<p>I admit to editing the college essay, but I found this fact troubling. </p>
<p>Are</a> students, parents too connected? - Chicago Tribune</p>
<p>My SIL called me three years ago just before she was leaving the country for vacation to ask if I’d edit her son’s college papers while she was gone. I declined the offer. It disturbed me that a student in college was relying on parents for editing. When does that vicious cycle end?</p>
<p>I was surprised when one of my friends – whose husband is a college professor – told me her husband was helping edit a paper written by their college student daughter, who attended college a few hours away.</p>
<p>I suspect that lots of parental help is the explanation of how the D – who had mediocre scores, got very high grades in a demanding high school program.</p>
<p>The most “help” I gave S was to suggest some places for him to read as he selected one to analyze for his script analysis class, for which he was supposed to write an 80-100 page analysis of one play. He didn’t pick anything I suggested. He likes to do things his way even when those things are hard.</p>
<p>That was a very interesting article. I am a student that texts back and forth with my mom throughout the day, but I can’t think of a single problem she helped me with last year. She certainly hasn’t looked at any of my schoolwork since around elementary school. She’s just one of my best friends, so we like to share the happenings of our day. Unless I have something better to be doing, whichcase I do it. Last year I had several crises (to the tune of being stranded at the ER at 4am with no way home) and I’m not sure my mom even heard about them until later. For me independence is no big deal, I was largely independent when I lived at home. So not everybody who makes lots of calls home has problems with independence.</p>
<p>There’s a huge space between proofreading and “doing all the work”.</p>
<p>Our kids do send their papers to us or their siblings for proofreading and suggestions. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that - it is part of the learning process. In fact, as a professional, I often ask a colleague to do the same for me when I have a report to write or a paper to be submitted for publication.</p>
<p>I think that a college student shouldn’t be relying on parents and siblings for help with proofreading. It’s time for the student to be more independent. If proofreading really is needed, that’s what friends and the college writing counseling service are for.</p>
<p>Would you expect that your kid will be asking you to proofread their reports once they are in the work world? Certainly, it can be a good idea to get this kind of help from colleagues, but not from one’s parents.</p>
<p>I have a friend who’s D is a college senior and my friend has helped her D (OOS college) with her papers. If kids cannot start to rely on themselves in college when will they ever cut the cord?</p>
<p>It’s such a sad tale of co-dependency and one that I can hardly believe is true. These type of moms/dads can’t let go and the kids are passively allowing the parents to do what should be their job. Yuck.</p>
<p>“Parents reminding their student about assignments, making course schedule decisions, monitoring posts on Facebook or telling the child how to handle basic conundrums of life, from questions about washing machine settings to trouble with professors.”</p>
<p>“Uh, dear, if you leave THAT picture on your wall, it MIGHT hurt your employment prospects”</p>
<p>I can’t see anything wrong with that :)</p>
<p>This is multidirectional in my family – my mother and I are grammar/spelling/punctuation fiends, and we look at all kinds of things for our family members. My older sisters had me proofread their papers when they were in high school and I was in middle school. My father sends me drafts of the speeches and articles he writes. I sent drafts of legal writing to my mother, because a good brief or opinion should be clear and readable to a non-lawyer. When I was in legal practice, my father (a lawyer) and I called one another with legal questions all the time. I was fresh from a great education, and he had forty years of real-world experience, and between us we could figure anything out. </p>
<p>So in my family, the question could just as easily be, when does my dad cut the cord to me? :)</p>
<p>I will admit I consider having parents correct papers a form of cheating and it should be dealt with like any other cheating. My kids complained about this practice through school-- elementary, middle and high school. I have no problem with it if it’s ungraded-- but graded assignments should represent the work of the person whose name is on it. Other than that, most colleges have writing centers.</p>
<p>My kids have asked me to proofread papers, but never anything on which they received a grade. Examples include application essays, resumes, etc., and I have occasionally reformatted their resumes, but left the content alone.</p>
<p>Parents who edit their kids’ college papers may not be doing them any favors. As a professor, I’ve heard from several students that their essays are flawless because their parents told them so. Um, no. Often, ignorant well-meaning relatives will actually introduce errors into a student document. </p>
<p>If a student needs help with editing and proofreading, the place to go is the campus writing center, not Mom and Dad.</p>
<p>I am always surprised at the intensity of responses to this issue.
Kids should be encouraged to have people read and respond to their writing. It is part of the writing process. Yes, there are other people on campus that can do this. But if a parent does this, it is a far cry from “cheating” or the parent actually writing the paper.
I guess we can never know in any individual case how much “help” the child is receiving.</p>
<p>I didn’t ask my parents to help me in my field of study since I was ahead of them by the time when I got to college. I can help my HS kid in some areas only since my kid is already better than I am in most. These kids are fortunate to have parents who are still able to help in the advanced age with declining brain power better than the kids who’s getting cutting age education.</p>
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<p>I meant to say, “I admit to editing the college admission essay”, but not other essays. (Now you see another reason I shouldn’t help anyone with an essay!)
Don’t most schools have their own service that will provide writing help, if needed? At some point these kids have got to learn how to write by themselves. I used to blame it on texting, but maybe that’s not the only problem.</p>
<p>I don’t always consider a parent’s helping a student with a paper to be cheating. However, I think that by the time a student is in college, it’s time for students to be independent enough to not use parents for editing and similar help with assignments. Peers, college writing centers, and professors are available for students who need such assistance.</p>
<p>Every college that my daughter and I looked at had writing clinics. By the time a person is in college they should be able to take advantage of these services, not a parent. Besides, I have read student’s work that has been edited by a parent and not all parents are good at editing.</p>
<p>I’ve heard through the grapevine that one of my ex journalism students (who barely passed my classes because his copy editing was so dreadful) lost his professional reporting job after his wife (one of the top students I ever had) divorced him.</p>
<p>There were credible rumors that his wife had been copy editing his news articles before he turned them in…</p>
<p>Whoa, I’ve only read one essay S1 has written in college, and that was after he got the comments back from the prof and was so excited about his grade he wanted to share. I’d love to read more of his stuff, just to see the academic growth.</p>
<p>But proofread? Comment? Nope.</p>