Former TA here. It's surprising how often I've heard people use "I didn't know we weren't supposed to plagiarize" as an excuse. It seems to be the first line of

Former TA here. It's surprising how often I've heard people use "I didn't know we weren't supposed to plagiarize" as an excuse. It seems to be the first line of defense for people who were caught copying and pasting large portions of an assignment from the internet. Personally, I've stopped worrying about it. If people cheat themselves out of an education, that's unfortunate, but hard to avoid. Focus on doing the best job possible for the people who are there to learn; there aren't enough hours in the day to try to impose an education on unwilling people by force, and they'll hate you for trying.