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]

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).