You can fool some of
the people all the time and all the people some of the time; but you can’t fool
all the people all the time. – Abraham Lincoln
There are two kinds of cheaters: the ones that don’t get it,
and the ones that don’t care. Some
students simply do not understand a specific concept or subject matter, while
others just don’t care about learning it.
Either situation can prompt a student to look towards cheating as a
means of passing their tests or term papers.
I was browsing the Internet and I stumbled upon a website
that advertised Custom Term and Thesis Papers.
Upon reading about the “service” that these websites provide, I can’t
help but laugh and be disappointed all at the same time.
One website seems to pose as a kind of academic support
center for the student, complete with a “Writing Tips” section. The opening paragraph states that they are a
“legal organization created to provide any kind of academic support at any time
as fast as it is required.” I realize
that the selling of term papers is not an illegal act, but as a student, it is
not ethical to purchase one of these papers and claim it as your own work. The words, thoughts and ideas are not the
student’s original work and there isn’t any way for these papers to be used in a
legitimate way. How is a student supposed
cite or reference this work?
“Plagiarism is unacceptable in any form. Any writer detected
in plagiarism will be automatically expelled from the organization and
penalized according to the company's rules.”
Let’s get this straight then, it’s not alright for their writers to
plagiarize, but it is alright for a student to?
They include a disclaimer at the bottom of their home page stating that
they offer “custom term paper writing and rewriting services for assistance purposes only” and that their
“papers should be used with proper
references.” Again, what exactly is
the proper way to cite a resource that you paid to have written? Some of these sites guarantee that they will
delete the paper that they send to you a week after it has been sent so that
you are the only one who can claim rights to that paper. How exactly are you supposed to cite a source
that can only be found on your own hard drive?
Should it be as an unnamed source located in nowhere land? I don’t think that I need to tell anyone that
a teacher or professor would not accept that citation much less any other
citation that doesn’t give a location for the information.
Lastly these sites require that their essay writers “are
Ph.D./Master's in at least two fields of studies” and have “published works,
and college teaching/research experience.”
This means that the people writing the papers are learned professionals,
who have successfully completed their college education and, for lack of a
better way of putting it, are smart individuals. Either that or the site is lying when they
say that they have college graduates writing the papers. These people are feeding off students who
lack the willpower, knowledge, or care to write their own papers.
To me it is
completely absurd and sad to think that there are people who have graduated
from college and are writing papers for other students. I can understand wanting to help those
struggling and nudge them in the right direction. Everyone needs help every now and then, but what
about being a tutor? Has that concept been
completely lost to people? Does the “nudge”
really have to take the form of a fully written paper?