by Doreen Martel

Created on: July 06, 2011

Academic ghost writing takes on a number of forms, but in its most basic form, it is intellectually dishonest. There is a big difference between writing a paper and asking someone to “clean it up” (e.g., edit the document for readability) and asking someone to write the paper from scratch. Unfortunately, there are a number of websites that offer academic ghost writing that writers use as a way of making money and students use at the last minute to complete a school assignment.

Academic dishonesty

Those who are attending school should be focused on learning and on submitting work based on their knowledge. Whether a student is in high school, college or taking a course online, they are earning credit for the work that is submitted. While it may take some time to complete a course paper, it is academically dishonest to take credit for something that someone else crafted.

Degrees without work

One of the most egregious things about academic ghost writing is that people wind up with degrees or certificates of completion without having done the work on their own. While this may seem like a good idea, transferring the knowledge from one person to another is not possible. Those who earn a certificate or degree by hiring an academic ghost writer will find their lack of knowledge could be problematic when they are trying to deal with issues in the workplace.

Not academic ghost writing

Not everyone is a good writer. Some students will do all of their research and will assemble a paper based on their knowledge level and ask someone to edit their work. While a ghost writer may be hired to review and clean up these documents, this is typically an acceptable form of ghost writing. These writers are taking a completed paper and putting it into a legible format, making sure that the thoughts flow clearly and that the document is free from grammatical and typographical errors. This is editing and not typically problematic provided that the student has done most of the legwork.

Unfortunately, as students at all levels are forced to accept full-time or part-time jobs to help make ends meet, the incidence of academic ghost writing may increase. More websites than ever before are offering academic ghost writing and unfortunately, there are writers who are more than happy to take advantage of the potential earnings that are available writing for these sites.

Ghost writing academic papers will become an epidemic if it is not stemmed. Freelance writers must take a stand and agree that academic ghost writing is dishonest on numerous levels. Sadly, there are freelance writers who earn their living doing this and there will always be students who are willing to pay someone else to do their term papers, book reports and even essays for entry into college.

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