For some time I’ve been considering a business model whereby I take a student’s preliminary draft of a written assignment and revise it for grammar, spelling and style. The underlying principle is not to do the student’s research, or prepare the content, but just to revise the expression of the content.
Would I be abetting and participating in academic dishonesty by doing so? If I join my former uni’s Faculty Club, which I am entitled to do as an Alumni Association Life Member, and approach the English and liberal arts professors with this idea, would I be rebuffed? I would think not, since it could be regarded as a form of tutoring.
I am not a professor, but I am pretty sure that is not going to be OK. You can’t have any help even if it’s just for spelling or grammar. Of course Word will help you out in those areas but that is just software, not a person.
I have oversight over my University’s Writing Center and I can tell you that a core principle of tutoring is to tell the student strategies for rewriting his own paper, and keep tangible hints and examples to a minimum. What you are talking about is basically providing example after example of what’s wrong with the student’s work, and fixing it for him–we would NOT consider that tutoring at all, but plagiarism. Sorry.
Sounds like ghost-writing to me. Would you get an “as told to” credit?
I am not a writing instructor, but it seems to me that the point of writing assignments is not the product but the process. The instructor didn’t assign the paper because he wanted a paper, but because he wanted the student to learn how to write (or gain practice in writing) such a paper. For you to do it for the student would in that case be missing the point.
I’d consider it to be academic dishonesty. Part of the assignment is properly expressing information in written form. In writing courses, that’s pretty much the point of the assignment.
Think there may be problems under an honor code with an independent work provision and/or NCAA rules, too.
My ESL students would do it all the time, and it would drive me up the wall. “Oh, my cousin helped me.” Yeah, if by help you mean rewrote the whole thing for you.
I DID encourage my students to read each other’s papers and give each other suggestions, but I made it clear that any outside help which altered the paper significantly would be considered plagiarism. (As an instructor it’s usually blatantly obvious when a student doesn’t do their own writing - something my students would stupidly refuse to believe until they got caught.)
This would not be cool with me, either. Written assignments have two purposes - to teach research skills in a particular area and to teach communication skills. That sort of service would deprive the student of a good chunk of the point of the assignment. I’d be likely to view it as a violation of the university’s honor code.
A fair amount of this sort of thing happens at my university, but it’s being done by other students and not tutors or lecturers. Invariably it’s “Assignment Editing” for Asian students whose English skills aren’t (obviously) as good as a native English speaker’s.
It’s… Frowned Upon (and not something I’m involved with; I’ve got quite enough of my own work to do), and there’s also concerns of subconscious “improvement” being made to the piece as well.
My personal advice would be against the idea as I can see it being… problematic for someone eventually. Having said that, there’s no reason why you can’t run the idea past the English/Arts faculties and see what they say. You might get a form of semi-official Approval, which could be quite helpful if you decide to run with the idea. At any rate, you’d have a definitive answer from them.
I looked through you site, and also a sample of your work.
Personally, looking at the comments that you made I wouldn’t have thought it would be a problem. You are not suggesting arguments, dooing research or anything - and you are not “rewriting” on thier behalf.
I would see not too much difference between the comments you made and the comments any competent professor or tutor would have made.
BTW - I notice that you used a .edu domain in the email - I am assuming this is your WORK (as in Day Job) email? If so I would suggest that maybe you change it? Your boss may not be so happy about that
Sounds like our writing center when I was in college. Getting help with a paper is an excellent way to learn how to write better, especially when the comments from your profs amount to little more than “Very good. B+” I thought most schools had free services like this. I guess not.
As long as you’re not actually rewriting it, I don’t see the problem. Handing back a paper covered in red ink so that they can keep working on it seems like a good thing to me. Were you planning on returning something with comments and corrections, or a re-typed copy that’s ready to turn in?
This sort of editing is routinely done on postgraduate work such as theses and dissertations, but as far as I know it’s usual to get the permission of the student’s reviewers/advisors. (Not sure of the details as I don’t do this sort of work myself.)
Sounds kind of dodgy for undergrad work, though. I did typing and made editorial suggestions for a friend of mine (she has neuro damage and typing is very difficult for her), but (1) we were both students and (2) I only made suggestions and explained why, and she had the final say.
I had a grandiose response typed up here, until I reread the OP. I actually don’t think there’s a major problem here. The only two things that make me a little uneasy is the preliminary draft part - I feel what the OP is offering is essentially copyediting, which should be done toward the final stages. There’s too much of an opportunity to “lose voice” at the early draft stage, IMO.
The other thing is “style” - what does that entail? One of the requirements of graduate writing in my department is mastery of correct citation formats. There are a number of stylebooks, web resources, and software that can automate this process. If you can’t cite correctly, that to me is an indication that you are careless as there are so many resources available. Getting help here is not okay with me; it’s a competency of graduate education, and the idea of someone being able to pay someone else to do this rubs me the wrong way.
I also think that students that utilize this service need to acknowledge and credit its use. What the OP is essentially offering up is a writing/editing service, and that’s certainly permissible. I think it’s worthwhile to pursue a few conversations with faculty members at the institution and get their perspectives - and perhaps even an endorsement from a friendly professor would help the business as well. If there’s a judicial board, talking to the chair about the model would also help your credibility and indicate problem areas.
Of course, the OP should familiarize him/herself with the institution’s writing guide as well and know precisely what is permissible and what is not.
HH - current graduate school prof and former member of school judicial board
As far as I’m concerned, teaching students how to spot problems for themselves and fix them is always kosher. That’s what university writing centers do, after all. But the student needs to be the one holding the pen; otherwise, the student is passing off someone else’s work as his or her own, and that crosses a major ethical line.
In other words, “Hey, I noticed the citations in this paper are formatted incorrectly; here’s an example, and here’s what it should look like so you know how to fix the rest of them” is fine; taking the paper away from the student and fixing the citations yourself without any input from the author is not.
What you are describing falls under academic misconduct as “personating” - misrepresenting another’s work (yours) as their own. It is academic misconduct for the student, and a disciplinary offence if the person doing the editing is a member of staff.
Allowable: proofreading and highlighting problems with grammar and spelling. Suggesting small corrections.
Not-allowable: making the corrections yourself.
Note that the allowable level of input from others may vary for undergraduate assessment and postgraduate research, but that in postgraduate research acknowledging contributions is standard and necessary, whereas acknowledging assistance in an undergraduate assignment may be an admission of guilt.
When I was an undergrad, I had a friend go over my papers prior to submission. She didn’t make any material changes, she just proofread and told me if she thought a sentence was unclear. I did give her credit on the bibliography page, however, and any professor who had a problem with that told me so.
As long as you’re just proofreading and making suggestions, I don’t see the problem with it. Any professor who doesn’t want his students to do that is a) an idiot, and b) will usually tell the student not to do it again.
I did this sort of work for MBA students when I was an undergrad. I worked (doing admin stuff) for the College of Business and the professors would refer their students to me on a freelance basis. None of the students I did work for were native English speakers.
