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I am a college professor, and the problem cuts across all age groups. Before deciding on the right action to take, a few things need to be considered. First, did you explain to the class what plagiarism is and what the punishment for it will be? Some students genuinely do not know how to do research, so they figure they can cut and paste; they need to know the difference between using somebody else's words and being able to explain the subject matter in their own words (using proper citations and reliable sources).

Second, did you explain that while Wikipedia is a good place to start, it is NOT the only place to get research, and that in fact, it's essential to use a number of sources, including books and magazines? And along that line, I assume you explained to the class how to integrate quotes into the research paper. I find college freshmen who still think inserting large (two paragraphs or more) excerpts from somebody else's work into their paper is proof they did research. But it's not, since it doesn't show me that the student understood the concepts in those long paragraphs.

If this is a good student and he just made a terrible mistake, give him the grade that would send a strong message that this is not an acceptable way to do research, but I might not want to just fail him for the course. In fact, I might even be inclined to make him re-do the paper, just to show me he can do it the right way. (I would of course give him a lower grade, but I think it's important that a good student have the opportunity to explain himself and then learn from his mistake.) If it's a poorly prepared or unmotivated student who normally does the bare minimum, I'd be more inclined to just give him a failing grade. But here too, some good can come of it if the student is willing to recognize his problem and try to do better in the future, or even get some tutoring to help him improve his writing and research skills.

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