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I really appreciate your honesty and the knowledge you shared here, but I fear your rationalizations about why what you did is not unethical are just that - rat

I really appreciate your honesty and the knowledge you shared here, but I fear your rationalizations about why what you did is not unethical are just that - rationalizations. It's wrong to do others work for them and let them represent it as their own, no matter how mundane the subject matter. It lets them receive qualifications that they didn't earn and others who want those qualifications in competition with them, do not receive them. It might just be a mundane 10 hour essay, but that person may not have had the time management skills, writing skills, or will to do it and therefore should not have received the marks that he did. On the other hand, if you didn't do it, somebody else would - but again that's a rationalization!

jfoutz 12y ago
Security is up to the grantor of the certification. It really can't be any other way. Asking students to be ethical is worthwhile, but it's sort of like the pull-out method of contraception - just not very effective.
- WoodenChair 12y ago
  >Security is up to the grantor of the certification. I'm not exactly sure what you're replying to. I didn't say anything about security - I simply was making the point that participation in this effort is largely unethical.
  - jfoutz 12y ago
    I see, I was confused about your point. I jumped to the conclusion that you were arguing a qualification implied an ethical standard.
- MereInterest 12y ago
  You are mistaking security and ethics. Yes, it is up to the university to make sure that people aren't cheating. No, that it no way makes it ethical to cheat.
ploxiln 12y ago
It's probably fair if those degrees / professions which are based on bullshit essays have a lot of bullshit graduates / good-looking applicants. (Yes I'm a bit bitter about high school english courses and college admissions processes favouring good bullshitters. I was still accepted to a good engineering school and had good success job hunting by demonstrating my skills in-person, so it ended well for me anyway.)
cgio 12y ago
"It's wrong to do others work for them and let them represent it as their own" which is what I do in my everyday job. And I am not shadow-writing, I am a consultant...Writing ideas that superiors represent as their own, or clients do. I guess this is capitalism, life or something. And someone not worth it has to be promoted before I do, as in the author's case someone has to be admitted for her to live.
- sk5t 12y ago
  Your ideas and work product are the ideas and work product of the organization, which your superiors represent... different kettle of fish.
  - cgio 12y ago
    People belong in organisations, have roles in organisations, but also act within organisations and with reference to their organisations. The assertion of representation is not always valid, and I am sure many people get the context of what I am suggesting here. Now, in the admissions process of the example, an organisation (ad-hoc but valid) is also present and the paying applicant represents the financial relationship they built with their shadow writer. Why is the ethical context different when we consider mystic, gargantuan organisations than when we consider rich, clueless teenagers?
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - ghshephard 12y ago
    I had a friend who got her degree from UC Berkeley, and maybe wrote 5-10% of her work, she had other people (Friends, Lovers, colleagues) write all the others - she was a master of manipulation. Who is to say that the valuable skill she developed wasn't her delegation and management skills, and that those were far more important in the long term than her ability to wax poetically about Plato's Republic? The fact that she had to write that 5-10%, and do the occasional in class essay, that she did okay in, suggests that not writing the other 90-95% didn't seem to negatively impact her, "Learning Experience." What I find particularly humorous, of course, is that all these random people, none of whom had taken any of the course work, or background that she presumably had, and many of them without college degrees, were capable of whipping out a paper with a day or two of research (under her guidance, and with a bit of her editing and supplying of facts) that passed muster at Berkeley.
Padding 12y ago
> It's wrong to do others work for them and let them represent it as their own This is an intricate topic. On what grounds do you claim this to be wrong? What is the alternative and why is it so much better? > It lets them receive qualifications that they didn't earn and others who want those qualifications in competition with them, do not receive them. You are mistaken here. From what I read in the article it seems these admissions essays have little to do with actually picking out the people most qualified for the positions, but rather the people that can hit the reviewers' emotions the hardest. This is an inadequate system to begin with. Any fault should be placed on the people in charge of the system rather than the individuals trying to wiggle their way through it. Frakly, I'm disgusted by how our society treats people sometimes.. "You have to be timid yet idealistic, ambitious yet giving, and reserved yet honest" What is this crap? Why can't we let people be what they are? How is this any better than discrimating based on physical properties? Why should anyone care about anything more than aplicants being honest, faithful/conscientious and qualified?! > It might just be a mundane 10 hour essay, but that person may not have had the time management skills, writing skills, or will to do it and therefore should not have received the marks that he did All qualifications required for the titles earned will (or at least should) be taught to the students during the course of their studies. If they lack the time management skills necessary for the degree, the evaluation of their abilities during the course of the studies should make sure they eventually fail. If the students find ways to offset their limitations, then I fail to see any issue. Don't we all have limitations that we eventually need to find ways around? If they don't find ways around their limitations, and the system still awards them a degree, the blame still lies on the system. Humans are fallible individuals, and only so much can be done about that. It is processes that should be engineered to perfection, in order to guide the people within them towards making the right choices. Not the other way round.
baddox 12y ago
What is your ethical opinion on paid tutors?
rwallace 12y ago
It's okay to point fingers at unethical behavior. It's not okay to do it that selectively. As someone reading about this from the other side of the Atlantic, what I'm seeing is an entire system that's corrupt from the top down, with the sort of crazily ridiculous levels of corruption I'm used to reading about in the most dysfunctional of Third World dictatorships. Frankly, unless radical changes are made, I wouldn't be optimistic about how long a society like that can keep coasting along on the momentum of past glory. Ghostwritten essays are the least of the bad behavior generated by the system that creates such terrible incentives. If you want to call out the unethical behavior of the ghostwriters, fine, but if you want to have a leg to stand on in doing so, do it in the context of also calling out the rotten system that creates their jobs.
SilasX 12y ago
It's not either/or. They could both be in the wrong here: - It's wrong to help others pass off someone else's work as their own. - It's wrong to promote a field or degree program that's so shallow that this kind of thing even works.

jfoutz 12y ago

Security is up to the grantor of the certification. It really can't be any other way. Asking students to be ethical is worthwhile, but it's sort of like the pull-out method of contraception - just not very effective.

WoodenChair 12y ago
>Security is up to the grantor of the certification. I'm not exactly sure what you're replying to. I didn't say anything about security - I simply was making the point that participation in this effort is largely unethical.
- jfoutz 12y ago
  I see, I was confused about your point. I jumped to the conclusion that you were arguing a qualification implied an ethical standard.
MereInterest 12y ago
You are mistaking security and ethics. Yes, it is up to the university to make sure that people aren't cheating. No, that it no way makes it ethical to cheat.

ploxiln 12y ago

It's probably fair if those degrees / professions which are based on bullshit essays have a lot of bullshit graduates / good-looking applicants. (Yes I'm a bit bitter about high school english courses and college admissions processes favouring good bullshitters. I was still accepted to a good engineering school and had good success job hunting by demonstrating my skills in-person, so it ended well for me anyway.)

cgio 12y ago

"It's wrong to do others work for them and let them represent it as their own" which is what I do in my everyday job. And I am not shadow-writing, I am a consultant...Writing ideas that superiors represent as their own, or clients do. I guess this is capitalism, life or something. And someone not worth it has to be promoted before I do, as in the author's case someone has to be admitted for her to live.

sk5t 12y ago
Your ideas and work product are the ideas and work product of the organization, which your superiors represent... different kettle of fish.
- cgio 12y ago
  People belong in organisations, have roles in organisations, but also act within organisations and with reference to their organisations. The assertion of representation is not always valid, and I am sure many people get the context of what I am suggesting here. Now, in the admissions process of the example, an organisation (ad-hoc but valid) is also present and the paying applicant represents the financial relationship they built with their shadow writer. Why is the ethical context different when we consider mystic, gargantuan organisations than when we consider rich, clueless teenagers?
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- ghshephard 12y ago
  I had a friend who got her degree from UC Berkeley, and maybe wrote 5-10% of her work, she had other people (Friends, Lovers, colleagues) write all the others - she was a master of manipulation. Who is to say that the valuable skill she developed wasn't her delegation and management skills, and that those were far more important in the long term than her ability to wax poetically about Plato's Republic? The fact that she had to write that 5-10%, and do the occasional in class essay, that she did okay in, suggests that not writing the other 90-95% didn't seem to negatively impact her, "Learning Experience." What I find particularly humorous, of course, is that all these random people, none of whom had taken any of the course work, or background that she presumably had, and many of them without college degrees, were capable of whipping out a paper with a day or two of research (under her guidance, and with a bit of her editing and supplying of facts) that passed muster at Berkeley.

Padding 12y ago

> It's wrong to do others work for them and let them represent it as their own This is an intricate topic. On what grounds do you claim this to be wrong? What is the alternative and why is it so much better? > It lets them receive qualifications that they didn't earn and others who want those qualifications in competition with them, do not receive them. You are mistaken here. From what I read in the article it seems these admissions essays have little to do with actually picking out the people most qualified for the positions, but rather the people that can hit the reviewers' emotions the hardest. This is an inadequate system to begin with. Any fault should be placed on the people in charge of the system rather than the individuals trying to wiggle their way through it. Frakly, I'm disgusted by how our society treats people sometimes.. "You have to be timid yet idealistic, ambitious yet giving, and reserved yet honest" What is this crap? Why can't we let people be what they are? How is this any better than discrimating based on physical properties? Why should anyone care about anything more than aplicants being honest, faithful/conscientious and qualified?! > It might just be a mundane 10 hour essay, but that person may not have had the time management skills, writing skills, or will to do it and therefore should not have received the marks that he did All qualifications required for the titles earned will (or at least should) be taught to the students during the course of their studies. If they lack the time management skills necessary for the degree, the evaluation of their abilities during the course of the studies should make sure they eventually fail. If the students find ways to offset their limitations, then I fail to see any issue. Don't we all have limitations that we eventually need to find ways around? If they don't find ways around their limitations, and the system still awards them a degree, the blame still lies on the system. Humans are fallible individuals, and only so much can be done about that. It is processes that should be engineered to perfection, in order to guide the people within them towards making the right choices. Not the other way round.

baddox 12y ago

What is your ethical opinion on paid tutors?

rwallace 12y ago

It's okay to point fingers at unethical behavior. It's not okay to do it that selectively. As someone reading about this from the other side of the Atlantic, what I'm seeing is an entire system that's corrupt from the top down, with the sort of crazily ridiculous levels of corruption I'm used to reading about in the most dysfunctional of Third World dictatorships. Frankly, unless radical changes are made, I wouldn't be optimistic about how long a society like that can keep coasting along on the momentum of past glory. Ghostwritten essays are the least of the bad behavior generated by the system that creates such terrible incentives. If you want to call out the unethical behavior of the ghostwriters, fine, but if you want to have a leg to stand on in doing so, do it in the context of also calling out the rotten system that creates their jobs.

SilasX 12y ago

It's not either/or. They could both be in the wrong here: - It's wrong to help others pass off someone else's work as their own. - It's wrong to promote a field or degree program that's so shallow that this kind of thing even works.