<p>Re post 260: That’s a load of b.s. Basically you are saying that anyone who disagrees with you must be lying. </p>
<p>I posted nearly verbatim excerpts of my chat logs with my daughter – there’s not much more that I could do. </p>
<p>Re post 256: I asked if you could please point me to any posts where parents had said that they “literally rewrite whole sentences, phrases; reconstruct paragraphs, replace words with their own choices (with agreement from their S’s and D’s)”. I got bored looking at the posts that you indicated after I checked about 8 or 10 and none of them said anything of the kind.</p>
<p>I’ll make it easy – can you find ONE post here by a parent who said that he or she does that? Or can I take your emphasis on your use of the word “seem” as a concession that it is merely your interpretation of posts that say nothing of the sort? (And its all a matter of what you want to read into posts).</p>
<p>^Well I don’t think there’s any need to get heated about it, and I’m very sorry that I bored you. It was not my intent to offend. As I recall, the first few examples I listed were ones that either stated that or implied that strongly. And further, when contrary repliers objected on ethical grounds, to later posters, about possibly crossing the line, those who were initially vague about the extent of their help but extremely enthusiastic about that help, went on and on about the extensive and liberal sharing of actual writing (not just oral suggestions) and how terrific and freeing that was. So, yes, many of these are in the “seem” category. (When lots of posters see no distinction between mutual editing of business writing, emails, and resumes, and that of college papers, one can logically assume that there might be similar sharing going on for the latter category as well.)</p>
<p>I also want to state for the 3rd time that I have not cast moral aspersions on those with a different viewpoint than mine. But I don’t think that “my interpretation” is unique on this thread, and when not contradicted, has some logical validity.</p>
No, the first example you listed was some poster who was criticizing what they thought some friend did in helping their kid, in unspecified ways. (“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?”) I was asking for specific examples of parents claiming to have done the level of writing you claim. I quit reading the posts after I went through several and none were responsive to the question I asked. (If in fact some of the posts WERE responsive to the question I asked, it would have been a good idea to lead with them… which is the type of writing advice I might offer to some people, though it tends not to be an issue with my kids’ writing.)</p>
<p>Re post #258. My daughter’s college has an honor code. My daughter’s thesis had these words typed on the first page:</p>
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<p>The presence of that statement is why I am certain that everything was open and ethical. It’s very possible that my d. was told that she needed to provide proper attribution to comply with the honors code – I don’t know, I didn’t ask whether she was including the attribution to comply with a requirement or simply as a matter of courtesy – but the point is – “editorial input” was certainly acceptable at her college. (You’ll note that phrase is a little broader than “proofreading” – but again, editing is not the same as writing).</p>
<p>I, for one, didn’t say “cheating”, I said “substantive contributions.” My point is that superficial proofreading and editing of a nature that relates to correcting grammar, improving clarity, cutting fluff is a mechanical, often tedious process. It’s rather like chopping up all the vegetables before cooking soup. It’s the deciding of what ingredients should go into the soup, which spices to add and their amounts, what food should accompany the soup etc. that’s the creative and interesting aspect of the cooking. I don’t think someone would care if they were no longer allowed to dice their own vegetables, but they WOULD object if they lost control over the menu or the salt shaker. Bad analogy, I know, but what I’m saying is that there must be something very interesting about the editing you do, or there must be very fulfilling exchanges going on with your children beyond grammatical corrections for you all to love doing this so much. And in that case, I’m with those who say that this is a gray area that could land a kid in trouble with a professor or a school honor code and also that your editing is unlikely to be comparable to what happens in a college writing center.</p>
<p>“First it’s “wrong” for kids to ask their parents to proofread or critique their work, because that means they in relationship of codependency with their parents and aren’t properly “separating”. (Never mind that their parents are sending them a monthly allowance, booking their flights for them, driving them and their luggage to and from school spring and fall, and planning on funding grad school - if a parent so much as points out a misplaced apostrophe, the family is clearly dysfunctional)”</p>
<p>no one responded to my #233 about college laundry centers. </p>
<p>A. I think financial independence is a good thing. And of course some colleges at least include spending money in est COA, and assume work study will go towards that. Obviously sometimes those numbers dont work, or the family decides not to use work study. Certainly the kid using his own fucns for expenses is a really good step toward independence. I would say that the difference between this and editing, is that colleges are still better placed to teach writing than they are to provide help on expenses. Its a question of comparative advantage.</p>
<p>B. Since we WANT to see our kids dorm, have one more look at the campus, and since our kid wont have a vehicle at that point, I think the logic of driving them there (since campus is within driving distance) is overwhelming. Really something different.</p>
<p>OTOH we did have an issue this week where a kid our DD knows who is college less than an hour away, was switching dorm rooms and asked her parents (at the last minute) for help. We definitley think thats an issues, and as I said to my wife, when I moved dorm rooms, I did it myself or with help from my friends. </p>
<p>C. funding grad school is a huge issue, IIUC its been discussed here at some length, no?</p>
<p>This week my D was working on an application to a freshman seminar class. She read me the first sentence of her essay, and out of my mouth shot “That’s not a complete sentence!” She said “Yes it is.” I said, “No, it isn’t; it’s a fragment. There’s no verb.” She responded, “Well, OK, but this type of structure is very common in many articles and books I’ve read, so if it isn’t a complete sentence, it’s accepted as such these days. Besides, it’s how I want to write this.” End of editing session. My D does not want to share the salt shaker. </p>
<p>IMHO, it’s not a question of what we think is or is not “cheating” (and I haven’t offered my opinion on that topic on this thread ;)) it’s what the arbiters of academic dishonesty at your kid’s school thinks.</p>
<p>I think this “disconnect” between student perception and institutional perception of where the line is can be a big problem (bigger than many on this thread realize) and I think it goes to a lot of other academic areas other than “editing”. The push to cooperative education and group projects (however valuable these are) has mined the college harbor IMO and somebody’s kid is gonna hit one of the mines. I can’t count the times my kid said “We got together as a study group and did this” or “I did an outline and gave it to my classmates to use” and I almost fainted.</p>
<p>I hate take-home exams for the same reason–the ambiquity. Some students take the test the same way they would in a classroom. Others say to themselves, “If the professor didn’t want or expect us to treat this test differently than an exam administered in a classroom with various restrictions, then why did he make it a take-home exam?”</p>
<p>Many years ago I dealt with that @ Dartmouth. Had a midterm that was to be “half” in-class and “half” take home. (seemed a time issue to me - couldn’t fit it all in one class period and didn’t want to use up two classes for the test - at least that is my best recollection) It was given on a Friday. The in-class and take home sections of the test were comparable in terms of number and difficulty of questions. There were no differences in terms of instructions. (Basically - Answer the following questions)</p>
<p>I took the in-class portion in the allotted time, then went to an open classroom, completed the take home section in a comparable time, handed it in and took off for New York for the weekend. When we got the tests back, I received the only perfect score on the in-class portion including two “bonus” questions most of the class did not have time to get to. On the take home portion - I received a C.</p>
<p>Perplexed, I went to see the professor about it. He told me he was disappointed with the take home portion of my test, especially given how well I’d done on the in-class portion. Since I didn’t see any real difference between the quality of my answers on the two separate parts of the test, I asked him to go over the test with me to show me the difference. He looked at the papers and then told me there really wasn’t much. When then asked “Why the disparate grades?” he explained that others in the class had gone into much greater depth with their answers on the take home portion.</p>
<p>To which I replied that he had presented the test as half and half, not as a test and a paper. …that I had treated the second “half” of the test exactly as the first half and unless I had somehow misunderstood the assignment, ought not be penalized for treating it as such simply because others had treated it differently. …and that if others had gone “above and beyond” and spent three days preparing an opus to submit to him, good for them - give them “bonus” points, but if that was what he was looking for, then that is what he should have assigned - and as far as I could tell, he hadn’t.</p>
<p>He thought about it for a moment and said “You’re right”, then reread my test sections and raised the C to B+, which gave me an A overall for the test. Don’t know how many other profs would have done that.</p>
<p>Great story! When I was in high school and college, it seemed to me that most students respected take-home tests in the sense that they did not consult outside sources if they weren’t supposed to, but the majority fudged the timing element of it. Some did both. They’d say, “Professor Smith has got to know kids are going to spend longer than an hour and a half on this.” And some would go so far as to say, “The teacher has got to know kids are going to cheat!” They feel it’s a “Here, do this at home, but don’t cheat <em>Wink</em> <em>Wink</em>.” I’m a rule-follower by nature, but worried I’d be penalized like you were because I knew no one else was following the supposed guidelines and theirs would be way better.</p>
I don’t enjoy changing poopy diapers, and yet I volunteer to do it again when visiting with my son, dil, and their new baby. I like doing it because I love the baby, even if I don’t find the diaper thing all that exciting. </p>
<p>As far as the mechanical editing process – (a) I don’t find it tedious or boring. For that matter, I also enjoy chopping vegetables - it’s a task I often volunteer to do when cooking with others, and I’ve never owned a cuisinart precisely because I like chopping the veggies. Another thing I’ve always loved to do is untangle string. I probably like the mechanical part of editing because it it is precise, and detail-oriented, and doesn’t require much creativity. (I tend to get writer’s block when confronted with writing something new-- I’ve got a bunch of stuff in my head but don’t know where to start when writing it down). </p>
<p>(b) The reason I enjoy proofreading my kid’s work, usually, is that I am interested in reading what they have written. I’ve learned a lot about all of the stuff they have studied in college. While it is true that my contribution to my daughter’s thesis at the tail end consisted of things like telling her that “forth born son” needed to be “fourth born son” and that the word “in” or “by” needed to be inserted between the words “reported” and “newspaper” – I got to read the whole fascinating discourse. I suppose that if my kids had chosen to major in something that I found utterly boring – say, for example, finance or banking – I wouldn’t have wanted to read their papers. But my kids were poli sci majors and my d. had an eclectic mix of choices for electives. I do find that when I proofread, I am giving something a closer read – and I tend to retain the information longer. </p>
<p>I’d also note that my d. writes in a very different “voice” than my own. If I were to rewrite her stuff, I’d throw it all out and start all over from scratch. It would be like Ernest Hemingway editing the work of William Faulkner. There would be no point of agreement for broad swath editing – but so far we both can agree on the rules of grammar and spelling. (In my work I often have to edit the work of British, Australian & Canadian contributors … so I have learnt how to edit in those languages as well as American)…</p>
<p>Re post #268 … if your daughter is reading you the sentence from the application she is working on, then you are editing and proofing her work – whether or not she takes your advice. So I don’t get it – why would it be ok for you to tell your daughter to add a verb an opening sentence, but not o.k. for me to suggest adding a preposition on page 39 of a thesis?</p>
<p>Re post #278 – I think you are selling your kid short. She probably knew very well where the lines are drawn in an atmosphere encouraging the formation of study groups, cooperative education and group projects. </p>
<p>This is the age of wikipedia and open source software development – group contribution and authorship is becoming the norm in many settings, often (like wikipedia) with large, widely distributed groups of people who have never met one another in real life. Between that and social networking, people are far less individualistic in their approach to problem solving.</p>
<p>First, we all agree that proof-reading is different in scope and impact from editing or re-writing. Besides, I actually “read” nothing at all and unsuccessfully proofed only one sentence. Second, this was not a research paper or thesis for a college class and was not going to be counted for any grade. My D has not even enrolled in classes yet!</p>
<p>Babies need their poopy bottoms cleaned. Healthy college students don’t.</p>
But that’s because you had voice communication with your daughter. I usually communicate with mine (while they were in college) using online chat. I’d note that my d. was abroad for a substantial period of time in college (as well as in high school) – so we’ve got a longstanding habit of text-based communication simply because she has spent so much time in places where it was logistically difficult or cost-prohibitive to communicate by voice. She was back in the states for several months before I managed to get back in the habit of simply picking up the cell phone and calling – I’d call up other family members but it was hard to remember that I could call her as well. </p>
<p>My d. is enough of a perfectionist that she probably would want more than one person looking over her work. </p>
<p>I also have a hard time believing that if your d. who has not even enrolled in classes is calling you up to read you her application – that you really think in 4 years of college she’s never going to call you up to read an essay or paper before she submits it. Why was she reading you the application? Won’t the same motivation apply before she submits other paper work?</p>
<p>Finally… I think you missed the point on the baby diapers. It’s not my baby. It’s my son’s baby - my son is the one whose job it is to change the kid’s diapers. I’m just doing it when I visit as a favor to my son. Just like I proofread paperwork as a favor to my kids.</p>
<p>“My kids are so gosh darn brilliant that they never ask me to help proof-read their essays even though (hem, cough, by-the-way) I am a published author and world-class editor, AND therefore it is vile if your dumb kids get any help from YOU”.</p>
<p>or:</p>
<p>“I am so obnoxious and overbearing when I give advice that my kids never ask me to help proof-read their essays even though (hem, cough, by-the-way) I am a published author and world-class editor, AND therefore it is vile if your dumb kids get any help from YOU, and curse the thought that you actually have an equal and friendly relationship with your kids”.</p>
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