essays for sale

[trochee]

So I was looking up "effects of bilingualism" on Google, because I was talking to a friend about the (positive) effects of bilingual education on children, and the very top link on Google was on a buy-an-essay site here (only 129.35!).

These people may not be evil, but it's definitely moral bankruptcy. They include (on the FAQ page) the following caveat:

Our reports are intented [sic] to be used solely as research aids. They cannot be resold or reproduced in any form. Our company is designed to assist students in writing their own research papers by affording them the opportunity to examine the work of professional writers who have researched similar topics. In this way we believe students can write their own research papers with a better understanding of the material under examination. It is our belief that our research reports can be a valuable resource, in addition to the traditional resources employed by students.

But the rest of their marketspeak does not match this approach:

Need to finish your term paper right away? Our on-file database contains over 70,000 prewritten reports...all of which were written by our professional writing staff. These papers are available for IMMEDIATE DOWNLOAD and AUTO-EMAIL.

.I wonder how the universities fight this kind of "service". (How will I, when I'm teaching?)

Comments

[moroveus.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, I took an upper-division English course in which a third of the class was kicked out for using these on-line essay services. The professor entered class the weekend after we had turned in our midterms* and slammed a stack of papers down on the podium and began cussing out the entire class. She said that she was first alerted to the widespread cheating because two students turned in the same paper! Then she complained that she was going to have go through all the trouble of reading through a lot of on-line essays to make sure that no one else had cheated. Finally, she just through open the door and said, "Class dismissed; I'm too fucking pissed to even be here right now." We all just sat there looking at each other, because this teacher was so meek and pleasant, and then she just exploded (although I have to say that I think it was justified).

The class only had about 15 people, and 5 of them were kicked out of the English department over this fiasco.

*And I admit that the midterm was hard, but there's no excuse for this kind of shit.

[moroveus.livejournal.com]

omfg

I wrote "through" instead of "threw." My English degree has spontaneously combusted.

[zoe-trope.livejournal.com]

Somewhere, every English teacher you've ever had just uttered a soft disappointed sigh, in unison.

[several-bees.livejournal.com]

Hm. There are a few options along the lines of the Essay Verification Engine; turnitin.com, for example, which checks submitted essays against "a copy of the publicly accessible Internet", "millions of published works (including ABI/Inform, Periodical Abstracts, Business Dateline, and tens of thousands of electronic books)" and "every student paper ever submitted to Turnitin" - though of course it charges for the privilege.

The problem with services like these, apart from the cost, is that the range of essay-providing sites (of which this is a somewhat interesting review) includes places that write essays specifically to order, to be used once and never again. Brief essay questions answered during tutorials may be useful for getting an idea of a student's level of competence, such that it becomes clear when they claim to have written something better than they're actually capable of, but as far as providing proof goes they're useless; all they can do is provoke suspicion, and if the student used one of the written-to-order services then I don't see how anything could be done.

[monslucis.livejournal.com]

as the discussion on nihilistic_kid's page went about this: no tyranny of grades, no cheating.
until recently i would've thought things like that were bad, but now considering the intolerable amount of work students get that doesn't further their education or empowerment (actually disempowers them), it makes sense.
of course one can argue that some that use it are scum or whatever, but i guess i just think grades are structuralized violence, and so cheating to me--even if immoral--is a much less of a concern.

[trochee.livejournal.com]

i guess i just think grades are structuralized violence, and so cheating to me--even if immoral--is a much less of a concern.

My thought wasn't up at the high level of structure in which an idea like "grades are tyranny" is situated. Developing or encouraging a mode of education without grades would indeed be one way out of this bind.

But come on, now. This is like saying "because I believe taxation is wrong, I won't fight against regressive taxation." (You can substitute "progressive" for "regressive" if you're so inclined -- I hope you're not -- but the point stands either way.) I (as an individual and probably future professor) am also interested in looking at the small-scale injustices as well as the large-scale ones, and that was the spirit in which I threw this into my blog.

Given that I'm currently participating in a structure of grades (tyranny included), it seems even more troubling that those students who have money have yet another way they get a leg up -- not only do they have guaranteed access to college education, the freedom to not carry a job along with their classes, and summers off, but they also have the ability to pay $130 and have an essay on the spot.

Of course, this isn't new. Services like this have been available for decades. I guess what I was getting at isn't so much a "how could they!" denunciation of cheating, just at the ease of the free-market accessibility of cheating instruments to those with a credit card in hand.

One could take the vaguely MiM-ish position that we should encourage cheating [read "voting for Bush"], because it will break the system and encourage revolution more quickly. When I consider this position carefully, however, I find that I am apparently too much of a square and a conformist to go that route.

[monslucis.livejournal.com]

one thing i noticed from your comment that you seem to assume (which i hadn't thought of and may be true) is that since the services cost money, it gives the rich students an unfair advantage. i hadn't thought of this.
while it is obviously true that students with more money can more easily use these services, i wonder though how strong the correlation is.
from your post, it felt like you saw this on wrong because it was cheating, not because it allowed the rich to cheat and not the poor. i thought your critique was moral, not one of justice.
the justice claim i'll hear out--but i'm skeptical if 'cheating' simply equals injustice, because i'm guessing poorer students might possibly do it a lot too.

"This is like saying "because I believe taxation is wrong, I won't fight against regressive taxation." "
so i guess i don't see how cheating=regressive taxation.
further, i think it's important to note that there are several things you can do about grades as a professor without rewriting institutional policy to take away their tyranny. further, the tyranny of the grade is not just 'high level structure' but deeply affects students. i know it causes severe emotional pain to virtually all the students i knew in some way or another. so grades--particularly how they are implemented, etc.--are not just a high level problem.

i wouldn't advocate cheating to break the system (and don't understand the correlation to voting for Bush--unless you mean that only the rich cheat in school, which might be true), i 'advocate' cheating because grades hurt students. because grades hurt education. because the rich buy grades by buying the college they go to anyway (and what would happen if they got turned in for cheating by us?).

another thought: perhaps one could say that if something can be cheated on, that something has no educational value. cheatable tests & papers virtually totally arise from authoritarian pedagogies & assignments. an assignment developed through empowering the students is less likely to be cheatable because 1) it's not some cookie-cutter thing and 2) the student will have ownership and want to do it.

[moroveus.livejournal.com]

no tyranny of grades, no cheating...i just think grades are structuralized violence, and so cheating to me--even if immoral--is a much less of a concern.

My degree emphasis was education, and I've never heard this argument before. Could you expand? Grades as violence/tyranny?

[monslucis.livejournal.com]

i've never read an argument about that really. though aflie kohn does have some stuff, but i haven't read it (http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/fdtd-g.htm)
it comes from personal experiences: friends crying, the feelings i have as i sit down to work on a paper whose assignment i see no purpose in, the fear.

while one can argue that grades are an objective measure to sort students (for one, even if they could be, they aren't objective, and two, i challenge the whole need of sorting but that's incidental to this argument), grades are coercive. one can argue that this coercion is necessary, but that does not disprove they are coercive. coercion is violence and tyranny/hierarchy. grades--as they exist--are granted by an authority figure to reward & punish. one can try to say its benign, necessary or even good--but it's still tyranny.

but a related but separate argument (that i think Kohn makes in that article) is that grades simply aren't necessary. people want to learn. if kids aren't wanting to learn, it's probably because of the curriculum or instruction. and even if it's not, grades won't make them learn (though they may make them jump through certain hoops and forget those hoops for the grade).