It's not an uncommon situation: a student is nearing a deadline after weeks of having done other work, both academically and professionally, and it seems as though an assignment is going to slip through the cracks, warranting the hard-working (or not) student a zero. This grade will have a great impact on one course, and a noticeable one on his or her's overall GPA. What is one to do?
Some students have been able to avoid such issues by engaging in a trend that is not new, but, perhaps, more available than ever with the use of the Internet. This trend is having an original paper written for a fair price by someone with the proper background.
Is this a method of cheating? Yes. Is it against all school policies on plagiarism? Absolutely. Is it how things are done by the very professionals students are trying to emulate? Without a doubt. Such a contradiction deserves an explanation.
The Professional World Compared to School
When a person takes a test in school, it is usually without the aid of reference. In fact, bringing a reference or asking a fellow student for assistance is called cheating.
In the real world, tests come in many forms between sales calls, meetings, and presentations. If a person attends a meeting without a reference and refuses to ask an associate for assistance where he lacks, he is cheating himself and the company he represents because he is failing to utilize available resources.
The difference in these cases is that the individual students are allowed a large margin for error. In most cases, they will score 'average' if they miss 30% of the answers. In life, being near-perfect in each test is very important. This includes when others do the work for their bosses or co-workers.
Ghost Writers in Academia and in Business
People in business and government who have reached the higher levels rarely write their own work. Governors and Senators do not write their own speeches most times and executives delegate assignments that they later critique for revisions before handing in to their boss, or a board, taking full credit as their bosses had before them.
Students are expected to complete their own work. Many do, and some do not. The ones who do not often pay upwards of $25 per page for others to complete high quality assignments that they then critique for revisions before handing in to their teachers, taking full credit, but should they? What would a role model say?
Role Models With Ghost Writers
The conflict between what is right and wrong can sometimes be indistinguishable given that those we look up to are the ones who blur the two together. Among the ghost written books people have enjoyed are Ronald Reagan's autobiography An American Life and John F. Kennedy's Trials and Tribulations, for which he accepted the Pulitzer Prize.
Singer Clay Aiken released a book called Learning to Sing under his own name alone, leading people to believe he wrote it. Is it his story? Yes. Did he approve of the final copy? One hopes so. Did he write it? No. This quarter pound tome was punched up by a ghost writer, but if a fan walked up to Aiken and asked him to sign it, he'd do so gladly just as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would with It Takes a Village.
The Difference Between a Student and a Role Model Using a Ghost Writer
While the act of purchasing one's writing services and calling it one's own is the same act, there are differences when used by these two groups.
When a student turns in something he did not create and calls it his own, he does so for an audience of one person at his own financial cost so that it can be judged on a scale from A to F.
When a professional turns in something he did not create and calls it his own, he does so for an audience of thousands, if not millions, for his own financial gain. The book leads to speaking engagements and television appearances, which also pay substantially, and leads to positions of higher influence, such as the US Presidency, foreign ambassadorships, and corporate and non-profit boards.
So, getting back to the original idea: what is the ethical dilemma in having a ghost writer for college papers? The dilemma is that the rules in academia strictly forbid it. School is supposed to be gutted out by individuals in a purely capitalistic fashion of one entrepreneur pitted against others, all utilizing the same resources whereas life outside of the school is a team sport where the capitalism that plays out is that of bigger, stronger, and faster beats out the lowly sole proprietor, which is why stores like Modell's can sell the same sneakers for less than the Mom and Pop Sports Store. Where the world of school is meant to be played out in a fashion of dog-eat-dog, the world outside of it is meant to be played out in a fashion of dogpack-eat-dog. It seems that the students with the financial resources are looking to emulate this concept in the classroom where they can.
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