# My boss wants me to help his kid cheat. Should I? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 25, 2008, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167 "2008-09-25T16:16:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e56c9b/32.png) [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harriet_the_Spry)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2008, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/181 "2008-09-27T22:02:24Z")
> [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](#): > > As I’ve gone 'round this topic a few times now, I am going to take your post as God telling me to leave the thread. Which is odd, because I don’t technically believe in him. It seems even odder because after all the vitriol that was spewed in this thread I was making a pretty straightforward observation that I hadn’t seen in previous posts–that this kid is not losing out on his chance to play in the NBA, or to complete his degree at all, or being persecuted by a professor out to get him, or in fact facing anything other than inconvenient timing. I really don’t think that makes me the voice of God. But on the off chance I am temporarily divine I’ll assume you can get this message without continuing to subscribe to the thread. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [September 27, 2008, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/182 "2008-09-27T22:51:39Z")
If I were a right bastard I would: 1. Write the paper and take the money. 2. Post the paper online. 3. Let the professor find it. But hey, I would also refuse to work for someone who’s that dishonest, too. ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/183 "2008-09-28T06:46:03Z")
How to _ **Get It Done** _. A successful executive in the making. Take the money, turn in a credible, honest paper, get points with the uber-boss. Now you know how he got to be uber-boss. And yes, a kid wanting to buy his way out of his work I(N SEPT? Class started when? By end of the semester, you should have a credit card or two paid off 🙂 ) is morally deficient. Big deal. See (insert political entity here). For your morals: if the instructor scans for plagerization, s/he probably will also be amazed that the kid who seems to be drowning in class can suddenly write a grad student level paper on a topic s/he was reasonable certain he couldn’t spell. p.s. - my mother, one grandmother, and a brother were teachers. I helped grade English papers - a couple seemed to have been written by people who weren’t 8th graders in the wide-spot-in-the-road school where mother worked (she was quite bright, but no Master’s at the time). ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/184 "2008-09-28T12:41:15Z")
> [@Harriet\_the\_Spry](#): > > Maybe. What I really see, though, is someone willing to cut corners to save a buck. Because the most likely consequence of the son not writing this paper is winding up 3 liberal arts credits short of his degree requirement and needing to make that up in summer school, probably on dad’s dime. Doubtlessly so. If an engineer were to do that in the so-called “real world” though, the consequences can be dire indeed. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/185 "2008-09-28T13:56:14Z")
I’ve cheated. I’ve helped people cheat. I believe there are plenty of good reasons to cheat and/or help people cheat. But I’ve also lived in cultures where cheating is not considered a big problem. Places where teachers knowingly accept plagiarized work. I’ve even worked in places where cheating could be construed as positive. It’s not a good thing for society. It breeds students who have trouble with basic critical thinking skills. It encourages people not to ever question authority. It teaches that appearing correct is more important than being correct. People learn in school that the goal is to create a perfect appearance- not to create or delve or learn. And so they spend their lives bowing to authority, doctoring things so that they present a perfect appearance, and never stepping out of the box to anticipate and solve problems. The problems that come from this are profound. Now I couldn’t say that cheating was the cause of this rather than a symptom. But it was part of it. ---
**Author:** ![TV\_time](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f17d59/32.png) [@TV\_time](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TV_time)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/186 "2008-09-28T22:59:52Z")
My suggestion - 1. Do it. Do a fantastic job. Make it so good that only a total iliterate could think an engineering undergrad did the job. Give it to the boss. Collect your pieces of silver and donate it to charity. 1. Email the college professor from a third-party email address stating that you know a certain engineering undergrad hired an expert in the field to write his paper. 2. Start looking for another job. You are now a reminder of nasty doing to your boss. He will either try to bury you or ax you after awhile whether you do the job or not. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/187 "2008-09-28T23:31:05Z")
> [@TV\_time](#): > > My suggestion - 1. Do it. Do a fantastic job. Make it so good that only a total iliterate could think an engineering undergrad did the job. Give it to the boss. Collect your pieces of silver and donate it to charity. > > 1. Email the college professor from a third-party email address stating that you know a certain engineering undergrad hired an expert in the field to write his paper. > > 2. Start looking for another job. You are now a reminder of nasty doing to your boss. He will either try to bury you or ax you after awhile whether you do the job or not. I have ethical problems with this suggestion. [Hereabouts](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=485458)I discuss them. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/188 "2008-09-29T13:20:47Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > **Contrapuntal** was saying that **Hilarity N. Suze** was inconsistent for saying that ghostwriting is okay but cheating on student essays isn’t. No, I wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/189 "2008-09-29T14:31:48Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > No, I wasn’t. Ah, then I misunderstood you, or didn’t get the full context. You seemed to have come down hard against the essay cheating, and then I saw these two quotes: > [@Contrapuntal](#): > > The novelist is absolutely a liar if he puts his name on someone else’s work. Why the hell wouldn’t he be? He’s lying. That pretty much makes him a liar. And if I bought that novel, I would feel cheated if I found out. He is essentially misrepresenting an item that he is offering for sale. That’s dishonest, by definition. > [@Contrapuntal](#): > > It sounds to me that you’re a co-author, not a ghost writer. Still, it’s a lie to claim another’s work as one’s own. So I jumped in to point out why I feel that ghostwriting is okay, but cheating on college papers isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/190 "2008-09-29T14:39:23Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > So I jumped in to point out why I feel that ghostwriting is okay, but cheating on college papers isn’t. What I meant to say is that in a academic situation, such behavior is cheating by definition. I also meant to say the claiming to have written a novel that one did not write is lying, pretty much also by definition. Why wouldn’t it be? Now, in the first case, the student (in honor code situations) is actually breaking his word. In my mind, that compounds the crime. A novelist makes no such pact. But, a lie is a lie, and as I said, I would feel cheated if I discovered that an author had lied to me. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/191 "2008-09-29T19:26:29Z")
> [@Anaamika](#): > > You don’t have to get moral on the boss, though. You could just say “I don’t really have spare time to do this.” > > And I still wouldn’t do it. I’m not saying I’m a morally perfect person, far from it. Education is just one of the things I have up on a pedestal. > > I would be offended by your comments, but you’re just a person on a message board, and you don’t know me and you don’t know anybody on this board, so no point to it. This is what I came in here to say… it’s not just two choices you have between doing (and getting cash), or not doing because your against it (thus the possibility of alienating yourself). Option 3 is not doing it, and taking the high road: “I don’t have time”, maybe just a simple “I not going to be able to”. Option 4 could be offering to tutor the kid, even if it meant doing a lot of the research for him. Sometimes the moral path is gray. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/192 "2008-09-29T19:47:22Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > I also meant to say the claiming to have written a novel that one did not write is lying, pretty much also by definition. Why wouldn’t it be? > > Now, in the first case, the student (in honor code situations) is actually breaking his word. In my mind, that compounds the crime. A novelist makes no such pact. But, a lie is a lie, and as I said, I would feel cheated if I discovered that an author had lied to me. I understand. I got pretty pissed off when I picked up the first book in the Rainbow Six series “by Tom Clancy” and found the writing to be completely different from his normal style (and quite inferior in research and content), and then discovered that other people were writing those based on his ideas and concepts. However, the space between “I wrote this book all by myself” and “I wrote this book as part of a team” is a continuum. Many people are involved. A ghostwriter may produce the entire book based on a concept or title from the author. A ghostwriter may write to an outline prepared by the author using research provided by the author. A ghostwriter may be a co-author or editor by a different name. In general, as I explained above, I see ghostwriting as VERY different from academic cheating. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/193 "2008-09-30T16:31:31Z")
> [@InvisibleWombat](#): > > In general, as I explained above, I see ghostwriting as VERY different from academic cheating. I never said otherwise. However, whenever I perform work that others contribute to, I always give credit, and never claim to be the sole “author,” as it were. I don’t see why writing should be any different. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2008, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167/194 "2008-09-30T21:20:25Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > I never said otherwise. > > However, whenever I perform work that others contribute to, I always give credit, and never claim to be the sole “author,” as it were. I don’t see why writing should be any different. There’s still the idea of The Author as the guy who sits in a room and scrawls out page after page of whatever all out of his own mind. Real-life writing is more collaborative, which isn’t recognized in concepts such as ghostwriting. Academic writing is a bit different because that’s the synopsis/explanation of research which the writer is expected to do him/herself. If someone else wrote the paper, that usually means someone else did the research and that invalidates the whole process of learning to research. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-boss-wants-me-to-help-his-kid-cheat-should-i/465167.md?page=9)