I remember the "paper services" that were always posting stuff around campus when I was in college. Now that field has gotten a lot more sophisticated. Today you can browse through online sites containing tens of thousands of essays, and you can get a custom essay written for you, in your own writing style, in a matter of hours. As a teacher, I find this disturbing, because the whole purpose in of an essay assignment is for the student to learn about his/her topic and the writing process itself. Then there are the consequences that come with turning in one of these papers as your own – a college friend did exactly that and found himself expelled before the end of the week. Cheating has consequences -- and it is even easier for teachers to track down cheating today than it was in past years.

But I have no problem in principle with a company like FratFiles.com offering students access to papers and essays on common (or not so common) subjects. They do provide a good jumping-off point for research, and may even direct students to resources (online and print) that they might not have otherwise found. And they do offer some very good free essays for your examination. I am, on the other hand, less than pleased by their custom-writing service – after all, even if the essays are plagiarism-free, doesn't submitting them as one's own work constitute an act of plagiarism? I know how I would handle such a situation in my classroom – and how I have in the past.

Posted by: Greg at 12:40 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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