<p>“The student is genuine and has inadvertantly, under time pressure paraphrased 4 lines in a written paper.”</p>
<p>That’s rich. “The student procrastinated for too long, then copied part of his paper from a book, making minor edits to hide the fact that he was plagiarizing, but he got caught anyway” is more like it. Don’t compound your cheating by lying. No sympathy here. If you don’t like what you see as inconsistencies in how cheating is handled at your school, then DON’T CHEAT. Or, in your own words, “don’t inadvertantly copy four lines from a textbook into your paper under time pressure.”</p>