<p>You are welcome to make your case at the hearing, but my personal experience as a former professor was that professors and teachers did explain plagiarism and its consequences. Some students, though, who eventually got caught didn’t pay attention to those explanations or forgot about them in, for instance, the students’ haste to finish work at the last minute.</p>
<p>I also think that all students who plagiarize should be reported. Otherwise, it’s not fair, and some students may be able to lie and repeatedly plead ignorance after deliberately breaking the rules.</p>