Yesterday, I was approached by a friend of a friend about the possibility of doing some writing/polishing work - for an educational consultancy that "facilitates" applications for graduate study in US universities.
I've done quite a bit of this sort of work in the past, but I do regard it as something of an ethical minefield, and always proceed very warily to try to keep within what I feel to be an acceptable level of 'application enhancement'. I'm quite happy to advise people on what kind of thing they should write for the personal statements, essays, etc. (though people are never happy with just that!). I don't mind giving detailed feedback, suggesting changes, rearrangements, and extra material (or different emphases) that might be useful. I'll even agree to 'polishing' the English, including a fair amount of re-writing - just so long as the substantive content has all been provided by the candidates themselves, and we're trying to preserve the general character of their original English (not vainly trying to make it 'perfect'). You can readily imagine what a muddy area this is, how difficult it can be to keep that line of moral rectitude clearly defined in your mind.
And, of course, what Chinese would-be graduate students invariably want is for someone to just write the whole bloody thing for them.
And that's what this agency was asking me for. I said NO, of course; tersely and emphatically.
Well, at least they had the decency to be a little shamefaced about it (or perhaps just tactically dishonest?): they claimed that the essays they wanted me to write would not actually be submitted with any applications, but would simply be used by their clients as 'models' to guide them.
Yeah, right. Plagiarism is a particularly big problem in China: there seems to be little understanding of the concept; and it fits all too snugly into the wider culture of pervasive cheating in academe, where anything that works is accepted as OK (hmm, yes, in fact, that is the culture of the whole country, in everything - Deng and his cats, again). If I write 'model answers' for these guys, the very best that can happen is that they will follow the template slavishly, quoting long sections verbatim, and only occasionally adding crude - and not always very appropriate - examples or explanations of their own. The worst that can happen - and IT WOULD, for a certainty - is that some of them will submit one of my 'models' as their own work, with few if any changes made to it. (And, probably, without even making any attempt to remember, understand, or research what I'd written about. I was briefly quite amused to contemplate some of these guys being challenged at interview to explain their choice of 'favourite character in literature', and having to reveal that they had absolutely no idea who Holden Caulfield was, or why they had chosen to call him "a whiny, self-dramatising little charlatan". I soon restrained these ungenerous impulses. Schadenfreude, alas, is not an adequate motive for compromising one's ethical principles.)
Guys (and gals), please try to get this through your heads:
The point of these writing tasks is a) to provide evidence of your level of written English, and b) to demonstrate your individuality.
You can't possibly demonstrate your individuality by following someone else's template or 'model answer' - even if you do customize it appropriately with details from your own experience and opinions. It is utterly fatuous - completely bloody pointless - to attempt to utilize anyone else's writing when completing your university applications. And, really, if you aren't able to attempt this kind of writing task in English unaided, then you aren't fit to undertake graduate study overseas.
Oh, yes, and if I help you to look smarter or more competent in English than you actually are, then I am colluding in your cheating - and, maybe, am helping you to win a place at university that you don't deserve (and probably won't profit from), and thereby denying that place to someone else who'd make better use of it than you. I'm not prepared to do that.
[I only compromise my principles on this issue ever so slightly, to the extent of doing some prompting and 'polishing' for grad school applicants, because I figure that universities expect that everyone is getting some help of this kind, and therefore make allowances for it.
I realise I am a freakish anomaly in taking this moral stance. There is a thriving industry here in China for 'ghostwriting' university applications. And, I fear, most of the universities must be quite well aware of this, but just don't give a damn - because they don't care whether the majority of their overseas students will actually be any good, they just care about collecting their fees.]
2 comments:
Only related a very little. When I taught writing and told them they'd fail the class if they plagiarized, even provided it to them in writing, they were still surprised when I failed them. They didn't understand why I would do such a thing.
The sad thing is the teachers all knew it was going on but none of them were willing to attempt to do anything about it.
Yep, they're astoundingly naive about it, aren't they?
I think they get used to their Chinese teachers never actually paying that much attention to the work they hand in. It's the mentality in so much of the country: people just want the requisite volume of paper, they hardly ever look at what's written on it (hence the huge business in providing fake paperwork to support applications for passports, visas, bank loans, etc.). I've had students print off entire web pages for me - complete with the URL!!!!!
Post a Comment