Curious about how you/your school deals with students who buy papers to submit

[elegantlion]

This conversation started on another forum when a writer basically bragged about their pay for writing an essay for a college student, which the student submitted as their own work. I've been kind of gobsmacked at the comments that condone such behavior. It's apparently not illegal in their state and this writer felt like if they didn't do the job, the student would have just hired someone else. I know this happens, but the open bragging and laissez faire attitude is really disheartening.  

 

At my school, it would be academic dishonesty and at least get you dragged into the dean's office. As a student who is writing essays for myself on spring break, it irritates me. As a fellow writer, I find the lack of integrity disturbing. I know my own integrity is worth more than the amount she got for the paper (less than $100). 

 

So if a student at your school gets caught submitted work like this, what is the punishment? 

[regentrude]

That is a very tricky question.

It would clearly be academic dishonesty, and if caught, the student would be referred to the office of the Vice provost for Undergraduate Studies (or something like that) which handles these cases.

The tricky part starts now: privacy rules prohibit that office from divulging information about consequences/punishment to the faculty! So, we hear the number of cases, but will not receive specific information. Students will first get a talking to, have to write a reflective paper (total BS in my opinion). In theory, suspension and expulsion are on the books as possible consequences, but are reserved for especially egregious violations. There is a campus wide committee on academic dishonesty which is handling formal proceedings in severe cases. Unfortunately, the decision of the committee is not binding but can be overruled by the chancellor.

 

I do not feel that these situations are handled as they should - but since we are not receiving specific information, it all goes into a black hole.

 

Instructors are not allowed to dole out consequences like failing a student or kicking them out of the course. They may only give a low grade on the assignment in question.

Edited March 14, 2017 by regentrude

[FaithManor]

When I was faculty at the CC, this was a "don't let the door hit you on the way out" matter for the dean. Faculty reported their suspicions, but we weren't involved in the investigation. So sometimes a student simply disappeared from class. If you asked, you were told they withdrew. No other information due to privacy policies. Occasionally as students who knew the offender gossiped around we would hear through the grapevine that the student was expelled.

 

At my son's schools, the students are warned at orientation that this is a ZERO tolerance policy offense. No mercy. I have known a few instructors who took a student aside for minor violations like failing to cite a short quote or something. But buying a paper or significant plagiarism within a student's work is simply going to not end well with no recourse for the student.

[Miss Tick]

Add to that additional, separate consequences if the student is ROTC or similar which can include immediate removal from the program and complete repayment of all benefits received.

[rbk mama]

My friend's brother at Brown got caught cheating on a project with his friends. It went on his record.  He was a straight A brilliant student, but couldn't get into any medical school.  His career path was literally changed by that incident.

[JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst]

Back in the old days when I was an undergrad...that would have been considered academic dishonesty and an honor violation.  The requirement was that you submit your own work.  Having purchased someone else's work would have not met that standard.  The ultimate punishment would have depended on the professor, department, administration and honor board.  They would have considered all the facts of the case but an F on the assignment would have been the best outcome in most cases.  Some extenuating circumstances might have allowed a re-write for a significantly reduced maximum grade.  Worst case would have been some sort of probation for a first offense and having failed the course. (At least that would be my guess, expulsion was always possible.)

[hopskipjump]

This conversation started on another forum when a writer basically bragged about their pay for writing an essay for a college student, which the student submitted as their own work. I've been kind of gobsmacked at the comments that condone such behavior. It's apparently not illegal in their state and this writer felt like if they didn't do the job, the student would have just hired someone else. I know this happens, but the open bragging and laissez faire attitude is really disheartening.  

 

At my school, it would be academic dishonesty and at least get you dragged into the dean's office. As a student who is writing essays for myself on spring break, it irritates me. As a fellow writer, I find the lack of integrity disturbing. I know my own integrity is worth more than the amount she got for the paper (less than $100). 

 

So if a student at your school gets caught submitted work like this, what is the punishment? 

 

I don't know the exact policy at dd's school, but... wow. It just makes me sad. Really sad. With the ease of access and anonymity available today, it has to happen. A LOT. It's just not as easily findable or enforceable as when everyone had to go to "that one guy" that everyone knew who would write a quick paper for anyone who'd pay.

 

[elegantlion]

Well you all have made me feel better at least. I couldn't believe the illogical comments like it's okay because it's not in their major, or college is so expensive and general ed classes are stupid, or he'll hire someone else anyway. Or the fact it pays the bills. I wonder how many of them would think it's okay for ds to do my math homework because he's a math person and besides I'll never use the subject again (*kidding*).  :glare:

 

I'm glad your colleges take it seriously. 

[Bootsie]

IME having a student who pays someone else to write a paper is one of the most difficult examples of academic dishonesty to prove.  It is easy much easier to prove that a student lifted a paper from the internet and turned it in as his own work.  

 

I am not saying that this makes it right.  I have been in the situation where I am highly suspicious that a student has done this, but there is no way that I can investigate and prove it.  

[Julie Smith]

I once read an article about someone who writes papers of all sorts. He was once hired by a school principal to write a paper highlighting the importance of not plagiarizing.

 

ETA I know want to reread that article. But I can't remember any details about it to make searching for it possible. The author writes various papers for all sorts of people. She (I think it was a she) talked about how she got into the job, and what it is like.

Edited March 15, 2017 by Julie Smith

[regentrude]

It's an industry. Nowadays, you can pay somebody to take a complete course for you, especially if it is an online course.

A colleague at another institution had a case where a student hired another person to complete the entire degree program for him - that person's photo was on the student ID, all the profs knew him under the enrolled student's name.

[Ann.without.an.e]

I've wondered about this because a friend was bragging that her son is making good money writing papers at his college.  I think in the larger, less personal schools they will never know and no one care, right?  The smaller school with honor code, I would think you could get expelled.  Just my initial thoughts. In either case, it is dishonest and wrong.

[AFwife Claire]

I've wondered about this because a friend was bragging that her son is making good money writing papers at his college.  I think in the larger, less personal schools they will never know and no one care, right?  The smaller school with honor code, I would think you could get expelled.  Just my initial thoughts. In either case, it is dishonest and wrong.

I don't know.  My oldest goes to VA Tech, which is a big school, and I remember how strongly they stood for academic integrity in orientation.  My son was worried about accidentally stringing together a few words that might be the same as someone else and being investigated!  I don't think that would happen (and so far it hasn't, and he's a sophomore, lol), but it didn't sound at all like they weren't going to worry about it!  

 

VT has quite a detailed honor code manual with definitions for plagarism and academic dishonesty, plus penalties, found here.  

[raptor_dad]

In 2007, I was taking some classes at University of Washington to consider a career change into bioinformatics and it was striking how much this could vary within the same university.

 

For instance in Biology or Chem, you'd fail that assignment. In the humanities, you'd at most fail that assignment and might be able to talk your way out of it and resubmit for a penalty.

 

However, in Computer Science or med school departments teaching undergrads like Biochem or Immunology, you'd fail the course. Those departments were very clear. They all had the same talk in the first lecture. They basically said look we know cheating is common, we know the deans office is complicit and doesn't *really* care, but we are crazy vindictive people. We have staff who will diligently follow your case. We'll show up at hearings. We will do everything possible to ensure you fail our course and kick you out of our major over the deans objection if needed.

 

Not surprisingly cheating was shockingly common in the former courses and relatively rare in the later.

 

PS: I have no idea how cheating is dealt with these days.

[daijobu]

 

 

However, in Computer Science or med school departments teaching undergrads like Biochem or Immunology, you'd fail the course. Those departments were very clear. They all had the same talk in the first lecture. They basically said look we know cheating is common, we know the deans office is complicit and doesn't *really* care, but we are crazy vindictive people. We have staff who will diligently follow your case. We'll show up at hearings. We will do everything possible to ensure you fail our course and kick you out of our major over the deans objection if needed.

 

 

:laugh:

[maize]

That is a very tricky question.

It would clearly be academic dishonesty, and if caught, the student would be referred to the office of the Vice provost for Undergraduate Studies (or something like that) which handles these cases.

The tricky part starts now: privacy rules prohibit that office from divulging information about consequences/punishment to the faculty! So, we hear the number of cases, but will not receive specific information. Students will first get a talking to, have to write a reflective paper (total BS in my opinion). In theory, suspension and expulsion are on the books as possible consequences, but are reserved for especially egregious violations. There is a campus wide committee on academic dishonesty which is handling formal proceedings in severe cases. Unfortunately, the decision of the committee is not binding but can be overruled by the chancellor.

 

I do not feel that these situations are handled as they should - but since we are not receiving specific information, it all goes into a black hole.

 

Instructors are not allowed to dole out consequences like failing a student or kicking them out of the course. They may only give a low grade on the assignment in question.

When you say instructors may give a low grade--can they at least give a 0 for that assignment? Surely that is the only grade that is deserved if the student themself did not write the paper.

[regentrude]

When you say instructors may give a low grade--can they at least give a 0 for that assignment? Surely that is the only grade that is deserved if the student themself did not write the paper.

 

They can give a zero. But only for the assignment in question.

[maize]

They can give a zero. But only for the assignment in question.

And proving that it was not the student who wrote the paper would be very difficult if the paper was indeed written by someone just for this assignment rather that being lifted from the internet or something.

 

I did have a science teacher in 9th grade accuse me of having a paper ghost written by someone else. Apparently my writing sounded too mature and academic to be believable.

 

Presumably that is not an assumption that college professors would make though.

[Crimson Wife]

When my DH was in grad school at Harvard, I was offered a job that would've paid $60k/yr to "edit" papers for foreign students. I turned it down when I discovered that I would be expected to do content creation rather than just cleaning up what the students had written. Looking back, I should've blown the whistle but I had been referred to this company by a good friend of my DH's & I was afraid that he might fall under suspicion even though he wasn't a client.

 

A lot of the problems could be avoided by giving in-class essays and red-flagging any student who performed dramatically different on those assignments than on out-of-class assignments. If a foreign student cannot string together a halfway coherent thought on an in-class essay but is getting A's on out-of-class ones, he/she is most likely buying papers from someone.

[teachermom2834]

I have a prof friend at a big university and pursuing academic dishonesty charges is very time consuming for her. The reports, hearings, etc. She is a stickler so she jumps the hoops but it is a lot of work for her. Most profs seem to just let the student rewrite and resubmit. It is just alot easier for the instructor. Now if accused student is a gifted athlete - it is that much more difficult to pursue the charges (even if only socially).

[regentrude]

nm 

 

Edited March 16, 2017 by regentrude

[eternalsummer]

It's an industry. Nowadays, you can pay somebody to take a complete course for you, especially if it is an online course.

A colleague at another institution had a case where a student hired another person to complete the entire degree program for him - that person's photo was on the student ID, all the profs knew him under the enrolled student's name.

 

wow!  

[Annie G]

Dh used to teach science at our local community college. A student submitted a research paper that he found on the internet- it was the work of a PhD student and this kid thought dh wouldn't notice that suddenly he was writing at a graduate level. Well, dh did find out by googling some phrases...he found the entire paper online. His boss said it was dh's call- he could choose to give a zero, fail the kid, whatever. 

So dh decided that he'd give the kid a chance to come clean and if he did then he'd give him a zero for the paper but not fail him. So he talked to the class about suspecting that someone had plagiarized and said he would be in his office after class and if anyone had anything they wanted to 'discuss'  then he'd consider showing some mercy. Two people came and confessed! But not the kid he was waiting for. 

 

Moral: kid didn't fess up until dh showed him the online proof. He was removed from class.  Dh dealt w/ students who confessed but often wondered how many kids did the same thing and he never knew. They didn't turn in a word for word copy but they did take someone else's paper and reword it. Same thing. 

[Mom22ns]

Two people came and confessed! But not the kid he was waiting for. 

 

:lol:

 

 

A lot of the problems could be avoided by giving in-class essays and red-flagging any student who performed dramatically different on those assignments than on out-of-class assignments. If a foreign student cannot string together a halfway coherent thought on an in-class essay but is getting A's on out-of-class ones, he/she is most likely buying papers from someone.

 

As long as the writing is original, I don't see how this would be caught most of the time. I tutor writing at tutor.com and I work with international students a lot. They come in with paper's in incomprehensible English and we spend hours working through each page with me telling them what's wrong and why and helping them make changes. They leave with a paper they were not capable of writing, but hopefully a little better understanding of English too. The difference between a paper they can spend hours writing and hours working on with tutors vs a paper they write in class would be dramatic. I work with many other native English speakers who are equally poor writers and we do the same thing. Turning in papers that are dramatically better if they are written outside of class might just mean the student spent a lot of time in the writing center, with tutors, etc. While a professor could become suspicious, as long as it is original work, I think it would nearly impossible to prove.

Edited March 17, 2017 by Momto2Ns

[Bootsie]

I've wondered about this because a friend was bragging that her son is making good money writing papers at his college.  I think in the larger, less personal schools they will never know and no one care, right?  The smaller school with honor code, I would think you could get expelled.  Just my initial thoughts. In either case, it is dishonest and wrong.

I do not think the size of the school necessarily determines how seriously academic dishonesty is taken.  I taught at a smaller, more personal school where academic dishonesty was not followed up on as much as when I was at a large, state, less personal school.  At the small, personal school the administration did not want any conflict and wanted to maintain tuition inflow.  At the large state university, those things weren't as important.

[Bootsie]

 

A lot of the problems could be avoided by giving in-class essays and red-flagging any student who performed dramatically different on those assignments than on out-of-class assignments. If a foreign student cannot string together a halfway coherent thought on an in-class essay but is getting A's on out-of-class ones, he/she is most likely buying papers from someone.

These types of problems are in no way limited to foreign students.  And, the problems are not limited to writing assignments.  I have had students who I have suspected of hiring someone to do online homework problems for them.  They make a 100 on the online homework bur cannot work a single problem when they come into my office.  I can red flag them, but that doesn't prove academic dishonesty.  There are many advertisements for "tutoring" services on the internet that are simply doing the homework for pay.  

 

But then, I know many students who hired tutors to edit their college admissions essay that the essay looked very little like the student's work by the time it was submitted.  DD university has several 'high school days' where students can take their math placement exams, etc.  Part of that day is a written essay; it is not a required part of the admissions office, but the university says they learn a lot more about the student's ability in that on-site essay than they do from the essays included in the admissions packet.

[Dmmetler]

And proving that it was not the student who wrote the paper would be very difficult if the paper was indeed written by someone just for this assignment rather that being lifted from the internet or something.

 

I did have a science teacher in 9th grade accuse me of having a paper ghost written by someone else. Apparently my writing sounded too mature and academic to be believable.

 

Presumably that is not an assumption that college professors would make though.

One of my DD's mentors has put in recommendation letters for my DD for programs that require essays that "her writing, even under supervised timed situations, is very mature and follows formal science writing conventions, to a degree rarely seen even in college undergraduates". Her reason is that she suspects that otherwise DD's essay might get placed in the "assumed to be copied/ghostwritten/overly edited by an adult" pile-when actually it's just that she has read so many professional journals that she's absorbed the writing style.

[Bluegoat]

:lol:

 

 

 

 

As long as the writing is original, I don't see how this would be caught most of the time. I tutor writing at tutor.com and I work with international students a lot. They come in with paper's in incomprehensible English and we spend hours working through each page with me telling them what's wrong and why and helping them make changes. They leave with a paper they were not capable of writing, but hopefully a little better understanding of English too. The difference between a paper they can spend hours writing and hours working on with tutors vs a paper they write in class would be dramatic. I work with many other native English speakers who are equally poor writers and we do the same thing. Turning in papers that are dramatically better if they are written outside of class might just mean the student spent a lot of time in the writing center, with tutors, etc. While a professor could become suspicious, as long as it is original work, I think it would nearly impossible to prove.

 

Yes, that would be the tricky part.  I caught a student for submitting a faked paper when I was teaching in the army - I could tell it wasn't his writing - but I could only prove it because I found it online. 

 

That being said, I had a professor who was a philologist, and told us that if we cheated he'd have no problem proving it.  But I guess that wouldn't be practical for most classes.

[Bluegoat]

These types of problems are in no way limited to foreign students.  And, the problems are not limited to writing assignments.  I have had students who I have suspected of hiring someone to do online homework problems for them.  They make a 100 on the online homework bur cannot work a single problem when they come into my office.  I can red flag them, but that doesn't prove academic dishonesty.  There are many advertisements for "tutoring" services on the internet that are simply doing the homework for pay.  

 

But then, I know many students who hired tutors to edit their college admissions essay that the essay looked very little like the student's work by the time it was submitted.  DD university has several 'high school days' where students can take their math placement exams, etc.  Part of that day is a written essay; it is not a required part of the admissions office, but the university says they learn a lot more about the student's ability in that on-site essay than they do from the essays included in the admissions packet.

 

I've wondered about this - my sister recently completed a program with a thesis, and the people in the program all seemed to hire editors.

 

I don't remember that for grad or postgrad students in my area - they would have proofreaders, often other students, but not editors as such.  Their advisors of course would give some feedback.

 

I've wondered if this was a change, or a difference in area of study.  It always seemed for us that the idea was that the student needed to be a competent writer - but that on the other hand, they were writing academic papers, not popular literature.  So the pressure was mostly about the content.

[Bootsie]

I've wondered about this - my sister recently completed a program with a thesis, and the people in the program all seemed to hire editors.

 

I don't remember that for grad or postgrad students in my area - they would have proofreaders, often other students, but not editors as such.  Their advisors of course would give some feedback.

 

I've wondered if this was a change, or a difference in area of study.  It always seemed for us that the idea was that the student needed to be a competent writer - but that on the other hand, they were writing academic papers, not popular literature.  So the pressure was mostly about the content.

This gets into some grey areas.  Before desktop computers, most graduate students hired people to type their dissertations.  The typist would check for spelling, grammar errors, clean up references, etc.  I received my PhD in the late 1980s, and I was the first student that the department was aware of who had not hired someone as a typist.

 

A school district in my area brags about how many of their employees have a doctorate--they are all coming from the same school.  They are hiring a statistician to do their statistical work and analysis (this is noted in the "acknowledgements" of their dissertation); the dissertations are on similar topics:  one will be titled "The Predictive Value of 3rd Grade Student's XYZ scores on Middle School Mathematics Success" and another will be titled "Using 4th Grade Student's XYZ Scores to Predict Success in Middle School Mathematics"  Throughout the dissertation the presentation of data looks identical--just the raw data is different.  

 

IMO this crosses the line of academic dishonesty.  It goes beyond hiring a consultant to help with a specialized problem to hiring someone to do the basic academic work.  

[regentrude]

A school district in my area brags about how many of their employees have a doctorate--they are all coming from the same school.  They are hiring a statistician to do their statistical work and analysis (this is noted in the "acknowledgements" of their dissertation); the dissertations are on similar topics:  one will be titled "The Predictive Value of 3rd Grade Student's XYZ scores on Middle School Mathematics Success" and another will be titled "Using 4th Grade Student's XYZ Scores to Predict Success in Middle School Mathematics"  Throughout the dissertation the presentation of data looks identical--just the raw data is different.  

 

IMO this crosses the line of academic dishonesty.  It goes beyond hiring a consultant to help with a specialized problem to hiring someone to do the basic academic work.  

 

The problem is that the department issues these doctoral degrees - they have serious degree inflation. The adviser should not OK the thesis proposal, and if he does, the thesis committee should realize that these are not novel independent research topics and should not grant multiple degrees for what is essentially the same work. In a real science this would never fly.

Crap like this is what gives education "research" a bad name. And totally devalues a degree in education. 

Edited March 22, 2017 by regentrude

[Bootsie]

The problem is that the department issues these doctoral degrees - they have serious degree inflation. The adviser should not OK the thesis proposal, and if he does, the thesis committee should realize that these are not novel independent research topics and should not grant multiple degrees for what is essentially the same work. In a real science this would never fly.

Crap like this is what gives education "research" a bad name. And totally devalues a degree in education. 

The department should not be doing this and the graduate programs office should be overseeing it.  The school also has a requirement that someone outside the department be on the committee, but even with that oversight, it is occurring.  This is at a flagship state university!  

 

Then these people who have received degrees of little worth are the top ranking people at the local school district and are in charge of academic standards. 

[Mandamom]

I'm currently working on my M.S. at LSU (online) and am currently taking a research course and they are emphasizing (ok...scaring the crap out of us) what will happen if we even accidentally plagiarize. They would have a signficant problem with buying a paper. 

 

I will say that there hasn't been much asked regarding IDs and what not so I kind of feel like I could be anyone taking the class -- or hiring someone to take the class if I wanted (I don't).