The Business of Cheating

[Ducky]

I recently read this [url="http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/"]rather disturbing article in The Chronicle of Higher Education[/url] about the increasing amount of ghost-writing (i.e., cheating) in academia. If this article is indeed true (I'm giving it the benefit of the doubt, but it may or may not be authentic), then yikes. Essentially, it means cheating has infiltrated nearly every tier of the educational system -- even tiers that should be impenetrable to such cheating. What, then, does that mean for the future of education? Is it the fault of educational institutions? Professors? Individual students? Or is there something awry with our society's very understanding of what education -- of what [I]learning[/I] -- even is?

For my part, I thought "Ed Dante" had some interesting insights; relevant insights that need to be considered. For instance, the fact that our educational system is more focused on grading and evaluation than on genuine learning. The fact that higher education has become a business model whose goal is to turn a profit rather than to teach and mentor.

[I]However[/I], even given these insights, I thought the article stank of hypocrisy and self-aggrandizement. "Ed Dante" may point the finger at our educational system, and blame [I]it[/I] for the mass of students turning to ghost writers to do their work for them, but really? Ghost writers like him share just as much -- if not MORE -- of the blame. The fact is, corrupted and flawed though the educational system may be, as much as it may need reform, it has a way of dealing with cheaters: it fails them. It expels them. It doesn't help them move up through the system and propel them into a world they will absolutely be unprepared for. If ghost writers didn't exist, students would have no recourse to cheat on papers. They would have to do the work, and if they did badly they would fail. That would mean either retaking the course, and possibly actually [I]learning[/I] something the second time around, or avoiding it altogether. Either way, the system could actually keep these people from passing classes they don't deserve to pass (the danger of which "Ed Dante" explains very well).

But, the Ed Dante's of the world do exist, and so cheating goes on under the noses of professors and administrators; undeserving students pass classes, and write theses, and earn degrees they're unqualified for, and what will the affect be on the world? (Just imagine, if you will, going under the knife of a surgeon who paid a ghost-writer to help him through med school.) Ed Dante can make a fuss about the educational system, but the fact is that he's perpetuating the very behavior he blames higher education for. Edited December 28, 2010 by Mistress Duck

[Gavin]

[font="Tahoma"][size="2"]An interesting but ultimately unsurprising article.

Yes, guys like Ed Dante absolutely exist. Off-hand I know at least three people with better GPAs than me because they "outsource" quite a bit of their graded work. Granted they do very average on end of term exams but the vast majority of those are worth 50% or less it doesn't really have a huge effect on the end result. The problem isn't just looking at this as a "students are cheating" point of view, without ghost-writers these kinds of people would find other ways of cheating to get on in life. What struck me at the end of it was that the girl in question in the article was going to graduate, and that she like many others would simply learn how to pass their work on to someone else to get it done and claim credit. I wouldn't even hazard a count at the number of half competent TAs and lecturers in my university who are content to do the same bare minimum of work they put out as undergrads. It's a regressive thing, lazy teachers create lazier students who go on to become even worse teachers ad nauseum. How many of these half-wit teachers and bosses are going to be able to catch people cheating in something they themselves were carried through ?

Reform needs to start far, far sooner than university/college. High school is all about regurgitation of correct answers and memorised essays. Original thought and actual "learning" need very rarely apply. Proper comprehension of the subject takes second place to being able to push out consistently high scores in test papers, and yes, even if the work is not your own. Reform at that point sounds a little like trying to correct the lean on the tower in Pisa half way up, even if you do it's still crooked to begin with.[/size][/font]

[Vicky]

This only makes me think ghost writers should get paid more than they do....

The cheating side is quite annoying; any real student would have some pride and stop cheating themselves. But there are a lot of measures in place at my University against cheating, for one they use about ten forms of Copyscape and process work through that by asking for an electronic copy and a few other measures.

However, this just backs up my opinion that writing and intelligence is bought and completely disregarded by society. Most books you have ever read by some famous celebrity or other was probably not written by them; it was written by the ghostwriters who get paid a crappy wage whilst the celebrities rake in the money for the ghostwriter's work. I copywrite, which is a little different but somewhat the same. My name is nowhere on the internet and instead posted under the company's name; I get paid a crap wage, and they don't pay me until nearly two months later whilst they role in their 65k wage as an SEO consultant who doesn't do the work. Content Agencies charge companies thousands of pounds per month for article SEO and marketing but pay writers £1 per article. It's not right, is it?

In regards to learning as well this is another thing I feel strongly about. Learning, like Gavster said, is about memorization. You revise before exams, take the exam, forget what you learnt. Higher Education has become a joke as well - the desire to learn and better yourself has become "GET A DEGREE GET A JOB!". A job is important but self respect and self satisfaction should be more important; I see University students bickering about deadlines and leaving their work until last minute because they 'can't be bothered'. That's not the point, they should be doing it because they love it and want to further themselves.

Sometimes I wish I was in that movie 'Dead Poet's Society'....