I frequently read posts of kids asking for essay review help. I see many people who don’t have much posting history offer to read it. Do these kids know who they are sending it to?
Isn’t that a huge risk? Do the kids know who these people are?
I notice a lot of trustworthy, reliable advisers who tirelessly help kids out everyday, like intparent and Lindagaf and T26E4? Lookingforward, Blossom etc. non Moderators, but nevertheless, caring and invested people.
Can one of those people help?
I am very nervous and jittery seeing these kids shipping their essays around randomly on an anonymous forum
Is there a disclaimer some place prominent so they can understand the risk they are taking?
You are right; it is an immense risk sending entire essays to complete strangers on CC with no post reputation. However, there are tons of disclaimers right on this forum. The stickied and all capitalized posts in this section concerning all of the issues you mentioned are staring right in the faces of these naive posters, yet they decide to ignore/take their chances anyway. Reminds me of the saying, “You can lead a horse to a river, but you can’t make him drink”. In this case, I guess you can’t make these posters read.
Wouldn’t the plagiarist be afraid that the real writer would send the same essay to the same college? Of course, to be safe you should only send essays to senior members who are not in high school.
lol what keeps from doing that is another poster’s words i read a while ago
i think it was something like “the place[CC] is rampant with Machiavellian midgets”
if that doesn’t hit it home I don’t know what does
@halcyonheather you’re totally right about both the plagiarist and the real writer sending the same essay, but I guess the real problem is stealing ideas, whole sentences/paragraphs, or sending to a different college since many have similar prompts
but the essays are PERSONAL. A white guy is not going to plagiarize from an arab guy who writes about his heritage. Most essays are unique to the writer
There are constant warnings about not just posting the essay itself on CC, but some still do it – probably because they do not check out the pinned threads before barging ahead. Not much more that CC can do about that. But yes, warning them not to send off to brand new members is a good tip, and I think we would all encourage you to step in and make that point when you see such a post.
@AboutTheSame I am going to do my best. I promise! @aymoro It doesnt matter. Nobody should be posting/sending their essays to anyone on such Forums. If indeed some kid is eagerly looking for feedback then maybe the Mods have vetted some people who they consider honest and genuine, only those people should be trusted that too only over PM.
I say that very cautiously, I have no idea how colleges cross check essay content for plagiarism and what type of technologies exist out there. What if the detection SW returns a “hit”? even though the essay was PMed on CC not publicly posted?
Would most definitely result in a rejection.
@BoiDel : I doubt that college admissions offices are set up for data mining to the same extent as the National Security Council or that any plagiarism checker could run against the CC database, but I could be wrong. (It’s been known to happen at this very site.)
Volunteer willingness to read essays is, in my opinion, one of the ways to level the playing field a little between those kids who go to a school with an extensive support system in place to help them through the application process (or who can afford to pay for a private college coach) and those who do not. I understand your concerns, but I think “Nobody should be posting/sending their essays to anyone on such Forums” is going too far.
That said, when I volunteer to read or accept an uninvited request, I try to provide my bona fides [e.g., that I’m a 63-year-old lawyer with a kid in grad school who has no need to make any nefarious use of the essay] and I’m willing to communicate by email other than than CC PMs, but I think many prefer the relative anonymity of CC rather than giving out a private email (or going to the bother of setting up a spam email). I don’t think we can expect CC to take on the role of “licensing” readers, but cautioning posters about the risks they may be running is valuable.
We do not vet essay readers. The essay writer is free to ask for users to read the essay via PM, it is AYOR. Personally, I would not send the essay to new users, or users with a low post count. There are many users who have been here a while who are willing to read essays, but I, not any other mod, can/will vouch for how well they critique essays.