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I just found out today about a certain site that allows you to do people's homework for cost. I'm still trying to wrap my head around just how big this is (One user made 35000 in 400 days doing other people's homework) but it really, really bothers me on an ethical standpoint. I work at a University and am working on a PhD at said university as well. So what ethical problems?
Firstly, the most obvious one is that people are cheating. This, oddly enough, is not the most important ethical issue at hand here. People cheat and in the long run it comes back to get them usually (if they do it a lot). This one is not so bothersome. Besides, this stuff happened before a mainstream site acted as a middleman and really popularized it.
The second issue is this advocacy for cheating. This is what trips me up. If someone can make a decent sum of money on the side for doing the odd assignment for students then the incentive is just ridiculous. What I mean is, financially, it would be hard for many professionals to resist making 300$ to write a paper for some kid. Of course the underlying issue there is wages for teachers and professors.
And finally I really find it as a disturbing social commentary on the way the education system works and is seen. The whole point of going to school is to learn these things yourself. I think it's also interesting as another service completely unavailable for poorer people. Someone with money can pay a professor to do all of the coursework for them and get all A's.
What do you guys think?
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The majority of people who use essay-writing services and homework services are foreign students whose level of English is too low.
I personally don't know anybody in college aside from foreign students who have the disposable income to pay for essays.
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Netherlands45349 Posts
Wasn't there this huge post about someone doing people's thesis and shit for money?I am not sure if it was legit but it was pretty frightening.
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Hopefully such people find themselves get destroyed at the tests, which shouldn't be cheatable.... hopefully.
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Yes, I have huge issues about this. First of all, they are graduating with an inflated mark. If the school has a bellcurve, not only are they getting a degree which you don't deserve, they are harming those who deserve higher marks by skewing the bellcurve.
More importantly, they have not learned the skills you needed to learn in school, and will completely screw over every employer over. Many people not graduating without the proper skills (and these people are usually lazy) leads to terrible productivity at work.
In terms of doing homework for money, its really sad that there are not enough jobs out there that so many people are resorting to doing these things. Even if they're very lucrative, it's just ethically wrong.
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As you said, it does usually come back to bite them. Either way, I go to college where I know a good amount of people who have tutors who do their work for them or just use the internet to get their work done for them, the latter costing nothing at all. i at least like the former a bit more because the people cheating are having an immediate cost apply to them.
People who are less rich than others will usually have less opportunities and advantages than others. That in itself is really hard to change. Still, in this situation the less privileged end up winning. Not only are the rich spending more money, they are learning less and have no real idea how to do their work, while the less privileged put more work in for better end results.
The method described above is not something really approve of, but I at least acknowledge it as being better than others, as the person who helps to get the work done is being rewarded fairly.
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With all the free resources out there to write a paper (i.e. your own brain power and research) I don't understand the point of it. As far as homework outside of papers goes, I partake in using sites like Cramster as a great asset to learning, and being as its free and has almost every solution worked out and explained, I don't see a problem. The theory behind homework is to help the student reinforce what is being taught to them. If they are passing the exams/final with ease and "cheating" on their homework, I fail to see the issue. Personally, I still don't do homework and I'm in my 4th semester of college and I have no issues when it comes to the exams/finals as an engineering student. The homework that I do turn in is usually copy and pasted off of WolframAlpha or Cramster.
Edit: I do not find cheating on homework ethically wrong, no. But mostly because I have never, NEVER found homework useful in MY learning. Tests/exams/finals are about "testing" how well you can memorize information and apply it. I do have issues with cheating here because this is what determines how well you grasp what you are supposed to have learned.
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Seeing as how test make up the majority of your final mark in most classes having someone do your homework for you is just a waste of money.
High marks on homework and projects/essays + low test score does = fail usally
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A huge problem in universities is just how grading/tests are done. Your degree is important, not your grades (few exceptions). And for many people, unless your degree is highly, highly applicable to your job; then the skills/knowledge you acquired will largely be unneeded. Obviously, some fields more so than others have a higher carry-over rate for applied concepts.
Am I OK w/ it? Not really. But I'm less OK with how grading on the whole is done for most university courses.
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Well if he doesn't learn the stuff he will fail the uncheatable tests. If he learns without writing esseys himself what is the problem?
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On January 10 2012 00:09 peidongyang wrote:
Yes, I have huge issues about this. First of all, they are graduating with an inflated mark. If the school has a bellcurve, not only are they getting a degree which you don't deserve, they are harming those who deserve higher marks by skewing the bellcurve.
More importantly, they have not learned the skills you needed to learn in school, and will completely screw over every employer over. Many people not graduating without the proper skills (and these people are usually lazy) leads to terrible productivity at work.
In terms of doing homework for money, its really sad that there are not enough jobs out there that so many people are resorting to doing these things. Even if they're very lucrative, it's just ethically wrong.
Hmm, I didn't think about the consequences it'll bring onto other people. in things where the class average is used as an indicator, I could see how it could affect the rest of the people, especially when you have your work done by people who really know what they're doing. In later life however, I'd hope that employers are a bit better at filtering out people who don't really know their profession.
Still, there exist other, more ethically wrong methods of cheating, which is why I'd rather this than just going up on something like wolfram and having it do your work.
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Earn money while having fun in sight of spending it to avoid torture? Sounds good.
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This things happen. Sad, tbh
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Why did I not get notified about this earlier!? Genius!
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I'm with the OP, not only is it immoral but it is also unfair to have such an advantage because you can throw money around.
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I would pay in my situation right now. You don't learn it maybe, but who cares if you don't care.
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I'm sure there are situations where this is acceptable though. Surely if a person feels that they are more than capable of doing the work, but find it to be a tedious waste of time, paying someone else to do it (assuming they have plenty of money of course) would be reasonable?
Its not like schools always get it right for each individual student. As long as its not being advertised to students who are too young to understand the importance of learning things for their future career (you didn't give a lot of details about the age bracket but it sounds like you're talking about university/college), I think its alright for people to make their own educated decision about these things. Its not like they can also pay someone else to write their exams, so it still holds these students to account in terms of earning their diploma/degree. Let alone all of the oral presentations and practical lab work students have no choice but to do themselves.
It might be disturbing but I find it informative. If people really do pay for this, then that should be an indicator that people aren't enjoying what they're learning and there needs to be more work done in helping students find a field that they have a true interest in. If I love physics I'm not going to ask anyone to do my work for me!
edit: Oh well I guess the last point isn't that accurate. There are probably tedious aspects to every job. But I think homework assignments should really be considered optional. If the student is smart enough to get perfect on the test, its really up to him/her. Thats mainly why I think its ok in the long run, as long as there are still exams, presentations, etc. to demonstrate each students' knowledge
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There's probably a good chance that the teacher will be able to discern your level of writing from that of the student's in-class garbage essay. Plus, as someone already in acadamia, if you get caught helping students cheat, good luck getting a job elsewhere.
I'd look for easy money doing something a bit different. Tutor them instead 
On January 10 2012 00:03 bonifaceviii wrote:
The majority of people who use essay-writing services and homework services are foreign students whose level of English is too low.
Out of curiosity, do you have a source for this?
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On January 10 2012 00:09 peidongyang wrote:
Yes, I have huge issues about this. First of all, they are graduating with an inflated mark. If the school has a bellcurve, not only are they getting a degree which you don't deserve, they are harming those who deserve higher marks by skewing the bellcurve.
More importantly, they have not learned the skills you needed to learn in school, and will completely screw over every employer over. Many people not graduating without the proper skills (and these people are usually lazy) leads to terrible productivity at work.
In terms of doing homework for money, its really sad that there are not enough jobs out there that so many people are resorting to doing these things. Even if they're very lucrative, it's just ethically wrong.
By your logic curving by a bell curve or any form of curving at all also provides people with degrees they don't deserve since curving differentiates within a single school, let alone across all Universities in the world.
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EPT
