<p>The “inadvertent” paraphrasing of others work without citation is unfortunately a big deal, as it should be. I think at the HS level the proper corrective action should address the grade assigned with some type of “punitive” additional work so that the point is made. I hate to call additional educational work punitive, but the better word fails me right now.</p>
<p>I personally was flabbergasted when an assistant of mine, a graduate of a top college, handed me a draft of a paper that we were working on for publication which contained writing essentially lifted from another source without citation. It was all I could do to keep my volatile temper from going nuclear! How did I know that the words were lifted? When I asked what the writing meant (it was not clear at all), my assistant HAD NO IDEA! Obviously, if if had been from assistant’s own head, assistant would have known what it meant. The assistant did confess, but what lousy work. I couldn’t believe that this was the level of education that was present upon graduation. What a bad impression this left.</p>
<p>As to wikipedia or any encyclopedia, this is not generally a good source for scholarly work. (It’s better to learn this early on.)</p>