Background provided by Instructor: The directions for a class writing assignment specifies that the student must refer back to material presented in the required reading. I inform the students that the book is on reserve if they are not able to buy it. It needs to be clear that the student read the book. When I emailed a student about his paper – questioning if he read the book and pointing out that he had not referred to anything from the required reading – he responded:

I do not own the book.  It was deemed by my parents who help me pay for school that it would be fiscally irresponsible to buy the books for class.