1 in 5 parents edit their kid's college papers

Parents Forum
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<p>If you don’t use your advantages you are doing deliberate harm to your kids.</p>

<p>If the kid is taking French at college, and you have the money, pay for an extra tutor, why not? Send them for a few months immersion in summer. Get all the study materials you can for them to prepare in advance for courses. Read the Shakespeare plays for the lit course together in advance, watch all the movie versions. Get uncle to spend a few hours reviewing calculus.</p>

<p>All this “cheating” will result in a better educated student.</p>

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<p>^ Fine, but what we’re talking about is more on the order of having your kid send his French papers home to the French tutor to be corrected.</p>

<p>There is a time when the aim of the activity is to learn (homework), and a time when the aim of the activity is to demonstrate if and to what degree learning has occurred (exam). The problem arises when it’s hard to determine which category the activity falls into. An essay or paper is probably a little of both. The student is supposed to show his ability to apply knowledge learned in class to new or expanded material.</p>

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<p>Sure but if you start to worry about this sort of thing then your life must really be lacking in problems:</p>

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<p>It’s not a question of worry, so don’t muddy the waters by implying that those who live thoughtfully with an aim toward being ethical are neurotic or have no life. Not taking time to think about the moral implications of what you do is hardly preferable.</p>

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<p>^^ Oh, come on, sorghum. Curmudgeon was posing a philosophical question.</p>

<p>Many of you point out the enhanced learning that comes from parent and child discussing a piece of writing. I agree entirely, and I encourage my students to do that. But I’d like to suggest that this learning can happen equally well if parental input comes after the student submits her own work for the grade.</p>

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<p>You have exercised all the advantages on behalf of kids as they were raised in privilege and got into college. It’s too late, once they get there, to start have moral dilemmas abut who can afford better learning tools. </p>

<p>If you want philosophy, OK, isn’t it more fair if all children are taken from the parents at birth and raised cooperatively by the state? Then we can better see who really deserves those A’s when they get to college.</p>

<p>Most of this thread is about arcane legalistic arguments (help in a peer writing center is OK, help from a parent is not OK, etc.); American pop psychology (codependent no more); and less than compelling moral comparisons (is it fair that I can stay with aunt on Paris and you can’t).</p>

<p>Don’t cheat, use your advantages, don’t worry if your parents point out a spelling mistake or suggest a different font, and trust the closed book exam system to keep students audited.</p>

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<p>"You may not realize this (collectively), but despite the disagreement on the thread, a real service has been done for people like me who have no frame of reference to know that it actually is ok to go to the professor for guidance. I can’t tell D2 to do so because I didn’t go to college and D1’s situation doesn’t allow for that. "</p>

<p>Thanks for saying that. It’s nice to hear that information was useful.</p>

<p>A general problem that affects professors is that students rarely use professors’ office hours (the regular time that professors set aside to meet with students) until it’s too late. Typically, students won’t come in until after they are failing. </p>

<p>The top students, however, tend to make use of office hours by doing things like going over in advance their ideas for papers that the papers the professor has assigned, showing professors drafts of their papers, and talking about concepts that the student has found difficult.</p>

<p>Someone else asked about foreign language resources, and whether students with native speaking parents and access to thinks like Rosetta Stone are at an advantage. From what I’ve seen, most colleges have free language labs with CDs with exercises that one can use in cubicals with earphones. They also may have movies in a variety of foreign languages, and satellite TV that one can watch shows from abroad.</p>

<p>When I was taking French at the local public university, I made extensive use of those resources. Most of the time, except for when professors would bring their classes in to use the lab, the lab was empty or virtually empty except for me. </p>

<p>The school also had some kind of weekly dinner at which students wishing to take French were welcome to participate. </p>

<p>Students wanting more practice speaking the language could do that during their professor’s office hours.</p>

<p>Oh – one last thing that may be helpful to know is that the students who do best in courses often are meeting regularly with other students to study the material. Group study with motivated peers often is a more effective way of learning material than is studying by oneself. From what I’ve read, students of Asian descent are more likely than are others to use this method.</p>

<p>My experience with hearing about younger S’s college coursework is that he’d get far better feedback and assistance from his peers, professors and the writing center than from me despite my having a doctorate. S knows far more about his major than I do, and even when he was taking courses in my doctoral field, the field had changed a great deal since I was in school, so he would have gotten better help with his assignments from people on campus than from me.</p>

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<p>Gee, sorghum. I didn’t mean to offend. And thanks for your concern.
But I do find the question of “where is the academic dishonesty line?” quite interesting. Have the whole of my D’s academic career (and the whole of my career on CC). Hence my attempt at a thoughtful discussion. I think it’s a moving target and as I posted a long time ago…some kid is going to cross it in Dr. Jones class at JHU and never know it. I find that a deplorable shirking of responsibility on the part of the </p>

<p>1) institution
2) instructor
and<br>
3) student</p>

<p>We can’t reach a consensus here on parental editing. How on earth are all students going to know every class where the line is? Yes. I know. Look to the resources (handbook, Honor Code, syllabus, and if still in doubt, talk to the prof). But does every student know to do this? Or is there a cautionary lesson here? I think there is. Again- hence my attempt at this discussion. But if I’m wasting your time, let me apologize.</p>

<p>I hope others are getting something out of it and if not, well…hush my mouth. I’ve proven I’m our village’s idiot one mo’ time. ;)</p>

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<p>Hmm…so, parents are just as dramatic as college students are just as dramatic as high school students…so…the drama just never ends? </p>

<p>Seriously, chill pills, a round for everyone. Students should utilize their resources as much as possible, but not abuse it, period. Someone else editing your paper and using their edits is plagiarism, as is someone else writing parts of your paper or all of your paper. Just don’t plagiarize, and you’re not breaking rules. Simple.</p>

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<p>I would disagree. It’s anything but simple. This thread shows that. But good luck in Dr. Jones’ class. ;)</p>

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<p>I mentioned before that my ex-husband, still a practicing lawyer & a sole practitioner, still seeks my opinion on his legal writing before submitting things. It’s important to him – and his clients – that his writing be clear and compelling enough to convince a judge – so it makes sense to vet it with someone else first. Although much in law is confidential, legal pleadings in general are public records, so there’s not a confidentiality issue when it comes to text intended to be submitted to a court. </p>

<p>My son has to write press releases for his job. I usually see his work after its been released and disseminated – often it comes to me by Google alert rather than directly from him – but sometimes he has asked for my input on something he is writing. My guess is that these days he is more likely to go to his wife, first … she’s a pretty good writer as well. I think timing plays a part – if he’s in the office at 10 am working on a task, he’ll ask the opinion of co-workers – but if he’s taken work home, he’s more likely to ask the opinion of a family member. (And his employer has been absolutely fantastic about letting him combine work from home via office, a huge help with the new baby on the scene – so he does work from home a lot). Thats in a p.r. capacity, so it also makes sense to solicit the opinion of people outside the inner circle – and a press release by definition is not supposed to be confidential. That is - at most I might be getting an advance look at something before a “send” or “submit” button is clicked and it theoretically is disseminated to 70,000 media outlets. </p>

<p>One reason my kids may come to me is simply that I’m a night owl. If my son is up at midnight trying to finalize something that he wants to go out the next day – and he sees that I’m awake and online – then it makes sense for him to ask my opinion.</p>

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Which was a time that my kids at east coast college were reasonably assured that their west coast night owl mom was up and on the computer. </p>

<p>I think 90% or more of communications I received from my kids in college involving proofreading or feedback came to me by way of online chat utilities.</p>

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Drama? :confused: Who is harshin’ your mellow, bro? ;)</p>

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<p>Xavier clearly emphasizes the handbook and their academic policies in every class. The line is clear. And I wasn’t really referring to you curmudgeon, so much as I was referring to GFG, our little drama stirrer here.</p>

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The writing process was very, very different before the advent of word processing. It took a lot more in the way of planning and outlining, most people would a first draft out by hand and then type it up – and many college students did not know how to type and hired other students to do the typing for them, with the expectations that the typist would catch and correct spelling errors. (I earned money that way in college – there was a per-page rate but I don’t remember any more what it was – but I knew back then how many words per minute I could type, a piece of trivia that no longer seems relevant). </p>

<p>There are positives and negatives that come with the changes. The downside is the lost art of being concise – there once was a very strong motivation that favored brevity, especially in the days when a single error on a page meant that the whole page needed to retyped. But I think that the quality of writing these days is potentially far more polished – as well as the quality of information presented in a research paper. </p>

<p>I was a one-draft wonder back in college. I could easily dash off a 20-page paper in a day or so; I typed reasonably well and had an innate sense of spelling – so I’d procrastinate, and then I’d type up a a paper the night before it was due and turn it in. My first draft was also my final draft.</p>

<p>I write well enough to get away with that, and that skill came in very handy during the early days of my law practice, when I could just as easily write up a trial motion or points and authorities, and work was often done under tight deadlines. But life sure got a lot easier the day that first word processor came into my office – it was nice not having to type up the same things over and over from one case and client to the next, or when taking the same issue up from the trial to appellate court. </p>

<p>My kids grew up in a house with a word processor, and they used that for their homework from early childhood. I remember that in first grade my daughter had a teacher who wanted them to write each spelling word 5 times over… my d’s earliest experience with the cut-and-paste utility. </p>

<p>I actually think that many kids get more practice these days with written expression, outside of school, with the various blogs and internet boards they used. So I think that overall, the internet and word processing has led to an improvement in quality of writing, even though it makes it slightly easier to cheat. (But also a lot easier to get caught – it would have been a lot harder for a skeptical teacher who suspected plagiarism to detect the original source back in my day).</p>

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<p>I’m not offended … I like all the opinions …</p>

<p>NSM … no intention to offend at all … you are indeed the Empress of CC … but judging by your 18,000 lengthy posts on CC maybe your DS is a little worried that if he asks your advice, you’ll have a lot more to say than he wanted … half a dozen well constructed memos within an hour perhaps …</p>

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<p>Calmmom, I am the same way, I typically do one draft and it’s usually good enough to get me decent grades in most classes. However, for important papers that hold a huge weight for my grade, I usually will ask a roommate (or my mom, on the off chance she is available) to look it over for me really quick and check that what I wrote makes sense and I didn’t butcher spelling or leave a hanging thought somewhere by accident without realizing it.</p>

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<p>My children report that for their written work, professors are generally very specific about the type and extent of collaborative work that is permissible. Violation of these guidelines would be considered a violation of the honor code.</p>

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<p>Moi, a drama stirrer? I was merely partaking in a civil discussion of the topic of where the ethical lines should be drawn in parental editing.</p>

<p>I consider this forum to be an open circle of people chatting. Everyone is invited to partake, but no one is forced to participate. Therefore, I think it’s rude to enter a conversation in progress by suggesting that those who care to disucss the topic are concerned with a silly matter and must not have anything more important in their lives to worry about. If you think the subject is too trivial for your consideration, then by all means don’t join in. We’re not twisting your arm. But “get a life” type comments are unproductive and drama-stirring.</p>

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<p>If you saw the quality of the draft work my kids have sent me, you wouldn’t call it “hand holding”. </p>

<p>In addition to a uterus, I have a brain. Unlike my uterus, my brain still works. I am glad that my offspring appreciate that their “peers” include their highly educated and accomplished parents, as well as other adults – and not just the youngsters who they attend class with. </p>

<p>I just don’t get why parents would think it is is perfectly o.k. to be telling college age kids how to do their laundry or sending them a monthly allowance, but somehow be emotionally crippling to give highly capable students feedback and critique in academic areas.</p>

<p>Because I will tell you – when a college student is a proficient writer — they aren’t going to get much critique on their writing from their profs – who again, are focused on the substance of the ideas presented. My d. went to a prof to ask him to reread something because she disputed the grade given by a TA. (Based the TA’s mistake over a factual assertion – my d. knew she was correct, hence the appeal to the prof.) The prof read the paper, agreed with my daughter and gave her an A, and said to her, “you write very well for a freshman”. </p>

<p>Who is going to help that person who writes “very well” become a better writer? Outside of a class focused on writing – the profs aren’t going to do that. That’s not what they are there for. When my d. went to profs during office hours – and she did, a lot – she focused on the substance of what they taught.</p>