I agree with those here who state that you should not do it because it is wrong, not just because you are likely to be caught and the penalty is severe. The penalty is what it is because it is a serious breach of basic ethics.

I am so sick and tired of people bitching about how assignments are a "waste of time" because you "did it once and never had to use it again." Boo-Hoo. Waste of what time, the time you'd otherwise spend playing HALO or Wii Bowling? How about looking at College, and education generally, as an opportunity for personal development, maturation, exploration of things you might not otherwise know or encounter? If you're seriously considering buying a term paper because you are LAZY and UNETHICAL, you ought to be ashamed. There is someone out there somewhere with more determination and intellectual curiosity that deserves to be in your shoes and take advantage of the tremendous opportunity that it is to go to college.

 

I don't feel guilty about the stolen paper I handed in, though I'm sure I would've if I'd been caught. Like I said, I wouldn't do it again but my understanding of education and process has changed since I was in my mid-teenage years.

It's definitely wrong, though I must say I have seen dozens of corporate documents that have been taken and "adapted" by other organizations and people who did not write the words. Interesting how "adapting" and "using as a template" (and changing only minor items and content) is acceptable corporate practice in the business world but plagiarism (under that title) is not.

 

I used some of the free ones back in college in my english courses b/c I could have given a shit about the stuff we studied. This was back in 00-01 so this was before wikipedia and all these other "encyclopedia" type sites really blew up.

I didn't use them word for word and most of the time I only used a few areas but hey it helped.

I wouldn't dare do some of that now b/c of how they can track the text.

It really was amazing the amount of papers some of those free sites had. All I had to do to be a member was submit a paper that I had written. I was too fried to give a shit back then. Now I do feel bad and that I cheated myself a little, but hey I did good on them

 

[quote name='s2000raj' date='Jan 15 2009, 10:59 AM'] A novel idea.

 

Write the damn thing yourself, and go talk to a teacher or a TA if you want help.

If the great ethical arguments everyone else have made don't convince you, know that even IF we don't run passages through our super secret online checkers, we still DO quickly recognize work that is and work that isn't yours. Figuring out undergrads isn't difficult, and in my 5+ years of teaching experience, sympathizing with them is out of the question when they try things like this.

Be one of the 5% of students who actually goes to the teachers/TAs for help. You'll find the assignment is probably way easier than you originally thought.

 

The only way to get yourself an original paper is to pay for a 100% original paper from those services. It costs more, but at least you will not get a pre-written paper off of a database. Even then I would not trust it 100%.

For the record, I do not support this for two reasons. The first is I had a friend back as an undergrad purchase a 100% original paper and the person who wrote it cut and pasted some text from an art website. Fortunately he caught it before he turned in the paper. The second reason is I am a grad student busting my a$$ for good grades and I would kick the crap out of any classmate I found doing this. Just put in the work. You will thank yourself someday.

 

Hmmmm... I'm a cook and don't need math. Hey let's go buy a house. Hmmm. It says that the mortgage rate is 15% for this 800,000 condo but the friendly trustworthy mortgage broker says I can afford the payment and I can always refinance. Who cares about math right?

 

cheating runs rampant in higher education. most recently caught were the duke mba's.

if u dont cheat, u will get eaten up alive in the UC system. when ur skool consists of more than 50% asians and indians, cheating is barely even thought of as cheating. it's expected that your friends taht have taken the test before you, tells you about wuts on the test. if its stupid busy work to fulfill a gay GE requirement, and there really is no point in learning useless information, cheating is acceptable. did i care about history and writing classes when i was econo major? hell no.

when i was a undergrad at UCSD, there was a "tutor" that ran a business on the side, teaching students what was going to be on the test, and would do all the hw for the students. His sessions were regularly filled with 40+ students at $50 a pop. he was a phd exprofessor and had archives of all old tests. why spend 4 hours trying to figure our a economics problem when this guy would show you the solution in 20 minutes?

to this day, i can say i learned more about econ from the supplemental tutor, than i did attending classes. ever have a russian prof taht cant even speak english try to each a class? its crazy how some of those guys even get jobs.

to add on to this, if you didnt find a group of people taht were "down" u were basically fuct, if you went at it alone.

i hated writing term papers, luckily my roommate was a writing major.

 

and 80% of those in college would say...stfu and pound the beer b0ng.

when it comes to partying vs ethics, i think we know the victor.

but to be fair. imo, the US needs to move towards a more eastern approach to learning. in india and china, if you are an engineer, u take math and science classes only, no bullshit time wasting with writing, history, aka bs classes or should i say BA classes.

 

Uh...what?