Plagiarism Blog Assignment Nov 19

I think the UVa's honor code is not too harsh, plagiarism should not be acceptable and expulsion is a proper punishment. In this case though, I believe that the expulsion was unjust. The girl was expelled for eight words. Eight measley words. If it had been an important sentence, paragraph, or even a page of someone else's work, then expulsion seems perfectly appropriate. But her sentence is simply written and uses common wording, so it would not be unlikely that she could have written the same exact sentence never having seen the other person's work. In this case, she did use the other writer's wording, but being only eight words, common ones at that, expulsion seems way too harsh. This example reminds me of the scene in the Disney movie Aladdin when Princess Jasmin takes an apple and the man almost cuts off her hand. Yes stealing is wrong but a hand for an apple? A little extreme if you ask me. These students should have been dealt with fairly, like on campus students would have been. They should have been given the chance to come before the student council and have a trial. This expulsion is unjust.