Plagarism.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-12-17 07:50pm

Ah, the big 'P'. Such a big fuss is made about it at uni, and to be honest I didn't know why. I have never cheated in this fashion and never will, and to be honest in my naive early days I believe that no one plagarised as it just seemed too stupid - like copying your mates homework word-for-word and not expecting the teacher to notice [ah Jonny, if you thought Mr. Davies wasn't going to notice that that was my history homeworld, then you are a very silly boy]...

...however, it is obviously a problem as I have discovered this year. One of my housemates, an arts student, is a lazy shit. Lazier than me; even he would admit that. He also has quite a bit of money due to the lavish loans the government thrust upon any student that will accept them, and thus, last year, he decided to 'buy' an essay off the internet. A tailor made one, no less, written by a 'real' teacher. Give these guys a few days and they will fire off a 2500+ essay with full refs., bib., etc. to the standard you require, obviously the better the quality the more expensive the price.

Anyway, he ordered a 2.1 level essay. Think it cost him $60 or so ... it arrived, a few minor adjustments were made, and he submitted it. Received a mark of 61 I think, and nothing more was ever said about it - no plagarism detected by the uni: no problem.

He tried to do it again a few weeks ago, although this time the essay never arrived. Incredibly, the guy fired off the essay at 6am and got just shy of a first for it - the best in the class. So he is obviously very good at the subject, just very lazy.

Anyway, the question is the morality of this. If YOU had the spare cash and you knew you would get away with it, would you consider this form of extreme plagarism? We aren't talking about failing to reference Hilderbrand when talking about a potential Saudi/German oil deal that feel through in 1933 due to defence concerns, or the like - we are talking about a FULL essay being written by somebody else with NO effort on your part whatsoever, save for writing a synopsis and, of course, your bank details for the website.

I will start a poll so people can submit their answers privately, as I am sure many of you will not want to reveal that you have considered this in public.

Also, I am interested in whether anyone here has actually done this or knows of someone who has, and what experiences they have had.

Knife · Post by **Knife** » 2005-12-17 07:52pm

I'm a fairly creative guy. I don't like the idea of going to that level just to be a procrastinator(sp?).

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-12-17 07:54pm

No, because I can think of better things to spend $60.00 on than in a subject I'd be just as likely to pass anyways.

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-12-17 08:10pm

General Zod wrote:No, because I can think of better things to spend $60.00 on than in a subject I'd be just as likely to pass anyways.

Ok then ... what about if the essay was free of charge, or you just won the lottery: would you still write your own essay then?

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2005-12-17 08:14pm

ALI_G wrote:
General Zod wrote:No, because I can think of better things to spend $60.00 on than in a subject I'd be just as likely to pass anyways.
Ok then ... what about if the essay was free of charge, or you just won the lottery: would you still write your own essay then?

Like I said, I can think of better things to spend $60.00 on, even if I have money to spare.

Far as free of charge goes, I could probably do a better job myself. I typically don't like having other people do my work for me, and then claiming I did it, because it doesn't help inflate my ego. (It might for some, but not so much for me).

Prozac the Robert · Post by **Prozac the Robert** » 2005-12-17 08:40pm

ALI_G wrote:He also has quite a bit of money due to the lavish loans the government thrust upon any student that will accept them,

Are you in the same world as me? My 'lavish' student loan pretty much pays the rent, food, the odd text book and maybe the odd drink. It certainly doesn't leave me with a lot of spending money.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2005-12-17 09:18pm

I sometimes write other peoples essays for my own amusement. It's fun to see how well you can bs through a subject you havent taken...I usually accept payment (when I bother with any) in the form of owed drinks and so on.

So, I wouldnt, but I definitely know some folk who would...

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2005-12-17 09:29pm

It would really depend on what day you approached me on. If I seriously was not in the mood to do it, I would buy it, if I was feeling motivated, I wouldn't. Chances are, if it was in the winter or if I had just been working, yeah, I'd buy it.

Ypoknons · Post by **Ypoknons** » 2005-12-17 09:40pm

Depends if I had anything to learn by writing the essay.

wilfulton · Post by **wilfulton** » 2005-12-17 11:12pm

I've actually always been fairly good at writing papers (essays) so I would not pay for the service. No way no how.

Finally, yes submitting someone elses work as your own (whether it was a service you paid for or not) IS cheating, and is a punishable offense. Is it fair that you have study and spend many hours on a dry, dreary, boring subject to get a passing grade while some shitwipe can just drop some spare change and pass it with no effort on his part?

And what is the purpose of that class? If the purpose is to learn something, besides who to go to to pay for a service, then why should he get away with it?

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2005-12-17 11:21pm

If you asked me in my first 2 or 3 years of university, I'd have said "fuck no". In my last year or so, yeah I'd do it. Reason being in my last year, year & half, the profs became quite fond of giving out pointless make-work essays which anyone with half a brain could see were pointless retarded make-work essays to keep us busy so that the prof wouldn't have to fucking teach. Let's put it this way, it was bad enough that our department chairman agreed that it was pointless bullshit, and that the profs in question weren't doing their jobs. In a situation like that, fuck yeah, I'll plagiarize the damn essay if I can get it for a fair price.

In my case I looked at my marks and saw that I was still going to get a B if I didn't hand in any of my essays & reports, so that's exactly what I did. If I had the option to hand in $5 plagiarized essays to get a B+ or A, I'd do it without a second thought.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-12-17 11:38pm

Depends on whether or not they really could do a better job than I could, the quality v. price, spare cash, current motivation, and whether the assignment is pointless bullshit. I might at some time, but probably not, simply because it's not a necessity for me, I would expect.

Braedley · Post by **Braedley** » 2005-12-17 11:39pm

Stupid AFK accidents. I was going to post this earlier...

Is a B+ or an A worth the chance of ending your university career? I don't think so.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2005-12-17 11:46pm

You get caught buying an essay in college, you can consider yourself expelled, and good luck getting admitted anywhere else. You're better off failing the class. And that's before any moral considerations come into play.

Qwerty 42 · Post by **Qwerty 42** » 2005-12-18 12:19am

RedImperator's right, but for me it's more the consideration that I'm not learning a thing by not doing it myself, which is the point.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2005-12-18 12:27am

It appears to be a result of my upbringing that I find the idea of cheating in that manner to be viscerally repulsive.

Pick · Post by **Pick** » 2005-12-18 12:33am

Please bear in mind, those responding, that the question involves the fact that you wouldn't be caught.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2005-12-18 05:34am

I'd do it if it really was 100% foolproof, but in real life I wouldn't risk my career over a stupid project, if it's that ahrd I can do the project with someone's help, I simply wouldn't risk it.
(So I'm votting yes)

Netko · Post by **Netko** » 2005-12-18 07:17am

RedImperator wrote:You get caught buying an essay in college, you can consider yourself expelled, and good luck getting admitted anywhere else. You're better off failing the class. And that's before any moral considerations come into play.

This year my faculty decided to do a crackdown on exam cheating, the three guys found cheating on the first midterms got publicly shamed, ALL their midterm exams were voided (not just of the subject where they cheated, all the exams were given 0 points) meaning they will have to show extreme dedication to pass and since the grading of those who pass is on a gauss curve they, with their lower maximum, will be lucky to get a 3 (or D), and in two laughably easy subjects where it will be basicly down to luck as to who gets what they are guarantied an E. And they were put on probation. Definatly not a situation I would want to be in...

As far as the OP. Dunno honestly. I take a certain amount of pride in my programming (we don't do essays much, but I guess someone writing a program for someone else could be considered the same) and everyone has their little touches they like so I'd probably not like the finished product. Plus anytime you turn in something you get (one way or another) quizzed on the material, so if you learn it to be able to answer properly, there isn't much point in not writing the program/homework/large lab prep yourself. If you don't, well, you might get lucky and manage to pull it off with the bought material but if you are so ignorant of it then whats the point of getting an university education?

Dooey Jo · Post by **Dooey Jo** » 2005-12-18 07:19am

If I could get it for free then maybe I would use it for inspiration for my own essay, if it was any good, but I wouldn't pay someone to do it for me. I'm there to learn damnit, and I don't really give a shit about the grades (besides, we only have two grades in my university most of the time anyway; "failed" or "passed").

Ubiquitous · Post by **Ubiquitous** » 2005-12-18 10:00am

Prozac the Robert wrote:
ALI_G wrote:He also has quite a bit of money due to the lavish loans the government thrust upon any student that will accept them,
Are you in the same world as me? My 'lavish' student loan pretty much pays the rent, food, the odd text book and maybe the odd drink. It certainly doesn't leave me with a lot of spending money.

Whilst this may be suited to an other thread, I have found that working over the summer months and being careful with my money [including what house I live in e.g. no £65 a week rent, rates included etc.] means that I can afford to eat well and go out once a week with few problems. An overdraft helps as well for times like Christmas - I only have £10 in my account now until Monday when I can move some money from my ISA account.

But yeah, basically, I spend around £5000-£6000 a year at uni [£2200 rent, £1000 food, £1125 fees, rest misc.], and make around the same amount every summer [topped up nicely at Christmas and Easter]. So that £3000 seems pretty lavish to me [although of course it is a little less now for us final year students].

For my final year I have amassed enough money to only require a part-time job, which is all the time I can really spare over the holidays due to dissertation requirements.

Of course, if you don't work over the summer, or only work part-time, then £3000 is a more inviting number. If you are struggling for money, do manual labour over the summer. Get on the right site and you can earn £50-60 per day, do surprisingly little work [although there are exceptions] and with overtime and away-pay you can expect to earn upto £400 a week as long as you are good at your job, no joke.

Lusankya · Post by **Lusankya** » 2005-12-18 10:47am

Well, I've let my classmates (all of them) copy my maths assignments before. Unfortunately, there was this one time when I went through an entire question saying that 7^2 = 32, which none of my classmates picked up on. I still got the right answer, because that 7^2 was cancelled out by another 7^2, but it was enough of a mistake to lose me a mark. The next day, the teacher got up in front of the class and made us all tell her what 7^2 actually was, and told us that she was tempted to write on everyone's paper, "please tell Alison that 7^2 is 49," but she didn't based on the remote possibility that I was one of the copiers and not the copy-ee.

As for the OP, finding someone to write my essay really sounds like more work than writing it myself, especially since it's something that'll only take a day or so out of my life anyway.

Post by **Broomstick** » 2005-12-18 11:28am

I think anyone who has read some of my longer posts here would agree that I write well enough on my own. In fact, I write well enough that it would be more likely I'd sell essays than buy them... except I can't abide cheating of that sort, I too find it "viscerely repulsive", and just plain wouldn't do it.

Keevan_Colton · Post by **Keevan_Colton** » 2005-12-18 11:33am

Broomstick wrote:I think anyone who has read some of my longer posts here would agree that I write well enough on my own. In fact, I write well enough that it would be more likely I'd sell essays than buy them... except I can't abide cheating of that sort, I too find it "viscerely repulsive", and just plain wouldn't do it.

The main argument against selling is that it devalues the qualification that other people get from the course. I however have trouble giving value to something that someone who has not attended the course, or even any on the same subject can pass...

I've ghost written essays mostly for those on business degrees and a few on more media related courses (before I started into journalism), neither of which really have much value to lose.

Post by **fgalkin** » 2005-12-18 07:06pm

No, but I did consider writing them for other people. I've decided that it's not the best course of action during my own academic career.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Plagarism.

Would you buy an essay if you could 100% get away with it?

Plagarism.

Re: Plagarism.

Re: Plagarism.