Teaching Vocab is not the Writing Teacher's Job

What really grabbed my attention in Keith Folse's article was the plagerism point in the very beginning.  He discussed a student who was "genuinely surprised" by the teacher's question of plagerism in his paper.  Folse found that the student had written a good paper, but he had used his research and not cited quotes, therefore plagerising.  Folse brings up a very important point about the student; "He couldn't express these ideas better than the original author had."  Folse furthers his explanation of what the problem was in this students' writing, how, "In a research writing assignment, the goal is not to copy the original author's information but to use the strategies of paraphrasing, summarizing, and synthesizing.  Each of these strategies is complex and, at least in part, culturally based."  I found two things that came about from this situation, one not already brought up in the text.  This point is how we need to educate students about what it means to plagerise, not only to ESL students, but particularly them because of the cultural differences.  When we bring in ideas of other individuals' work and use them in our own work, that needs to be cited correctly so that the first author receives credit for their work.  This is often a misunderstanding in students' writing, simply not citing correctly.  The problem becomes more complex when ESL students are writing a paper, specifically a research paper that requires use of other peoples' ideas, quotes, etc. 
The second point from this situation, the author already brings about.  "...paraphrasing requires extensive vocabulary."  For someone learning a second language, a broad range of vocabulary requires practice and comes about over time.  Therefore, the problem of plagerism is bound to occur several times when assigning a writing assignment that requires outside research.  This also is a reason for educating students on what plagerism exactly entails and how to prevent it.  For ESL students particularly, instruction on what is expected must be very explicit due to the cultural differences.  Because "Vocabulary most definitely plays a critical role in successful writing," extensive help in portraying a message in writing with word usage must also play a part. 
I think that, depending on the level of English proficiency, something as large of an assignment as a research paper should not be graded so harshly nor be such a large part of a students' grade.  I think that practicing writing is much more pertinent to a student learning another language and not only their speaking fluency but also their skills and comfort level in writing.