This piece published in The Chronicle of Higher Education was written under a pseudonym. He (or she) writes about the “ghostwriting” work they do for students in need of papers. This writer is the person students find online to write papers on their behalf.
It is late in the semester when the business student contacts me, a time when I typically juggle deadlines and push out 20 to 40 pages a day. I had written a short research proposal for her a few weeks before, suggesting a project that connected a surge of unethical business practices to the patterns of trade liberalization. The proposal was approved, and now I had six days to complete the assignment. This was not quite a rush order, which we get top dollar to write. This assignment would be priced at a standard $2,000, half of which goes in my pocket.
I don’t make the money this ghostwriter makes and – fortunately – mine work is not for a cheating student. I write for a company where no byline is given. Instead the information is simply posted as a “news article” on Twitter with no author listed. Just the link through.
Have you ever cheated? I may be of the minority when I say that I have not. I like being able to look in the mirror each morning unburdened by that kind of guilt.
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