<p>Sure, I’d proofread if asked. I think it’s fine for typos, punctuation, grammatical errors, etc. S asked me on occasion–especially for his thesis. (The topics of his papers were completely foreign to me, so no way I could assist with content.) He also asked other students to read his papers. S usually finished them a little early and had time to go over them. D–never. She’s too embarrassed to have folks reading her papers. Usually writing them at the last minute, too. Some students use writing tutors or hire professional editors to go over their papers/theses. If a parent is a writer/editor/proofreader/English teacher and is willing to proof for free, why not? I would’ve never asked MY parents for writing help. (My dad was an engineer whose first language was not English. My mom never went to college.) Today’s parents are more educated than those of the last generation and are more capable of helping.</p>
<p>I’ve read maybe 4 HS papers but only for flow and grammar. S takes suggestions with a grain of salt and changes what he wants. If he asks me to look at college papers and/or resumes, cover letters, I will. But again, only for obvious stuff and give suggestions, not actually change the document.</p>
<p>I have worked many years in a field that requires a lot of writing. Through the years I have always had one or two colleagues that I could take important letters or reports to for proofreading and suggestions. I would perform the same service for them. Almost without exception, they would suggest a word here, a phrase there, that would result in a more concise, clear document. I knew professional people who relied on their office assistants to rewrite and correct (if not compose entirely) all their writing.</p>
<p>So, I don’t think getting another set of eyes is a mark of hopeless dependence. On the other hand, there is an important line that should not be crossed in terms of academic honesty. It’s one thing to get a few pointers, and it is another whole thing for the work to become someone else’s creation. I think most people are pretty clear on the difference.</p>
<p>My husband and I both write and publish extensively in our line of work. So both our daughters have asked H or me to read and comment on papers in fields like philosophy and literature, where we have expertise and they were beginners, especially early in their college careers. We have often engaged, via comments in the margins, in dialogue on the issues in the papers, and that has led to some further good discussions quite apart from the paper writing. We have also offered feedback on cover letters, personal essays for scholarships and grad school, and the like. I should note: we do this for each other; for our colleagues; and for our students, too.</p>
<p>But when D1 was a senior in college, she wrote a paper in an area where husband is a specialist, and didn’t show it to him until she got it back from the professor. She wanted to do it without any of our help. She had come a long way from freshman year, both in confidence and writing ability. </p>
<p>One of the struggles we have is that we feel it is rare that students get focused attention on their writing (grammar, syntax, logic, etc.) in either HS or college. I’d sometimes read D’s HS papers after they’d gotten them back, and found all sorts of errors and issues that should have been caught by the teacher. But I know that teachers don’t have the time to devote to every student’s writing. Since we believe that writing is an extremely important skill, and that it isn’t taught as well as it could/should be, we have participated in our D’s educations by coaching in this regard.</p>
<p>
This is a real problem. It was especially bad in middle school and younger son one year in high school had a really terrible English teacher. I think with more help than I wanted to give in high school, I sent a kid off to college who had become a pretty good writer. (Though his grasp of comma usage is still amazingly shaky.) Mostly I read the papers because they are interesting. It gives us things to talk about without sounding like an interrogation.</p>
<p>Despite extensive proofreading for my kids in high school, I’ve only ever been asked to look over one paper in college…and that was a revision of the very first assignment for freshman comp that was being revised on a weekend when the kid happened to be home.</p>
<p>I did provide source information for a paper about family history that one child recently had to complete, since we had the genealogy charts and family anecdotes at home, but the kid wrote the paper by herself.</p>
<p>Haven’t been asked, either. :(</p>
<p>MommaJ, I totally agree with you.</p>
<p>I agree with MommaJ when she said “Commenting on the content of a student’s work is entirely inappropriate, if not completely unethical, unless the parent also plans to walk on the stage arm in arm with the graduating senior to accept the degree.”</p>
<p>I have a friend who actually takes off work the day before her daughter at Amherst has a big paper due, so that she can help her write it. She did the same throughout high school. She actually came in one morning and said “wow, we got an A !” “We” ??? </p>
<p>She’s my friend, but I have always felt her daughter got into Amherst on false pretenses, and will get a degree the same way. My friend is just acting inappropriately.</p>
<p>^That I agree with.</p>
<p>By the way, Tufts Academic Handbook specifically lists this as okay:
from <a href=“Homepage | AS&E Students”>Homepage | AS&E Students;
<p>I agree that adjusting content is not ethical, but taking the stance that a second set of eyes on a paper (whether a parent, classmate, TA…etc) is being co-dependent is off the mark. Like ‘youdontsay’ said, everyone that is someone in business has a secretary, admin, etc, that is the second set of eyes. It shows that you are human, you have the ability to make mistakes, but most of all you are mature enough to know that.</p>
<p>Parents can twist the reality of it all they want. The truth is, students should not be turning to parents to review, enhance, and edit their work. Cut the strings and let them earn the grade they deserve (not the grade the parent deserves).</p>
<p>There are plenty of resources for students to turn to if they want another set of fresh eyes to read over their papers. They can go to the Writing Center. They can ask another student to read it over. They can meet with the professor during office hours. </p>
<p>They should not be turning to Mommy and Daddy for this kind of help. When and if they do, the parent should remind the kid that he/she is the student, not you. This is my opinion and I realize others won’t agree.</p>
<p>I know several parents who not only edit their kids’ papers, they write them! I know one parent who buys the same textbooks as the student and does the student’s homework when it’s due, and emails it to the student. I think that’s just plain awful. This parent did the student’s work in high school too…</p>
<p>When this was discussed on another thread related to helicopter parenting, the arguments followed similar lines.</p>
<p>I think there’s a distinction between a piece of professional writing that is headed for publication, and a student paper. The purpose of one is completely different from the other. One is to share what it is already presumed that you know due to your established expertise, and the other is to show if and how much you know before you can be declared to have any expertise. The course grade is supposed to indicate the student’s proficiency in meeting the course requirements, and those requirements include the student writing a paper. When an employer hires a student who has an A in English, you’d hope he could safely assume the student is a proficient writer and won’t need to e-mail business documents to mom for editing, which would be a drain on productivity and a potential breach of security or confidentiality.</p>
<p>By the time kids get to college, they should be capable of proof-reading their own papers. Any unfinished business with regard to their writing education should be cured by their freshman composition class. That is its purpose, after all. If my children were to ask me to edit their college papers I would refuse on ethical grounds. In addition, I would worry that by agreeing to do it, I might be communicating that I believe they actually need my help. The latter could undermine their confidence in their abilities, and self-confidence s a lovely by-product of going away to college.</p>
<p>Wow, so my child’s college papers are potentially being graded on a curve which includes the work of students whose papers are being edited by professional writers? We know a girl who was recently expelled from a top college for what she termed “peer editing.” The college called it academic dishonesty.</p>
<p>I have never been asked to look at college papers, but she’s an English major and writes a lot better than I do! I have read through some of her job application questions/essays as I have a better idea of what employers are looking, how to present information, etc. I’m sure this too will reduce over time as she becomes more familiar with her field than I am.</p>
<p>My daughter is a Grammar Guru. She proofs things for me. I rarely read her papers.</p>
<p>GFG nailed it on all counts. I teach in a grad/professional program, and was simply appalled when I first discovered that students were asking parents to review their graded papers.What could possibly be fair or ethical about that? and how does the student ever learn to be fully self sufficient?</p>
<p>Ours sent us a first editing request a few months back. She is a college senior…And no, we never saw high school papers before they were submitted… I think she learned from hearing us tell the older ones “this is a great start, but…”
She is a senior and asked her dad to review her resume since he does a lot of hiring. His only comment was “I wish our applicants wrote this well”. Score one for LACs.</p>
<p>I agree with mommj, nysmile and GFG. My kids have never asked, and I would be very surprised if they did. I’m sure that there were a few typos and that not all papers were perfect. But they were their own work, down to the last period. </p>
<p>My kids learned to write before they got to college. If their college papers were not up to snuff, they probably received grades and feedback that helped them do better on the next assignment. I feel that if either kid wanted an A paper, they had the ability to get it on their own if they were willing to put in the effort. So why would they need my pair of eyes?</p>
<p>I would have loved to have read some of my D’s college papers this year - her classes sounded so interesting - but I think that all of the papers were written in Arabic.</p>
<p>In my son’s h.s. English class, the kids do peer editing on each other’s major papers. Hmmm. They mark up each other’s papers, mark in rough transitions, etc., a few days before the final paper is due. I think this is good. The idea of being expelled for what you consider to be peer editing is kind of scary.</p>