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<p>Judging by the OP, he already did step 1. From the information he has from the son, it is apparent that the son used an unreliable and frivolous source that was such that most Profs IME…and even some fellow classmates would be wondering “What was he thinking?!!”.</p>
<p>That was certainly my reaction…especially considering the son seems to be a college senior and presumably, has already taken freshman writing where the basics of how to determine the reliability/usefulness of sources for a given topic would have been covered. Moreover, if he majored in history or a related field, he would have had additional instruction in how to gauge the relevance/reliability of sources to be used in lower-division courses along with the course in question. </p>
<p>And that’s assuming he learned nothing about what is considered an appropriate source for academic papers in high school. I don’t know…but if I tried to use a non-scholarly source like a gaming website as a source for any papers i had to write at my urban public magnet high school, I’d be given an F and a good tongue lashing by the teacher…even in 9th grade. </p>
<p>In short, the Prof’s treatment of the OP’s son is not only fair, but IME…standard practice in most college classes. Especially considering the fact that as a college senior who has presumably fulfilled the basic freshman writing requirement, most college faculty IME would expect him to know better.</p>