Essaywriters.net

I was asked to write a term paper for someone once who approached me through oDesk. At first, I had a hard time with it since no one wrote my term papers for me while I was in college. However, after talking to the person, it came out that she had four papers all due on the same day. She was writing three of them, the three that related to her major in the medical field, and the fourth one was for an English class. She was able to intelligently discuss the material with me, so I knew she had read it, she simply didn't have the time to do it all, as she also worked full-time to pay her tuition, forget her other bills (she lived with her parents).

I was able to move past the whole morality thing since she presented a very good case for needing my help. She had never done this before since she ALSO hated cheating, but she was up against a wall. I was able to write it in two days for her and it was the fastest $200 bucks I ever made.

Now, I'm not saying I want to go out and make a living doing this; this was an isolated incident. But, in the instance related here, I felt okay doing it.

I am sorry it is dishonest, full stop. She was given those assaignment many months ahead. If she is incapable of planning for four assignments on one day I don't want her graduating and left unable to cope with having three surgeries or important diagnostic tests one day. If I knew she was in my "unimportant" English class I would petition for her expulsion for deliberate dishonesty.

Veinglory beat me to it. It's not like she didn't know the due dates ahead of time. It's cheating, pure and simple.

I never said it wasn't cheating I just said, I was able to move past it and it was a one-shot deal. Also, I am not responsible for what people do in this world with regard to what they do that is right and wrong. And, as someone who also worked full-time while going to school full-time, I had a rough time of it when I was doing it. I empathized with her more than a little bit and when one is doing two full-time endeavors, time can slip away so easily.

My college age kids know they absolutely can't come to me for help like this as they know I'll give them a hard NO.

Also, she wasn't going to school to become a doctor, she was an RN getting her Master's in "something I didn't understand but it had something to do with computers" so I wasn't creating an environment for the potential of someone dying ten years down the road because I wrote a three page essay for her about a play.

As far as her being in anyone's class and being caught using "deliberate dishonesty", cheating is cheating, no matter whether it's "deliberate" or not. I graduated and used my own work to do so. The person who hired me has her own conscience to deal with. I am not the morality police.

MamaLou said:

However, after talking to the person, it came out that she had four papers all due on the same day. She was writing three of them, the three that related to her major in the medical field, and the fourth one was for an English class.

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This is bullshit, on her part. You got had.

She could have gotten extensions from any and likely, all of the profs. She knew the papers were due weeks ahead of time.

She cheated--and you helped. What about the other students who couldn't afford to pay someone to do their work?

MamaLou said:

She had never done this before since she ALSO hated cheating, but she was up against a wall.

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You know what? They're always up against a wall, and it's always the first time they've ever cheated. You just helped a future doctor cheat. Think about it; would you want to take your kid to a doctor that cheated?

MamaLou said:

I was able to write it in two days for her and it was the fastest $200 bucks I ever made.

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That, right there, should have told you this was a very very bad idea.

MamaLou said:

I am not the morality police.

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Good call, lostwanderer5, it's good to hear.

veinglory said:

She was given those assaignment many months ahead.

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You don't know that, mate. I've just been given two psychology papers, a government paper, two mythology papers (one creative writing, one an essay), and a speech to prepare. That's with only a 14 credit hour load, and the assignments were passed out over a one week period, and are due in less than two weeks. None of these are easy assignments, either -- not since I plan to get A's on them.

...Christ, what am I doing on the forums!?

I'm not trying to excuse academic dishonesty; I'm just saying that we don't get months to prepare these things. And remember, this is all on top of preparing for the stupid tests.

Bartholomew said:

You don't know that, mate. I've just been given two psychology papers, a government paper, two mythology papers (one creative writing, one an essay), and a speech to prepare. That's with only a 14 credit hour load, and the assignments were passed out over a one week period, and are due in less than two weeks. None of these are easy assignments, either -- not since I plan to get A's on them.

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They weren't listed on a syllabus? Not the prompt, of course, but the fact that they would be assigned and due on specific dates?

Medievalist said:

They weren't listed on a syllabus? Not the prompt, of course, but the fact that they would be assigned and due on specific dates?

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The mythology one: no. There's ONE Essay listed, along with a mysterious "project." We all get a different one, and mine turned out to be a short story. The story and the essay are due on the same date.

Psychology: Yes.

Government: The syllabus lists three papers, but I'm currently working on a fourth one. X_O This is an artifact that exists because he's calling half of his papers "take home tests," even though they're actually 4+ page essay answers to broad scoped questions.

And I mixed it up. It's two government papers and one psychology paper -- but the psychology paper is tied to two different 40+ page articles on ESP that I need to plow through before I can even start.

Seriously. Why am I still on the internet?

...

The good news is that, since these have been assigned, I now procrastinate by working on my novel.

Economics: This class has forewarned of a paper, but he hasn't assigned it yet.

The speech is part of my tutoring certificate program. (Which is stupid, because I'm only working until the summer, not long enough to get the certificate. Grrr.) I was appropriately warned about this one at the beginning of the semester, but my prompt was given out right when the essay prompts were given out. Joy.

I did the college thing too...worked while at it. Many times I stayed up all night getting things done, especially when all the assignments seem to collide. If you don't have enough time to do it yourself..you work a little less or lighten your credit load. There is no excuse to pay someone to write things for you.

Bartholomew said:

The mythology one: no. There's ONE Essay listed, along with a mysterious "project." We all get a different one, and mine turned out to be a short story. The story and the essay are due on the same date.

Psychology: Yes.

Government: The syllabus lists three papers, but I'm currently working on a fourth one. X_O This is an artifact that exists because he's calling half of his papers "take home tests," even though they're actually 4+ page essay answers to broad scoped questions.

And I mixed it up. It's two government papers and one psychology paper -- but the psychology paper is tied to two different 40+ page articles on ESP that I need to plow through before I can even start.

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Sorry, no sympathy here. Not a jot.

If I can write my own damn papers--and yes, I worked too--then by golly I expect others can too.

Medievalist said:

Sorry, no sympathy here. Not a jot.

If I can write my own damn papers--and yes, I worked too--then by golly I expect others can too.

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I'm not trolling for sympathy; I just want Veinglory to admit that we don't always get months and months of notice.

...classes should post their complete syllabuses somewhere where students can read them before enrolling. That way we can plan entire academic careers around essay question tests, useful textbooks, and reasonable deadlines.

By the way, and this is just a bone for people who stumble upon this thread from google---I read a dozen or so student papers per day. Every so often, someone brings in work that isn't theirs. I can always tell, immediately. It isn't hard. 90% of essays you buy will suck because they have no context for your class; the other 10% won't suck, but they'll give you away because of differences in style, voice, political agenda, and intelligence.

if you're having trouble with an assignment, go to your instructor and then to a tutor, in that order.

Bartholomew said:

By the way, and this is just a bone for people who stumble upon this thread from google---I read a dozen or so student papers per day. Every so often, someone brings in work that isn't theirs. I can always tell, immediately. It isn't hard. 90% of essays you buy will suck because they have no context for your class; the other 10% won't suck, but they'll give you away because of differences in style, voice, political agenda, and intelligence.

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I wrote a paper in college and got an "A" for it. Sometime later, my sister took that same paper, slapped her name on it, turned it in at her high school class and got an "A" on it, too. She even gushed to me what rave reviews the teacher had for it. I was NOT happy, as I worked very hard on it. I wish her teacher had noticed it wasn't her kind of writing.

I worked my butt off all the way through a doctorate while also working full time. I wrote every one of my papers myself (and yes, I always knew about them in advance). Now I'm juggling college classes with three jobs because the lovely state of FL is making me do so for licensure. I'm still writing my own papers (and I know about them all in advance). Not one shred of pity from me. Even if you get slapped upside the head with a "surprise" paper, sometimes you gotta suck it up and burn the midnight oil. Cheating is the lazy way out. I surely wouldn't want to hire a counselor who cheated in school. I'd wonder, is she short-cutting her ethics elsewhere as well?

Bartholomew said:

I'm not trolling for sympathy; I just want Veinglory to admit that we don't always get months and months of notice.

...classes should post their complete syllabuses somewhere where students can read them before enrolling. That way we can plan entire academic careers around essay question tests, useful textbooks, and reasonable deadlines.

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I wasn't actually tracking this discussion. I still say that students are typically given sufficient notice and when they are not they should complain, not cheat.

I personally did a double major across two unco-ordinated schools and an extra paper each year (8 instead of the usual 7). I took classes where I lacked the prerequisites and so had to do a lot of catching up. Sometimes I had a lot of work to do, more than just about any other student I knew. Sometimes I missed a whole night of sleep. Sometimes, not all that often mind you, I got a C. On a few occassions when the demainds were unreasonable I visited the lecturers and got an extension.

I never, ever, ever considered having someone else do my work, not for a nanosecond. I was there to learn, not just to "pass".

Mind you in every university I have attended or taught at (in four different countries) a syllabus had to be presented in the first class itemising every piece of work that would contribute to the grade. Any university not doing this needs a kick in the pants. If the student reads the syllabus that have all the notice they need to plan their time effectively.

So my final answer is that, yes, students should have months of notice. If not, they need to get involved in their institution and make some changes. (Yes, I was also working as a sales clerk and school janitor, had family obligations and was a student rep, activist and union member as well).

veinglory's my hero(ine)

Where is the line drawn? Let's get silly for a moment: Someone murdered his wife, but hey, that was HIS decision. I only helped him bury the freaking body. And, besides, I needed the $200 smackers -- a guy's gotta eat...

Like others here, I also worked my way through school, full time, graveyard shift (Ugghh!). I'd wake up with the books on the floor, my clothes still on, tired as hell. Maintained a high gpa --- never cheated.

Finally, what about the small businessperson who hires the cheater thinking he's hired someone with character. Or the woman unfortunate to enough to marry this loser?

While I would never endorse cheating, I'd would like to add that just because a syllabus lists "Paper due on April XX" doesn't necessarily mean that you are given the actual essay prompts in advance. In fact, most of my prompts are given about 1-2 weeks in advance. Often times closer to 1 week than to 2. Still more than enough time, mind you. But I can see how it would be overwhelming if someone put everything off till the last minute. Also, I don't work (this year, anyway.)

It was good to have at least "some" backup that not all papers are able tp be written without a long-term notice.

I also feel people are being more than a little rough on me as well. I don't make my living doing this as my conscience has a hard time with it. I earned my degree the hard way, through my own blood, sweat and tears AND I worked full-time AND I was raising kids AND it was before computers were readily available. I can remember begging the monitors of my scholarship for a typewriter so I didn't have to be at the computer lab at school in the middle of the night (which was dangerous in Philly).

Also, everyone is not "us". Not everyone can look at a blank page and start writing. Even I have problems with it sometimes, working into that first paragraph. However, when that happens to me, I don't panic because I know I'll get there. People who don't do a great deal of writing don't "know" they will and panic sets in.

When I was in college, I took pretty much nothing but English classes in my last two years as this was my major. I took grammar classes, I took writing classes, I took a class one semester that had a paper a week due. THIS didn't faze me one bit because I can write and I'm not intimidated by writing. But not everyone has that gift, and it IS a gift, whether you guys realize you have it or not. Put me in a biology class, though, and I break out into a flop sweat because THAT I don't get. Same with Math, which I also hate but now know enough to help my kids when they needed/need it. I envy people who can do those two subjects and GET it.

Again, I don't make my living at writing other people's term papers nor do I ever intend to do so. It IS dishonest and I've turned in my own son for doing it as it's cheating. He thought I was going to have to pay him for the $75 he paid for the paper and I laughed in his faceand told him to take me to small claims to get it back.

Instead of villifying me, how about being my friend and loving me in spite of my lapse in judgment by taking pity on someone who is now walking the shoes I once walked? I've never known any of you to be judgmental...

I don't think you're horrible...it's just that you justified it in this case. I just think myself that no matter what, people always have to do their own schoolwork.

I know it's hard for people to write. I don't have an English or Journalism degree myself - I have one in horticulture. While there are lots of other factors I have in my favor...I know what it's like to sit there and wonder where to begin. I still do that sometimes. You just buck up and go on.

In my opinion, Nancy, (and this is just my opinion, guys), they are being a little hard on you. I don't condone cheating, but I personally do see at least a little difference between a medical major skimping on an english test versus skimping on something related to her field.

And I absolutely agree with you that "everyone is not 'us'". Writing something on short notice isn't that scary for a writer...that explains why so many of us on this forum are up in arms about this. We're thinking, "Why can't she write four papers in a day? We could write four papers in a day, why shouldn't she do it?"

But the truth is, writing something on short notice is a real struggle for some. Especially with all the other pressures and responsibilities they might have. To say, "Well, I had to do it, there's no valid reason she can't do it", is not acknowledging that people have different strengths and abilities. That student's inability to whip out an english essay in a day may have no bearing whatsoever on her ability to be a good nurse.

Just my two cents, please don't bite my head off...
just felt "Mama Lou" could use at least one person in her corner...