Parenting woes: Helping teenagers with English homework

[OwlGirl]

Hi all,

I've got a bit of a question about, let's just say, "homework assistance". Basically, I was helping my daughter and her friend out with some English homework yesterday. They were brainstorming ideas for an essay they have to write on Pride and Prejudice and they mentioned that some of their friends have been using essay writing services (they showed me this one: http://writemyessayonline.com ) and not actually writing their own essays.

I didn't want to overstep my mark with my daughters friend (you know how touchy some parents can be about another parent giving advice to their kids) and I'm sure a lot has changed since my school days, but what do people think of this kind of service? Have other people handled something like this recently? I couldn't tell how the girls felt about it, they just said it so matter of factly. I'm going to be having a conversation with my kid but wanted to see if other parents had better insight or experience with something like this. Also, should I tell the other parent?

Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

[RichLife]

Using such a service is only shooting yourself in the foot. School is about practising skills you will find useful later in life even if it does not seem immediately obvious. Using such a service also teaches kids that if they throw enough money at something they can get what they want, which is going to bode badly for their future financial life.

I'd make sure your daughter at least stays away from these services, and perhaps explain to her friend as well why this is not such a good idea. I wouldn't tell the other parent unless you have absolute clear proof. You could perhaps tell the teacher you heard that some students use this but schools might not be able to do much about it because it is hard to detect.

[ToomuchStuff]

I wonder how many of those essays are going to match one another? Then the school will start the plagerism discussion when ones from either in the class, or various classes pretty much match, except the names.

[TxZen]

Sorry, maybe I am a mean parent but my kid is going to do his work and I would mention the service to the other parent. Why am I such an angry elf?

Back when I was in school (not that many years ago) the "smart" kids were paying one particular student to do all their papers. They all graduated ahead of me in the class ranking, where I worked my behind off. Fast forward, about a year, everyone is comfortable and college and these same group of kids are failing. They did not have the skills to write a paper on their own and never developed any critical thinking skills. I would say a good percentage of them dropped out of college. Now, I can't say this is directly related to what they did in high school, but I think it contributed.

[mtnlaurel]

Short Answer - Cheating
Cheating yourself of the opportunity to communicate your own ideas.

Yes, I did read CliffNotes back in the day as an emergency measure to maintain my Active Party Life & trying to do my work (that's code for I had a terrible drinking problem throughout college that often kept me from my work).
[Edit to Add - and by using CliffNotes, I cheated myself the chance to read a lot of great books. Books that I swear I will go back and really read 'some day', but that day has yet to come]

Essay Services are not aligned with Honor and Integrity.
(I know, the old Honor & Integrity what outdated novelties those are... along with that relic, Loyalty... surprised I even remember that last concept)

If I were a teacher, I would have no interest in grading what an Essay Company has to say about the great works.
I would much prefer to gauge my success as a teacher by reading what my students have created from the works.
Teachers don't give 2 hoots what Professional Essayists have to say, they do care what their Students have to say.

Signed,
Liberal Arts Believer

[mtnlaurel]

Also, should I tell the other parent?
Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

My last post was from the top of my soap box.

Regarding your question... Yes, I might let the other parents know in a casual way that you've heard the kids discussing other students' use of essay services. Unless the other parents are whackos that would go bananas with the info and it get spun out of control and be hurtful to my child.
I might also under the promise of strictest confidentiality bring the matter to the attention of both the teacher and the administration.
I would have to think that schools realize how commonplace this must be and have measures in place to address it already.

My kids aren't as old as your kids yet, but I am discovering that kids talk a whole bunch of c.r.a.p.
I didn't really realize what 'embellishers' some of them can be until I started driving passels of them around in my car.

[Gardenarian]

Using another person's work and claiming it is your own is plagiarism. At the college where I work, plagiarism is punished by immediate expulsion. This is a serious infraction. They should be aware that if they use such a service they are very likely to get caught, and it will be blot on their permanent record. Teachers can tell when it's not your own work.

I would actually email the teacher about this.

The whole point of going to school is to get an education, not to learn how to play these kind of games. My child's integrity is far more important than her GPA. I would tell my kid "I'd rather you got an honest D than an A+ by cheating." And that's the truth.

[awakenedsoul]

I completely agree. Your writing is your voice. It shows you intelligence, your understanding of the subject, and your level of consciousness. It's very personal.

I would mention it to the other parent. I'd say, "If it were me, I'd want to know, so I hope I'm not overstepping my boundaries by telling you this." Kids love discipline. I think they wanted to be caught. They know it's wrong. I taught kids for 30 years, and they described me as "strict but not mean." They told me that they felt relaxed in the class, because we had a routine, structure, order, and rules with consequences. Nobody would have gotten away with something like that. It's unfair to the other students.

One of my favorite voice teachers used to tell her students, "You must continue to do the right thing." That always stayed with me. She was a famous mezzo soprano at The Met.

[bae]

but what do people think of this kind of service?

Cheating. And foolishness.

[JaneV2.0]

How very corporate America--outsourcing the work. ;)

But seriously, there should be no question that this is cheating, plain and simple. Teachers should be aware of these sites and should give students who use them an F.

[catherine]

How very corporate America--outsourcing the work. ;)

But seriously, there should be no question that this is cheating, plain and simple. Teachers should be aware of these sites and should give students who use them an F.

+1

As if the twitterization of our culture isn't short-circuiting our critical thinking abilities enough, we are also going to turn a blind eye to it in schools?

I definitely wouldn't tolerate it for my own children. Not sure if I would stick my nose in someone else's business.

[mschrisgo2]

Well, there is software that detects these "store bought" essays, and most of the colleges use it; all the colleges reward these cheaters with expulsion. I'm not sure about the high schools, but my grandsons' school uses the software too. This is one of the reasons they are required to submit written work on-line: it's scanned for plagiarism before the teacher even sees it.

As a parent, I think I'd look up the policy in my child's school/district, then sit down and discuss it with them in depth. It's probably in the Student Handbook that everyone already signed off on as having read it for the year, as well as on their website You can be sure that, if you talk to your daughter, she will talk to her friend- that's what girls do. I'd leave the other parent out, though, unless you know her already.

[Tammy]

I would not have hesitated to say to both kids that copying someone else's essay is cheating. Doesn't matter if it's online or across the aisle in class. If a parent is upset by me having that opinion ... Oh well.

[Tammy]

Part 2 - I gave my opinion once to a person in seminary. Mom was "typing" her paper from her notes. In other words mom was writing the paper. It didn't go well ... But it's not her work. It's cheating. It's quite clear to me.

[Mary B.]

I would talk to the teacher about it as something I'd heard from some of the kids. Teachers should address this in class, I think, when they start assigning essays.

Software can detect essays that are copied from another source -- Turnitin is the service I've most heard of -- but they do that by comparing specific groups of words against others in their database. Software wouldn't catch original works created by someone other than the author... Tammy's seminarian would be safe from that!

I think it's something teachers should address really early because it gives them a chance to explain why writing an essay is important and what they hope the students will get out of it as well as letting everyone know that they are well aware of so-called professional essay services and won't be fooled by them.

Some teachers break essay assignments up into pieces, particularly when they're a new kind of assignment -- so students submit maybe first an idea with an outline, then a rough draft and then the final product. I've done that in a university course -- I asked them to send me a proposal for their project, including four or five references they were going to use (online course, hence 'send'). I assigned a minimal number of marks to this step, taken from the overall marks for the essay. This kind of approach helps those who are not very experienced at writing essays, and although I suppose someone could reverse-engineer a purchased paper to create a rough draft it would be a lot of work.

As an instructor I find plagiarism so irritating.

[Float On]

I'm kind of upset that all they write are short essays. My kids have never had to write a 12 or 22 page report since they entered public school at 7th grade. I asked a teacher about that and she said "we just can't get longer work out of students any more, even getting a 2 page essay is a struggle....they just can't come with an individual thought". I've noticed they are usually given the option of essay, video, PowerPoint, or some other program that only uses bullet points. Most kids choose something from the three options. Except my DS#1 is constantly told to keep his writing down to the required amount, he has no problem putting words on paper. He is looking at a college where their only work is essays and discussions. Right up his alley. He has said that other kids in school ask him for help all the time, they don't understand how to research a topic.

[catherine]

I'm kind of upset that all they write are short essays. My kids have never had to write a 12 or 22 page report since they entered public school at 7th grade. I asked a teacher about that and she said "we just can't get longer work out of students any more, even getting a 2 page essay is a struggle....they just can't come with an individual thought". I've noticed they are usually given the option of essay, video, PowerPoint, or some other program that only uses bullet points. Most kids choose the three options. Except my DS#1 is constantly told to keep his writing down to the required amount, he has no problem putting words on paper. He is looking at a college where their only work is essays and discussions. Right up his alley. He has said that other kids in school ask him for help all the time, they don't understand how to research a topic.

Well, I even see this trend among my clients. These people are not high school kids--they are people with advanced degrees and even post-docs, and they spend $50k for a market research project and demand sound bites for reporting. They want bullets and lots of charts and infographics in a PPT. I used to do Word reports all the time, and I never do them now. All I do is PPT and if there's not a pretty picture on each page, clients don't like it. I spend more time editing back and editing back (which is not always a bad thing).

And on that note, I wouldn't mind kids turning in short essays if they were insightful. Sometimes the hardest thing to write is a paragraph of "gold" without a lot of fluff. It's just discouraging, however, that they aren't even able to write more than a couple of pages.

[JaneV2.0]

I had to write a few long essays in college. Nearly killed me. You can guess why.

And I always hated outlines--usually wrote them after the fact--because I never have written that way.

[Float On]

I don't know why the school list every year still has "3x5 cards". They haven't used those for writing projects ever. I guess if I'd told them they could use them to write "bullet points" they would understand what I meant when I said I went through stacks of those between 6th grade and college when writing papers.

[ToomuchStuff]

I don't know why the school list every year still has "3x5 cards". They haven't used those for writing projects ever. I guess if I'd told them they could use them to write "bullet points" they would understand what I meant when I said I went through stacks of those between 6th grade and college when writing papers.

Have you asked them? Might specifically ask for what class. (some people just never edit their lists and this should be brought to their attention if it just wastes money and the schools are always complaining about not enough money)

[Float On]

Have you asked them? Might specifically ask for what class. (some people just never edit their lists and this should be brought to their attention if it just wastes money and the schools are always complaining about not enough money)

I've only just glanced at the list the last couple years. A few years back I asked and was told they keep everything on the lists so teachers can build up classroom stock...just in case. Lists are created by the district board, not the individual teacher. Even the 3rd grade teachers are kind of upset that crayons are still on their lists, they don't use them. The hall closet is full of supplies. Kind of looking forward to purging that after they go to college. :)

[OwlGirl]

Thank you so much for your openness and opinons on the matter. I was very overwhelmed (in a good way) to see that so many people have responeded to this so constructively. It looks like there are so many of us with similar issues and/or concerns.

I remember feeling stressed out when I was in high school and in college. I did sports, volunteered, helped with chores and dinners and baby sat my little brother after school. I was tired a lot and I can only imagine now how kids feel. I have coached and done stuff in public education for many years and a lot of time kids are not given a break of any kind. They do homework over the holidays and on weekends. They contstantly are preparing for some sort of standardized test, and I might say that I really sympathize with them. I did have a talk to my daughter and she says she's feeling the same way. I can't let her get out of doing chores or doing anything less, but I am not more aware of how she feels and if there is anything reasonable I can do that can ease her tension a little bit, I will.