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

[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.