<p>Is unethical people. No matter how well you try to cover it up or how much you beat around the bush, don’t do it.</p>
<p>I’ve seen a lot of intelligent people go down the drain in their academic careers for wanting a quick buck.</p>
<p>Why prostitute yourself in any way to earn money? Please PM me your name so I never hire someone with your set of ethics. No, it is NOT okay as long as you don’t get caught. You don’t seem to care about the ethics, but it would look very bad on your record if this was ever discovered. Consider this- you write for someone, then need to write a paper for yourself, obviously your style will come out in both- should you get accused of plagarism? Or, one of the people you ghost wrote for is up for the same position, you get it , they don’t- will they expose you to get even? You think risking your good name and reputation is worth it? Why not just rob a bank? At least you do less intellectual harm to another student that way (ie not making them do their own thinking).</p>
<p>ah, yeppers…its called fraud and plagerism, that student is presenting their work as yours…</p>
<p>and if they were busted, don’t you think they would be pressured to turn you in? uh huh!! and would you want to trust a cheater to NOT turn you in…</p>
<p>Just had a set of PM’s from OP- chose this as a way to bring up the subject, maybe this thread will be deleted- or will have learned how not to introduce subjects.</p>
<p>Since we don’t know the name of your institution, we can’t tell you specifically. You may want to contrive to somehow anonymously contact your institution’s ombudsperson and ask them. Personally, I think you are playing with fire. An institution can revoke a degree after it has been awarded, even years later. </p>
<p>Second, for someone with such a talent for writing, you are selling yourself short. Set yourself up as a writing coach for high school students, or struggling students at your own institution, and help them develop their own voices. Start submitting writing samples and pieces to newspapers in your own name. Talk to your professors and find out if they have suggestions on how you can either earn ready untainted money, or ways in which you can bolster your future resume so that you get a higher starting salary when you finish school.</p>
<p>Finally, get it through your head that anything you send out over the internet is anything but “confidential”. I’ve seen at least one internet vigilante expose, with great glee, the name, address, phone number, and university of a student shopping around for a paper. If you happen to stumble across someone looking to do a similar expose on the supply side, good luck getting a job; guess what is going to pop up first when an HR director googles on your name?</p>
<p>By the way,</p>
<p>I loved how you used the term “prositute” in reference to writing essays for money!</p>
<p>Most colleges take cheating very seriously, and all of the ethics codes that I’ve seen treat it as a two-party offense, i.e. you’re equally accountable whether you’re copying your friend’s homework, or whether you’re the friend who’s letting her homework be copied. I don’t know how this would play out if one person attended a different institution, but if she’s receiving credit for your work, it’s definitely still cheating, and I wouldn’t want to push those boundaries (especially not if I had a lot at stake, which, as a high-achieving student, you clearly do).</p>
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<p>First of all, I can definitely think of ways. They may or may not be likely, but they exist. Secondly, your “if” implies, to me, that you’re not totally clear re: the seriousness of what you’d be doing. I can’t imagine a single college in the country not having regulations against (and major consequences for) this. </p>
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<p>Definitely not…not much (if any) better than paying your loans by stealing. For some reason or other, not everyone see a big problem with doing homework/papers for others, but I don’t think there’s much grey about it. And ethics aside, as you say, I do think that you could be putting yourself at risk, potentially if your school somehow found out, but almost definitely if future employers or application committees found out. I personally wouldn’t waste time worrying about whether any of these people would likely find out…the mere possibility would be plenty for me…</p>
<p>Your school may have a tutoring program and/or writing center where you could work. If not, it’s likely that you could work with a local tutoring company, or even advertise your services independently. The trick will be learning how to tutor writing, which, done well, is not the same as editing (and can’t get you or the tutee in trouble for dishonesty).</p>
<p>I’m sure you’ll be able to find something more workable. Good luck :)</p>
<p>ETA: By the way, in defense of wis75, that was a perfectly legitimate use of the verb ‘prostitute’ (<a href=“http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/prostitute[/url]”>http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/prostitute</a>)…</p>
<p>OP- you need to reveal that YOU personally have no intent to do the deed but tried to introduce the topic in an attention getting way.</p>
<p>Sorry-- this thread was meant to show the absurdity of writing others’ papers. I didn’t quite get the sarcasm/preposterous-ness out!</p>
<p>Ahh…did not get that! Thanks for the clarification.</p>
<p>historybuff: If this thread is going to stay active, would you mind posting a brief summary of the original original post? Responses might make more sense in that context, and thus help keep the debate alive. </p>
<p>Seems like there shouldn’t be much “debate,” really, but there have been numerous CC threads about cheating, and a fair number of people just aren’t that bothered by it…I’m always astounded. I’m holding my breath for an onslaught of posts that claim “Everybody does it and if you say you don’t, you’re lying, so why shouldn’t I make some money?” (maybe less of an issue in the Parents Forum).</p>
<p>I remember years ago asking an acquaintance how he made a living. “Writing PhD theses at $5000 each.”</p>
<p>He’d written fifty of them.</p>
<p>Wow. That is astounding! Looks like I can get into that business and make more than an equity partner at Watchell! ;)</p>
<p>Well, is it REALLY bad, I mean, if you’re just “helping”? If you use someone’s ideas and make them better and write great theses and outlines for them and fill in a little? It’s not really plagiarism, is it?</p>
<p>(Is that good Student615?)</p>
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<p>It’s the gist! The original post was (at one time) set up as a pretend argument from an undergrad asking whether this might be a good way to make some money, and whether–particularly if her services were confidential–she could actually get in any trouble for it. </p>
<p>(Just be aware, in general, that it’s sometimes very difficult to sort the real arguments from the preposterous-ness! ;))</p>
<p>ETA: I assumed that the first post was removed simply because it was confusing/misleading. But if there’s another reason that I shouldn’t be describing it, please, of course, accept my apologies and edit my description right out!</p>
<p>Well I think the ethics and moral codes behind this really depend on the sum of money being talked about, don’t you all agree? ;)</p>
<p><em>add a bit of sarcasm</em></p>
<p>50 Ph.D. theses at $5,000. Over how many years? An assistant prof’s salary would be around $50k a year. It would take 5 years and only ONE Ph.d. thesis to make that much.
This is not an argument for writing other people’s theses! I did type H’s Ph.D. thesis–but that is a different story!</p>
<p>I drew pictures and diagrams for Ph.D. theses back in the days when there were no computer graphics programs to make it easy for scientists to do it themselves.</p>
<p>The man I knew who wrote PhD theses for a living wrote about one/month, sometimes less. This was in the late '70s. The people he wrote them for had to defend them–he couldn’t help with that. He was a college dropout but knew an astounding amount about many different subjects. I have no idea what he’s doing now–lost contact in the early '80s.</p>
<p>I typed papers for money in college-back then it was me and my IBM Selectric and I’m an over 100 wpm typist. My rule was that I told students ahead of time, I will type exactly what you write. I am an English major but I will not correct your spelling, grammar, syntax, etc. If you spelled it wrong I will type it the way you spelled it.</p>
<p>Sorry (10 char)</p>
<p>So what is the difference between someone who ghost writes, writes but is the second author, writes professionally, researches for a professor, does major designing for an architect, writes for the President. </p>
<p>Write all you want, the purchaser decides on the product’s use. Remember we did sell Saddam the knowledge for WMD’s.</p>