Several of my students' recent assignments at one place I'm teaching this term involved plagiarism. That is a perennial problem in academia, occurring at every level (from K-12 to doctoral work, and sometimes beyond) and in pretty much every type and tier of institution. Some places I've taught have a very strict policy about it, requiring instructors to report any suspected instance of plagiarism to some type of academic integrity board or office. Others give instructors a bit more of their discretion. But all of them make it very clear to students in their codes of conduct that plagiarism is a violation of academic integrity.
Of course, students - again, my experience is that students at elite institutions are no better than those in lower-tier institutions - typically don't read those student codes, unless they're required to. And they often forget them or ignore them, even if they did read them. They are still held responsible for what is contained in those codes - ignorance doesn't provide an adequate or reasonable excuse - but often don't know two key things. They are frequently hazy about what precisely constitutes plagiarism. And they are woefully ignorant about the potential seriousness of plagiarism as an offense.
I'm not a big disciplinarian myself, and although I do call plagiarism out when I see it, my sanctions for the offenders tend towards the less punitive end. When I'm teaching at a place where I don't have to report it up the chain, unless its egregious, I handle it less formally. The student gets a zero on their assignment - which gets their attention - and in the feedback, I inform them that they've been caught plagiarizing, and that they need to reread the syllabus. There's no revise and resubmit for plagiarized assignments. I usually give them the website that at least some of their plagiarized material comes from - it's not too difficult to find, in most cases.
When I was a younger professor, I used to look at plagiarism in a strongly moralistic terms - as theft, fraud, lying, or the like - a violation of moral and institutional norms. Now not so much. I do think it's wrong, and I let the students know that. But it's also kind of a dumb move on their part, or more technically speaking, an example and instance of foolishness (the opposite of prudence), a failure of their own unfinished, in-development practical rationality.
So these days I treat cases of plagiarism in two ways. There's always that inward groan of disappointment, at a student whose corner-cutting really is a shortsighted move. But then I treat it as an opportunity for teaching and learning. Sometimes the student or students aren't up for that - theres a whole array of defensive reactions I could write another piece about! - but when approached in the right ways, many students are able to have decent conversations about the matter, and then get themselves back on the track they slipped out of.
So today, we spent about 25 minutes of our class session discussing plagiarism, going through the topic point by point. I did a good bit of providing information and drawing connections between matters, but they also got a chance to give their own views and perspectives, and to ask some smart, challenging questions. I think for next semester, I need to build some of this in to our early class sessions. Perhaps I should also develop some short video resources that will be useful not only for my own students but other viewers as well.
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