Essay help..what do you think?

[Elishi]

Yesterday we were searching on google for essay help as my nephew was stuck on ideas for his history essay and I was too busy to help. Interestingly we came across many websites like this one http://essayshark.comwhere you can get someone to do the essay for you. I had no idea this kind of service existed, there was nothing like this when I was at school, that's for sure. Just wanted to hear your opinions on this, would you let your kids use something like this if they needed help?

[Float On]

If I caught my child using a service that actually writes the essay for them....I'd probably make them write three more essays the way I did it...a pile of books and a typewriter.

Looking on-line for help or suggestions is one thing but if you don't do the actual work yourself you don't learn anything.

[Miss Cellane]

Oh, you've always been able to get someone to do your homework for you. The internet has just made it easier for you to do, and enables a third party to make a profit off of it.

Heck, I was approached by a few people back when I was in college, asking me to write their papers for them and they'd pay me. While I would have agreed to proof their papers, they wanted the entire thing written for them, so I didn't. That's cheating. And so is paying a stranger on the internet to write a paper for you.

A good instructor will formulate a paper topic that is difficult to answer unless you have been in class and taking notes. Other clues that the paper was not written by the student are: terminology that is correct, but not the terminology used by the instructor; writing that is better than the student has produced previously; not staying on topic; incorrect number/type of references (if the instructor required a certain number and type); using the incorrect footnote/bibliography/citation style. Even incorrect margins, if the student has just printed off the paper they were sent, without reformatting it to the instructor's specifications.

When a high school teacher assigns a research paper, they are not only looking for the student to learn something about the subject assigned, but also to learn about doing research and writing papers. Hiring out all three tasks means that the student might "earn" a better grade in the short term, but they learn nothing from the exercise and cheat themselves in the long term.

[SteveinMN]

I had no idea this kind of service existed, there was nothing like this when I was at school, that's for sure. Just wanted to hear your opinions on this, would you let your kids use something like this if they needed help?
No idea how old you are, Elishi, but when I was in school some 30-40 years ago, there were clandestine "businesses" in already-written term papers. This is just an update for the current era.

Not that I approve of it. Like Float On, I would require the student to do his/her own research (more than copying/pasting Wikipedia, BTW). I think one of the bigger issues facing the world today is that too many people can't or don't want to synthesize opinions from dissimilar (and sometimes contradictory) facts and observations. Letting someone else write an essay for you is as bad as lifting intact your worldview from Faux News or MSNBC.

[catherine]

I agree with the other posters: I would never condone lifting essays off the internet and passing them off as my own. Aside from the ethics of it (and I consider it lying and stealing), as Steve said, learning how to think about, find, and synthesize information is a very important learning skill.

So I love FloatOn's response..yes--bring on the "time out" in the form of a manual typewriter and the old Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature. Brilliant.

[Gardenarian]

No, that is plagiarism pure and simple. At the college where I work students submit electronic as well as hard copies of their work, and teachers run the essays through a program that can determine if it is original. Honestly, most of the teachers can tell in a minute whether the students wrote the essay themselves.

The penalty for plagiarism is expulsion, and rightly so. Why go to school if you are not there to learn?

Your nephew need to speak to his teacher, who should be able to help him with choosing a thesis and guiding him to appropriate resources.

[Miss Cellane]

ether the students wrote the essay themselves.

The penalty for plagiarism is expulsion, and rightly so. Why go to school if you are not there to learn?



I applaud your university. The most I was ever able to do was give the kid an F for the course. And that was after having proven, by bringing in marked-up copies of both the paper and the source(s) that over 90% of the paper was plagiarized. And even then, a professor on the Honor Board asked me if I didn't think I was being a little too harsh on the student. Well, no. Especially since I also had proof he was cheating on in-class quizzes.

[Suzanne]

I would absolutely NOT teach my child to lie and cheat through using essayshark. I would encourage him to talk to his teacher if he needs help, thereby enabling him to take personal responsibility, access legitimate resources, and honestly earn the best grade of which he is capable.

[new2oregon]

I agree that he needs to do the work himself, not have someone else do the work for him. Helping him to find a topic could be good for both of you because you could get to see whats in his head and exchange ideas. what excites his passion for learning? Its good if he ask for help a lot of kids would blow it off and don't ask. Inspiration goes a long way.

[JaneV2.0]

I've realized that a disappointingly few "students" actually care about learning. Fortunately, we only need a few.