they don't believe their papers will be read, or they think that somehow what they steal is undetectable.  Just as it is easy to find essays online from which to pilfer, it is just as easy to find the offending passages or sentences and search them in the ubiquitous "Google" search engine.  In fear of sounding overly parental I don't ask the obvious, but I truly am left to wonder if there is no sense of shame?  Fear?  I mean, an "F" for the term is no small result, especially if the rest of the assignments were completed and done with some rigor.  At the base of it I think there seems to be a lack of connection between the word "plagiarize" and "theft", or a lack of connection between what is understood to be "my work" and "somebody else's work".  Beyond this wonderment at word theft, I am left to mince about regarding my policy on plagiarizing.  I don't want to be draconian in my measures, after all we all make grave judgments of error at some point in our lives, and yet I do not want this to be taken lightly.

The rain beats down on the roof, the fire roars and my dog snuggles down oblivious to my deliberations.  The planet turns, and I still have a job.  In the end I realize I gave this student a break based on the contingencies...I waffle on the correctness of my decision, but I feel fairly certain that ethically I have handled it as well as can be expected.  Once this paper is finished I will commence re-visiting the plagiarizing policy on my syllabus and revise it to fit the exact expectations I go over in class.  Ambiguity be gone and "ratemyprofessor" be damned!