<p>Not to be too off-topic, but some of the dumbest-looking errors I see every day come through because people trust spell-ckeck programs to do their proofing for them. These always elicit the same comment from me: "Spell-check programs are stupid; you are not. Proofread after."</p>
<p>Well, now you've introduced a whole new topic. It might have been clearer if you'd given us this scenario from the start, mightn't it?</p>
<p>What it sounds like you want to know is, is getting substantial help, including actual re-writing, a breach of a particular school's honor code? Who is giving that help really doesn't seem to be the point.</p>
<p>The answer to that would seem to lie with the actual honor code; as a professor there, you'd know better than us.</p>
<p>And very distinguished Ivy profs are surely as prone to dimestore psycho-analyzing as the rest of us, and just as surely able to resist basing such analyzing on the thin information of an anonymous message board.</p>
<p>I doubt that bobby is himself the "distinguished ivy prof." At least I hope one would not describe oneself in such terms. I'm guessing he is one of a group of students who then approached the ivy prof.</p>
<p>Part of Honor Code at D's school for one of her classes:</p>
<p>Papers: From the stages of choosing a topic, through doing research, you may work with other students, to get their thoughts and opinions. However, the actual writing of the paper must be done individually. This is not to say that as soon as you write a single word, further collaboration with other students becomes prohibited. You may have other students proofread your work and give you their opinions. The only thing they cannot do is write any section of your paper for you.</p>
<p>In light of the most recent information provided by bobby, I'd say of course it is wrong for anyone to rewrite work for someone in college! Proofreading/Help/teaching/guidance are far different from actually DOING the work! I wouldn't think there would be any question regarding that!</p>
<p>I guess I have confused the issue. Here's how it stands: None of us has ever reported an honor code violation nor do we know any student that has. The kid involved is a freshman and the son of a well known man. It is not likely here is here entirely on his own steam. His mom calls daily and keeps him on the phone for an hour running through his assignments. The parent's set up the only fax machine in a dorm room that we know of. They took a bunch of us out during parent's weekend and asked us to "support" junior. Mom sends huge care packages to the whole dorm. Ir is just so weird. We actually like him and think all of this is parent driven. The poor guy just can't escape them. We don't know, however, whether he hands in the papers with mom's changes or not. We would, of course, rather not know. It's obvious that it's a violation if he indeed makes the changes. But since we don't know are we in the clear?</p>
<p>Poor Kid!</p>
<p>This is such a cautionary tale about wanting your kid to get into a place that he/she may not belong in...</p>
<p>I believe we have come full circle to "apron strings." This new information makes me think the mom is aware her son is not on par with the other students at the college and is trying to 'help' him. Only he may need more help than is acceptable under the honor code.</p>
<p>If, thanks to connections, your child attends a college that he can't survive in on his own, you have really done him a disservice. It is one thing to help a kid bring a paper from an A- to an A through insightful general comments. It is another to rewrite a C paper and make it an A paper.</p>
<p>On the other hand: is it possible the edits were made on a paper that the kid had already turned in, and the edits were thus just illustrations for future writing improvement ? </p>
<p>Seems sad kid could get honor code violation when parents may be driving this situation.</p>
<p>I don't send my college papers home to anyone - actually i don't let anybody read them. I edit them myself and everything. Same with my college admissions essays. I think that if i write the paper, it should be composed of my ideas, my thoughts, my views on things. I don't want my writings to be skewed by what my parents or my roommates think would make great "additional content" for my paper. I did however take a 60 page paper to the writing center at my school - just to make sure I had everything formatted properly with what the class required.</p>
<p>This is the kid's problem, not yours, I'd say. I would talk to him about the danger of what his parents are doing, and see if he can find other ways to get help for his writing. He's a freshman, this is the appropriate time for him to make a clean break.</p>
<p>BTW, this will probably be a prolonged civil war for him, so be prepared to be supportive, as the parents asked, but not in the way they intended.</p>
<p>I would definitely check the honor code at your child's college before offering ANY help, as it could be prohibited. I'm a junior and have never sent any of my work home for help, although I have talked with my mom about possible topics for fellowship application essays, and once called my dad with a general question about a topic from econ class (not on a test, just something we'd discussed). </p>
<p>For the most part, I would say it's better for your child to meet with professors, college writing center tutors, etc. than with you, since college staff know more about particular issues and grading policies (unless you're a professor or something yourself).</p>
<p>i think it's fine IF you cite, and few people ever feel comfortable with citing their parents. if you don't cite, i don't see how it's different than plagiarism. in fact, by definition it is plagiarism and you can get kicked out if caught. talking about topics or ideas is perfectly fine--but you need to cite!</p>
<p>it's like this. a well-connected kid could ask the parent who is, say, ambassador to Israel, to have the secretary write a brief 6pg analysis of the past two yrs of Arafat/Gaza under the Bush admin for an IR class. that is the extreme version of asking a parent for help. the mild version may not seem as morally reprehensible, but they both grow from the same poisonous tree. </p>
<p>in academia i like to think that there is a certain lvl of pride concerning creation; that is, what you write is the result of what you think and anything else is cited accordingly. i would personally lose all respect for the mind of any student who consistently asks parents' for content help on papers.</p>
<p>bobby--what exactly do you mean by changes?? do you mean like spelling errors, grammatical errors (like commas not being in thee right place), telling someone that a phrase doesn't sound right, or what???</p>
<p>My parents helped me do my work in elementary/middle school. I don't see what the big deal is about things like that........</p>
<p>I enjoy seeing my son's papers just to see what he is working on, and if I notice a typo I'll certainly point it out. I agree with the posters who comment that it's good to have someone (roommate, tutor, friend) look over your work for typos and misspells. There is no way I could provide feedback on content. It's all so specialized and high level that it's kind of like gobbledy-gook. But that part of why it is so interesting to look at it.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the input. We got some counsel from an ethics specialist who agreed it was not our job to find the final paper and see if the changes were implemented. I guess I was also very curious to know how common this is. My own parents are uneducated and couldn't help if they wanted to. Boy, you are very involved parents. I gleaned from reading through some threads that many of your kids are in college yet you are still here representing their interests. I am most impressed.</p>
<p>First of all, I think professors have a responsibility to make clear what degree of collaboration is allowed on assignments.</p>
<p>I know of one professor who tells his students that they may absolutely NOT collaborate with anyone--"Don't even talk about it with your dog!" he says. Although of course if a student is stuck, he encourages students to come to HIM (the prof, not the dog!) for help. </p>
<p>Most professors do encourage collaboration/discussion/consultation with study groups, classmates, peers, etc. on most assignments.</p>
<p>But even if the professor gives his blessing for such consultation, standards of scholarship require that such consultation be explicitly cited if it was substantively helpful to the end result in any way. (You see this sort of thing all the time in "acknowledgements" footnotes in articles in professional journals.) </p>
<p>So, yes, I agree with Justice~. If you are going to consult or discuss your paper with others, you should be prepared to cite them if their comments are helpful. </p>
<p>And I can't think of many cases in which a student wants to cite his parents. </p>
<p>The only exceptions I can think of might be something along the lines of an "oral history" assignment, where a modern history professor might ask students to conduct interviews with relatives who lived through a certain period of history.</p>
<p>Bobby, the vast majority of us have younger children in addition to the ones in college.</p>
<p>"Don't even talk about it with your dog!"</p>
<p>Wow, I'd never get anything done if I didn't talk it over with the dog on our morning walk. </p>
<p>I often help my daughter to sound out ideas for where she wants to go with a paper. After that, though, I don't see the paper until she has turned it in, and then only if I ask how it turned out, and sometimes not even then.</p>
<p>Ironically, two days ago my mother-in-law, who is age 75( she majored in English and Math as an undergrad, got her MS in Math from MIT(50 years ago!) and can think and write circles around most people I know) sent her children and children-in-law a page of her memoir for review. She is taking a memoir writing class at her senior facility. I was honored to read it and to have a glimpse into her life and her insights. I feel the same way when my sons, who also can write circles around most people I know, choose to share their work with me or my husband. They do so with pride and with willingness to listen. We try to respond with respect and specific suggestions as needed- when asked. </p>
<p>But, the not so subtle message that these parents have sent to the peers of this boy, and to this boy, are that he can't cut it, doesn't have the ability, etc. This (beyond the issue of honor code violation) is the problem. I would say that if the peers like this boy that as friends they empower him to stand up to parents who are beyond intrusive. Break the fax machine (not so hard to do at my house anyways) and make him take his papers to the writing center....</p>
<p>Tobrym, I agree that he needs support. I just wanted to know, because I come from a different kind of family, how typical this situation is. Still not sure I understand.</p>
<p>Kid number one called at the end of her first quarter in college, in need of help with a paper. She'd stuck with a topic the writing prof told her was unworkable. The paper meant the difference between a B and an A. She had, in fact, found the approach was unworkable and the paper was due that afternoon. I'm a writer, and I've taught writing. Was I supposed to say: "no, self actualize" and hang up? Instead, I asked her to FAX the paper, and then we spent more than an hour on the phone while I helped her get to the point in her thinking that resulted in a solid thesis statement. When she finally had that, I suggested how that might alter the structure of her paper to address that statement in a logical way. She handled everything on her own just fine after that and never needed to call me for paper help again in four years of college.</p>
<p>Kid number two doesn't even tell me when he's writing a paper. However, when we visited him, I saw a draft of a paper he'd turned in with someone else's handwriting on it. He said he'd asked another student in the class to trade papers with him for feedback before turning it in. This wasn't the teacher's idea, just a habit he'd formed in high school. He also told us he'd written a draft of the paper, then deleted all but two paragraphs, and written a second draft even before trading it with his fellow student. </p>
<p>My kids went to different high schools and I think this difference shows in their approaches. They both write well (in fact, my daughter's a gifted natural writer) but my son's schools taught him much better writing habits -- merciless revision, seeking feedback. My daughter had to learn that at the beginning of college, instead. The point of helping her was not to write her paper for her (I didn't -- I didn't even know anything about the topic) but to teach her something about approaching it that she hadn't learned in high school.</p>