<p>That’s hilarious. I loved the sample paragraphs from the four essays they bought from different essay mills (the subject of the papers was supposed to be cheating!):</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
“Cheating by healers. Healing is different. There is harmless healing, when healers-cheaters and wizards offer omens, lapels, damage to withdraw, the husband-wife back and stuff. We read in the newspaper and just smile. But these days fewer people believe in wizards.”</p>
<p>“If the large allowance of study undertook on scholar betraying is any suggestion of academia and professors’ powerful yearn to decrease scholar betraying, it appeared expected these mind-set would component into the creation of their school room guidelines.”</p>
<p>“By trusting blindfold only in stable love, loyalty, responsibility and honesty the partners assimilate with the credulous and na</p>
<p>These writing deficiencies at college and beyond have roots in elementary and high schools. I’ve witnessed barely literate kids, with LDs and inflated grades, in effect “sold” to colleges by school counselors, rather than retained until they were proficient at the HS level–just because the HS did not want to spend the money on special ed tutors. Then in college, the same kids have parents who will do anything for these kids to get them a degree that they think will garner white collar employment–so they heavily edit, or write, or pay for someone else to write their kids’ papers. </p>
<p>At the other extreme, but in the same vein, one of my kids helps a friend write/edit papers for a HPY college, which ironically waitlisted my kid. </p>
<p>I’m not comfortable with either of these scenarios, but it’s not my call. I’ve noticed a teaching technique of “peer editing” that my kids have experienced in HS and college–they view their giving of various degrees of writing “help” as a form of this. </p>
<p>My point is, why didn’t our “high performing” public school graduate kids with an appropriate degree of proficiency in writing to go on to the next stage of their education? We are not a heavy ESL district.</p>
<p>BTW, I know in industry ghost writers are commonly employed; it’s a matter of efficiency: some scientists are don’t like to write; and some don’t have the time, some don’t have the English proficiency. They are never named as authors and their assistance is rarely acknowledged.</p>
<p>Aside from ghost writers, I suspect that there are a fair number of “achiever-focussed” parents who “heavily edit” their children’s HS essays to point of nearly authoring those papers, perhaps in denial. Though a child gets good grades in English classes, the true ability of student can be masked by secret crutch of parental help. Teachers are unlikely to question authorship, so long as paper passes “turn-it-in” plagiarism test and doesn’t flag a notable gap in “verbal” versus “written” fluency. I’ve read stories now of several professors who’ve returned to admissions office to confirm student’s admissions history because class performance is so poor. </p>
<p>“Aachiever-focussed” parents have graduate degrees and significant professional experience requiring writing fluency, and their concern about their children’s relative achievement interferes with ethics of “help”. In our community, the race for top-tier college begins in elementary school. More than one mom has slipped in conversation to say “we had a big paper to write last night and I was up late helping…” for an “A-caliber” student. Some parents here campaign for “gifted” designation for an unqualified child, and our HS allows parents to “self-select” honors/AP classes, despite non-qualifying entry test scores and grades. Gaming the system.</p>
<p>Just saw in the GW Hatchet that an ESL grad student is suing the school for “fraud” because she didn’t get her degree due to accusations of plagiarism regarding her final paper. The prof was obviously alert and doing their job, not letting obvious cheating go on, and the student, instead of being ashamed and contrite, sues. ( I know innocent until proven guilty, but it’s pretty clear to me what went on here! What a world we live in nowadays. the value system is topsy turvy.)</p>
<p>The student, Ling Yuan Hu, is asking for $2M in damages. Apparently there were disputes on credit transfers from another institution, and allegations of plagiarism and counter-allegations of “discrimination against people whose native language is not English” in her failure to pass the “comprehension exam” (this is for a graduate degree at the School of Education). Wow.</p>
<p>nngm, sometimes ghost writers DO generate content. The named author gets another publication for their CV with no thought, time or effort expended. The ghost writer gets paid.</p>
<p>But named authors sometimes hold faculty positions. They are not necessarily industry employees. A third party (industry) pays. I wouldn’t consider that outsourcing. </p>
<p>Anyway, those faculty who take advantage of ghostwriting for themselves are likely reluctant to condemn students for a similar practice.</p>
<p>Another huge “performance advantage” issue that administrations turn a blind eye to is the use of aderall. I sometimes wish I could list my GPA on my resume as “Aderall Free GPA.” From my own experience and those of my friends, I would say that use of aderall is just rampant at top universities where students are under huge competitive pressures. Unfortunately for the “normal” ones among us, we were forced to compete against those taking copious amount of amphetamines, and those who were diagnosed with some disorder to receive “extra time” on exams. The problem is with so many hiring decisions are based on GPA, the ends begin to justify the means.</p>
<p>Ethics Scoreboard has a good piece on the [ethics</a> of ghost writing,](<a href=“http://www.ethicsscoreboard.com/list/ghostwriting.html]ethics”>Ghostwriting Ethics) although I don’t entirely agree with it. I think context matters. Within the context of universities, the exercise of writing papers is considered part of the educational process. The expectation is that papers be the work of the student, and usually the “laws” of the institution reflect this. (Personally, I think the expectations are often inappropriate, given the incredibly low priority placed on writing instruction in K-12. ) At any rate, different expectations and laws apply in the professional world.</p>
<p>Your belief is validated by research. Studies have shown that when the stakes are high enough, cheating will tempt just about anyone. Of course, there’s another side to this: When you make sanctions for cheating even more far-reaching in consequence than a ‘bad’ or lower grade, that can be a powerful disincentive.</p>
<p>It seems to me there are several factors here that create motivation for cheating:
(1) The reality of competition
(2) The reality of external consequences for underperformance
(3) The perception of competition
(4) The perception of external consequences for underperformance
(5) Plan B thinking
(6) Level of competency, or preparation for the next academic level</p>
<p>(1) and (2) being not within the control of the student or family, (3) through (6) are subject to a lot of influence, and even (1) and (2) can be softened with educational leadership (reducing the competition factor, and clarifying alternatives to students; providing a way out).</p>
<p>It’s my experience with adolescents that perception drives so much, and perception is so often in error when the source of perception is other adolescents who have an incomplete knowledge base, insufficient life experience (no long view), and a tendency to impulse and panic. But parents, faculty, and counselors can do a lot to help modify distorted perceptions about competition and consequences. And certainly adults as a whole can do a better job at developing Plan B thinking (5). When you believe that the earth’s rotation will end if you do not get accepted to a particular graduate or professional school, that’s your controlling belief, as fantastical as it is. The perception of narrow choices and narrow outcomes is what drives a lot of desperation, in all areas of life.</p>
<p>So when I read stories like this one, my first thought is, How did the student get to this place of amorality? Possibly not only by neglect of Plan B thinking, but also by adult neglect in guidance about internal consequences. So some major character-building has not occurred if consequences do not include the self-concept consequence.</p>
<p>Just some things to ponder over while we adults consider how a competitive “monster” can also be “formed” by sheer neglect.</p>
<p>As to #6, we can do a lot about that. In education’s ancient history (my childhood ;)), all initial writing training was in-class, all of it. That had enormous practical benefit: class was your workshop, with the teacher right there to direct, train, and re-train. My first take-home writing assignment was 6th grade, and those initial writing assignments were always research projects: collect and synthesize facts about a country, etc. There was no sense of helicoptering from parents during my day, so it would never have occurred to my or my classmates’ parents even to make suggestions about what to write, how to write, let alone how to edit. By the time my classmates and I entered high school, all of us knew the basics about writing and the different classifications of formal writing. Sure, some were more ambitious than others, more proficient and interested in writing than others were – enjoyed it more, etc. – but everybody had basic proficiency. You were not passed to the next class without passing all subjects. F’s were indeed given, and you did not graduate unless no classes were F’s.</p>
<p>When one has tools, there’s no need to prostitute oneself to obtain black-market tools. The writing standards in my state today are largely a joke. To call it minimalism is to understate how bad it is. You can be somewhere between illiterate and a 4th-grade writer to graduate. I don’t know how to compare that with other states, but I have heard of similar gross reduction of standards in other states. All of k-12 teaching comprehensively should be an extended, dialogic workshop in how to think, how to write, and how to use learning tools independently. A student with a future in science should be graduating from h.s. confident that he has mastered the non-sciences; the student with a future in humanities should be competent in scientific parameters, and all of that under classroom conditions. Otherwise, no degree.</p>
<p>One more thing: the shift from classroom writing assignments to home writing assignments provides fertile ground for adult intervention – both what’s appropriate and what’s beyond proper boundaries. It also (because of the reality or temptation to dependency on adults) strips the student of self-confidence. But worse, in some lower grades now – as young as Grade One, would you believe, many teachers are instructing parents to teach the child to write, and that direction from the teacher continues to higher levels. I’ve had a lot of complaints from parents that teachers have “assigned” the parent to teach the writing (up through grade 8) – the structure of the content, the mechanics, the style. I’ll bypass the whole ethical insupportability of that. The practical consequence is that the student is learning, by habit, that he must rely on others to help him write. He is learning secondarily that outside help is perfectly acceptable, so why not just another level up from that in college?</p>
Far as I can tell, that’s essentially the case everywhere. Bottom line: schools don’t hire editors and writing coaches to teach writing. Given the state of education funding, I don’t expect that to change, although a savvy PTA could certainly take it on. In the interim, I think the responsibility falls to parents. Want your kids to learn to write? Teach them. If you’re not an editor/ writing coach, hire one. Writing’s a craft. Mastery of any craft is best obtained through apprenticeship under a master.</p>
<p>I don’t think you can take too much competition out. There are only so many top jobs and grad school places. I think all we can try to do is make the competition fair.</p>
Please don’t bypass it. What you probably don’t understand is that behind every successful published writer is an excellent editor. ;)</p>
<p>I think many parents simply aren’t aware of “how things work,” i.e. how writers learn to write. You simply cannot learn to write via conventional classroom teaching methods with an instructor standing before 20+ students <em>telling</em> them how it’s done.</p>
<p>
Well, the practical reality of writing is…
Rule #1: every writer needs an editor.
Rule #2: it’s in the writer’s best interest to reduce the editor’s workload. ;)</p>
<p>The idea of teaching parents how to serve as editors and writing coaches is a good one. The caveat: there’s nothing worse than a bad editor. :(</p>
) At any rate, different expectations and laws apply in the professional world.</p>