<p>I edit my wife’s work, and my children who are or were in college give me their papers for a final read.</p>
<p>My son’s work is really top notch, and I was mostly just making a few corrections here or there, or a comment if his argument was not tight.</p>
<p>My daughter this past year (her freshman year), gave me some essays before she submitted them. I would correct major mistakes, yeah, once in while rewrite something (I can’t help it, i love writing) and make a lot of comments. I will not spend too much time on it, she has to learn to edit her own work and put the work in before she gives it to me. If I think it is a bit weak, well then, she will get an appropriate grade.</p>
<p>I didn’t feel I did anything wrong regarding my son, he had put in a tremendous amount of work, the product was superb (and his grades reflected it), and i was mostly just catching typos or a confusing sentence here and there.</p>
<p>With my daughter, I probably crossed the line at bit but honestly not to rewrite what she wrote, but to hopefully by my comments push her to another more refined draft. And while I crossed the line, after a while I stepped back and realize she had to put in the work, not me.</p>
<p>Honestly, I’m always surprised that people justify this. Why wouldn’t it be considered cheating if their parents make corrections and they get a grade on it? They are handing it in as their own work.</p>
<p>My son won’t even let me read his essays and I am ecstatic over this. He feels much more free now to really open up and express himself, knowing that I won’t be second-guessing or picking apart his work. I know that he will end up at the college that is best suited for HIM, and that’s the way it should be.</p>
<p>I absolutely proofread my D’s college application essay. So did her English teacher and GC. I don’t see anything wrong with that.</p>
<p>My D1 asked me to proof a major paper for her last year (college junior). I found a couple of things and told her. I see nothing wrong with that. Most law firms hire professional proofreaders. Would I comment on content? Not on a bet, but if she’s got a typo not caught by spell check, I don’t have a problem.</p>
<p>"I didn’t feel I did anything wrong regarding my son, he had put in a tremendous amount of work, the product was superb (and his grades reflected it), and i was mostly just catching typos or a confusing sentence here and there.
"</p>
<p>I’ve been a professional copy editor, and have won awards for writing. H is a well respected editor who edited something that won the Pulitzer Prize. </p>
<p>Our S put a tremendous amount of effort into a 62-page paper he wrote for a required college course. S is a very bright guy who in high school had gotten Ds in some courses because he was such a procrastinator due to perfectionism that he wasn’t able to do the assignments. </p>
<p>He showed his college paper to us only after it had been graded and handed back. When he had needed help with the paper, he used the writing center at the college or talked to the professor.</p>
<p>To me, this is what it means to be using college as a way to grow up. You don’t rely on Mom and Dad’s help any more for things like homework. You don’t need their support or approval of your school assignments. You’re able to figure things out for yourself and to seek nonparental help if needed.</p>
<p>The comment about thirteen contacts a week is way more than I get. I guess we bring the average down. I do want one call a week and DD usually comes through–sometimes with prodding.</p>
<p>I did not see any papers this year, though. I usually took a look at her high school assignments, but rarely found anything.</p>
<p>Getting a second read, proofreading advice, etc. is not cheating if it comes from a tutor, a writing center, a professor, a classroom editing group, etc. Why does it become cheating if it’s a parent, sibling, roommate, etc?</p>
<p>As a semi-professional writer, and college writing instructor, I wouldn’t dream of sending something out without getting a read from a trusted source. For me, that’s my husband, son or daughter. All are eagle-eyed at noting minor grammar mistakes or typos. I also welcome comments on problems with logic or tone. It’s then my job to figure out how to make improvements.</p>
<p>Almost all writers depend on others’ feedback. Most writing classes encourage, or mandate, it. (Our school requires a certain number of tutoring sessions from the writing center.)</p>
<p>I occasionally read over my kids’ papers when they were in college. Both are superb writers; I might notice a minor error, or question something unclear or clunky (we all miss sometimes.) They then re-wrote.</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone in the academic or professional world who would consider that cheating.</p>
<p>My kids are grown up. They got into top colleges (and I never helped them with their homework in high school, except for occasional editing). They figure things out, like getting great internships and, in my son’s case, an excellent job.</p>
<p>And why can they seek non-parental help, but the door is closed if they seek help from their parents?</p>
<p>I respect the tack you took with your son. But don’t get judgmental and intimate that my kids are underdeveloped because I helped them with some editing on their college papers. </p>
<p>Everything needs to be proofread before being handed in for a grade or for work. In what situation would something not need to be proofread? At work, you ask a co-worker to look it over. What is wrong with having someone at home look it over if you happen to be at home? I’m truly confused. </p>
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<p>By that standard all editing is cheating. </p>
<p>Do you consider it cheating if a high school or college student has a parent explain a mathematical proof or scientific concept? I do not.</p>
<p>Yes, I have proofread my son’s papers and will continue to do so if asked once he starts college. Just as my son proofread some of my papers (I finished my BA last year.) I did it for the same reason that I did not stop by the math lab when struggling with Algebra; in house help is available at any time. Instead of stopping my studies and finding someone to help me, I’d just ask Mr PMK to help me. He’d explain the algebraic concept, I still did the work. Same with editing papers. </p>
<p>I’m not seeing the issue. If I wrote my child’s papers or they wrote mine, that would be cheating. But editing? No.</p>
<p>Back in the day, my first professional job was at an advertising agency. The owners child was a student in a big school advertising dept. The 1st Thanksgiving I worked there, everyone was called in over the holiday weekend to do juniors final projects for him.</p>
<p>I was (and still am) absolutely shocked as I grew up in a house where my dad put his foot down and wouldn’t allow me to pay someone to type my final papers up after I edited them (remember oh fellow stone-agers when we used to have to do that?) He said if I had a problem managing my time then I was too busy. and then I sucked it up. </p>
<p>Editing is way different than constructive criticism; it’s one things to read something and say “hey you might want to reconsider the phrasing there” compared to taking out a red pen. I haven’t taken a look at any assignments my kids have written since elementary school until after the fact. Not even college essays. D had one of her English teachers as her sounding board.</p>
<p>RobD, I disagree. Writers are equally free to ignore or incorporate constructive criticism as they are red pen editing. </p>
<p>Let me ask you this; while in college my sister supplemented her income by doing paid editing. She also, very kindly, edited my work for free (I did my BA on the 22 year plan, so it covers a lot of years!) Was the person who paid in the clear yet I was cheating? What if it was my mother or husband or son? </p>
<p>I see a world of difference between the three of 1)paid professionals actually doing a students work for them, 2)student hiring someone to help them via editing or typing and 3)family member editing another family member’s work. </p>
<p>1 is clearly cheating while I do not see 2 or 3 as cheating nor have I ever had a professor make not that we should be careful to not have family members edit.</p>
<p>Great post Garland. I agree 100%. Frankly, I never understand parents that are so gosh-darn proud that they have never helped their children with anything. Consider yourself lucky. As the parent of a bright child with learning disabilities, I know that part of growing up is knowing when to ask for help. That need comes at a different level for every person. I just read “Learning Outside the Lines”, written by two ivy league kids with learning diabilities. One of them sent every paper he ever wrote home to mom for editing. I see nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>OK–given that someone introduced ‘math’ above, I am curious about how people feel about the following:</p>
<p>In a calculus or physics class, the instructor assigns a take-home assignment that a student gives to their math/physics professor parent to look over before he or she hands it in. The student does all the work.</p>
<p>The math/physics professor parent notes where a few silly/sloppy mistakes were made–a minus sign, for example, wasn’t put in at some step, and so the final calulation is wrong, or some easy arithmetic calculation was botched. Is this appropriate?</p>
<p>Or then let’s say that the professor parent notes that there is some higher-level concept that has been misapplied–perhaps overall, the problem wasn’t approached correctly because rather than applying concept X, the student applied concept Y. The math professor parent doesn’t tell the student what to do, but simply notes that the student needs to approach that problem differently. Is this appropriate?</p>
<p>As you can see, I’m trying to come up with parallels between writing and math. So if you make a comment on a paper such as ‘you can’t use this piece of evidence because it doesn’t support your main point’, how is that different than saying in a long math problem 'you can’t apply theorem X at this point because…". </p>
<p>I am surprised at the amount of parent child contact. I thought the child went AWAY to college, not that s/he brought mom with via daily contact, much less getting involved with school work. Where’s the independence? Where’s the growing up and doing things “all by yourself”? Part of the process involves finding other resources- as in the mentioned student writing center. Laundry questions and other household questions are the parental turf, the rest is not, regardless of the education or skills/employment of a parent. Parents of high school seniors should long be out of the habit of overseeing their child’s work (rarely helping). Perhaps text messenging/cell phone calls should be banned to wean these people from their parents- more than time to cut the cord.</p>
<p>Edited to add: My D2 who will be going away this fall has been fortunate to be a professional writer for the last couple of years. As a result she has had the editing services of professional editors from whom she’s learned a lot. For her, the occasional proof from me is more about “is this ok?” as in her college essay. She just wanted to make sure she hadn’t inadvertently touched on anything problematic.</p>
<p>I think wis75 summed up the article best. It’s not so much a cheating issue, as an involvement issue. We’ll just hope that all of you editors out there aren’t that involved in every aspect of your students’ lives.</p>
<p>Because, of course, you know what’s best for every student and parent out there. </p>
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<p>Oh, your concern for my child is just ever so touching.</p>
<p>My son has been gone since June and we here from him less than once a week. We’re fine with that. If he wanted to call everyday, we’d be fine with that too. I’m sure as heck not going to sit way down here in South Texas and tell other people that their level of contact is wrong, wrong, wrong. </p>
<p>I’m sure for some of you this is truly an ethical issue but, as always, there are those who will take any excuse to take a shot at parents who do things differently than they do.</p>
<p>I agree with wis75. I think the problem I have with parental editing is the fact that grades are often determined by the quality of the writing. Why should the kid who does all his work independently be compared to one who uses his parents to proofread and edit his college papers?<br>
In real life- like a job application, a piece to be published, or a law brief, if one pays for professional services or uses family, that seems ok to me. But in a learning environment like college or high school, where your grade is determined on a comparative basis with others who have enlisted parental help, it just doesn’t seem fair.
I guess it’s obvious that neither H and I were ever “given the opportunity” to help our kids with their college papers. I can’t even imagine it, to be honest.</p>
<p>Help from the college writing center is fair because every student has the same opportunity.
While I’m not sure I’d call parent help “cheating” exactly, it almost crosses that line, imo.</p>
<p>"
In a calculus or physics class, the instructor assigns a take-home assignment that a student gives to their math/physics professor parent to look over before he or she hands it in. The student does all the work.</p>
<p>The math/physics professor parent notes where a few silly/sloppy mistakes were made–a minus sign, for example, wasn’t put in at some step, and so the final calulation is wrong, or some easy arithmetic calculation was botched. Is this appropriate?</p>
<p>Or then let’s say that the professor parent notes that there is some higher-level concept that has been misapplied–perhaps overall, the problem wasn’t approached correctly because rather than applying concept X, the student applied concept Y. The math professor parent doesn’t tell the student what to do, but simply notes that the student needs to approach that problem differently. Is this appropriate?"</p>
<p>I would consider all of those things to be cheating. If a student needs the above kind of help, they can talk to their professor or use the campus’ tutoring center, neither of which would be considered cheating.</p>
<p>With few exceptions, correcting spelling, punctuation and similar things in assignments for English and similar classes isn’t going to make any difference in the student’s grade because few professors take off for those kind of errors. Even when professors do take off for such things, there usually are campus writing centers that offer students help with grammar, punctuation, etc., and with the exception of exams, students aren’t penalized or considered to be cheating if they use such services. Using such services – including to review work required for class – is considered to be a way of learning the material and strengthening one’s skills.</p>
<p>Making suggestions about the actual content, however, could result in a grade change and would be what I would consider to be cheating.</p>