Is this halachically permissible, yashar, and ethical?

amother

Thu, Dec 05 2019, 4:39 pm

I started a thread about how much to charge for editing college students' papers. Someone brought it to my attention that it may be unethical.

I always refused to write papers for students. However, I do a lot of editing - paragraph structure, word choice, and often of content, as well.

Is that wrong l'halacha, altz yashrus, and from an ethical perspective (meaning from the college's perspective)?

agreer

Thu, Dec 05 2019, 4:45 pm

I don't see anything wrong with it, but I'm not a rabbi.

As long as you don't write it, why not?

I once worked in a campus writing center. We provided free advice to students who wanted help with their papers, but we never wrote it. We told them where to correct, how to reorganize, etc.

If you're not re-writing the papers either, just basic editing, I think it's fine.

But again - not a rav!

amother

Thu, Dec 05 2019, 4:47 pm

agreer wrote:

So it's not re-writing, but it's a lot more than basic editing. I'm going to call my Rav. I just wanted to know what Imamother thought in the interim before I can reach him.

FranticFrummie

Thu, Dec 05 2019, 4:59 pm

I would stick to editing for grammar and spelling. Simple things like the random typo, or accidentally writing to instead of too, that's fine to fix, IMHO.

The content should be left as is, as that is the student's own work. I also don't think I'd rearrange sentence structure much, because if the student cannot express themselves well, that should be noted by the teacher.

In the long run, you are doing the student a favor. Making things too easy doesn't pay off in the long run.

ora_43

Thu, Dec 05 2019, 5:14 pm

As long as you aren't actually providing the content, and it's not a writing course, I think you're fine.

I have two basic rules:
1. If you're helping someone avoid learning, it's cheating. If you're helping someone learn, it's fine.

Telling students that they need to rethink their content is helping them learn. They aren't doing any less work than students who submit their work straight to the professor. If anything, they're doing more. It's like hiring a tutor - they're getting help through the process, not help around the process.

2. If it's ethical for a professor, it's ethical for a student.

Professors get their papers professionally edited. As long as its all above-board and they're being graded on the content, not their grammar, why not?

Many people are never going to be able to write perfectly polished, academic-level English for many reasons. Eg. for most of the people I edit for, English is a third language. It's completely expected that they'll get help with the English side of things. It doesn't make the research any less their own.

Teomima

Thu, Dec 05 2019, 5:17 pm

FranticFrummie wrote:

This. I've done professional editing and this is exactly what it calls for. Sometimes I'll be hired to rewrite/reword/restructure as necessary, but I don't think that's very ethical for a student paper. You may correct grammar and spelling, perhaps formatting if necessary, but it is the professor's job to then teach their student how to write better.

Something else you can consider though is offer students a different form of editing. Don't actually correct/change anything, but highlight spelling and grammar errors for them to change themselves, then offer notes (for example, "The wording here is a little confusing. Perhaps restructure this paragraph so your idea is better expressed.") You could definitely charge for a service like this and not only is it ethically sound, but you are also doing them a huge mitzvah by teaching them how to better write and edit themselves (this is actually how I learned, my mother would do this for my high school papers and it taught me valuable skills).

OOTforlife

Thu, Dec 05 2019, 5:18 pm

Whether or not you are violating a particular college's or professor's policy will vary widely.

This is not psak or legal advice, but just my offhand opinion on the ethics. I think that, as long as whatever assistance you provide would be acceptable at most colleges, you shouldn't have to investigate its acceptability for every single client separately. As long as what you do is OK at most places, I think it would be enough for you to simply ask each client to confirm that they are not violating their school's policy by using your services.

amother

Thu, Dec 05 2019, 6:37 pm

I called my Rav. He basically said a lot of what you told me. He did say that editing a personal statement more extensively is less of an issue (that's the work that I did yesterday). In general, though, it's okay to edit basic spelling and grammar, but the rest should be more critiquing and pointing out where the student needs to improve/revise.

amother

Apricot

Fri, Dec 06 2019, 12:11 pm

Just an idea that can avoid the halachic/legal stuff and help you market yourself:

Perhaps up your fee a bit an include a 10 minute consult for reviewing the error with them. This way you are teaching. You can point out an error and ask them an open ended question of how they can reword or add content etc...

amother

Fri, Dec 06 2019, 12:21 pm

I don't know - I feel like I'm skating on such thin ice with this that I'm not going to edit college students' papers anymore. I'll stick to other writings that are not going to be graded.

Someone asked me yesterday how this could be unethical if almost everyone gets help from their parents or other family members when writing papers in school. If the parent or family member doesn't help them write the essay, they extensively proofread it, at the very least. (I think I was the only one in school who never had that kind of help. I did all my work myself. But I did used to edit friends' papers all the time...)

amother

Orange

Fri, Dec 06 2019, 1:40 pm

I used to tutor and teach math and I had tons of women calling me to ask if I can do their college math for them. Meaning, to earn math credit a lot of the Jewish college programs allow the students to get earn their math through an online math test given by one of the universities. So these ladies offered to pay me that I should log on to do their tests. Absolutely no way! One lady even claimed that her rabbi said it’s ok when I told her that I wouldn’t do it.

amother

Fri, Dec 06 2019, 1:45 pm

amother [ Orange ] wrote:

I'd never do that, either. I tutor math and the mother of a student I tutored once sent me a picture of her paper during the Regents and asked me to solve the problems for her!! I was appalled.

amother

Amber

Fri, Dec 06 2019, 1:48 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I was going to say that I didn’t think there was anything wrong when I used to ask my mother to read over my papers for school. She’s very good at that and she would make grammar/spelling corrections.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with what you are doing. The problem is when people pay an individual to completely write a school paper for them! You are only dealing with an already written paper.
My friend told me that her husband was going to school for special education. He was not capable of writing any school assignments and she wrote everything for him. Can you imagine that he gets the degree when his wife did all the work?? Even worse, he will get hired for a job with very little knowledge. You are not doing the work for others. You are simply polishing up work that was already written. I think that is fine unless a teacher specifically says otherwise.

amother

Orange

Fri, Dec 06 2019, 1:48 pm

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I'd never do that, either. I tutor math and the mother of a student I tutored once sent me a picture of her paper during the Regents and asked me to solve the problems for her!! I was appalled.

Omg that’s insane! I also used to teach math and when I left the position I (stupidly) gave my memory stick with all my sheets to one of the other teachers (parallel classes). She then modified them by putting her name and removing mine. She also added a border and then offered to sell it to the school. She told me all of this without realizing that she essentially was planning on selling my work for her gain. The school didn’t buy it.

watergirl

Fri, Dec 06 2019, 1:56 pm

amother [ Orange ] wrote:

I took a number of college courses on line. At some point in each semester, we’d have to go into a local testing center to take one exam and of course, show ID. People are really shooting themselves in the foot when they cheat like this.

amother

Teal

Sat, Dec 07 2019, 11:32 am

I once had someone ask (more like demand...) that I write a paper for her.

Her job? Teacher.

The paper? An essay on her personal reflections after taking a certain course.

The best part? The course was in the university department that I worked in at the time.

Some people Banging head