I am starting an associates degree in English this August, and I was wondering if it is ethically okay to submit homework on the forum for a generalized critique?
Nothing ethically wrong with writing a paper and then having a friend look over it. WF.org is your friend . I'd say if your writing a paper then its ok to put it in the Essays section for review.
I'd say it depends on the circumstances. We've had people arrive at the site with little more than a statement of the assignment, basically expecting members to construct the paper for them. That is clearly unethical. The same is true of essays that the person wishes to submit for scholarship awards, admissions, or other competitive purposes. Such work should reflect the student's individual efforts and ability. On the other hand, it is clearly ok to submit something here for review if it has already been submitted to the school, although knowing whether this is true comes down to how credible the member is. If something even appears to be a work in progress for school, I tend to keep my advice very general. I'm doing no one any favors by doing their work for them! As a site, we take a very dim view of academic dishonesty. People have been banned for having signature links promoting sites that provide paper writing "services". That type of entrpreneur gives a bad name to all writers. Also, be aware that schools will often scan the Internet to detect plagiarism, and if their search finds a copy of something you have turned in, the consequences can be dire!
i'm another who won't do someone's homework for them, but i do help students improve/polish their assigned work by pointing out what needs to be corrected...
I think it's down to common sense really. We all know where the line is, regarding cheating, so we all know not to cross it. Whether we do or not is another matter.
As a teacher I think the "friend rule" applies here. It is fine to have a friend look over and correct YOUR work. It isn't fine if your friend DOES the work.
I wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to advise me on this. I was considering more of a generalized critique once the homework assignment was complete. On retrospect however, I do not think I will submit the work on the forum. Some of the advice given made me take a closer look at the ethical aspect of what I was considering, and that line is simply not clear enough for me. So I will not cross it. A friend’s critique would be very different in this situation, because said friend knows me. A friend is someone who would know where I stand ethically and morally, so the issue of trust would not even be an issue. I’ve met some wonderful people on the forum, those who have been honest and kind, and if I may say, very…very patient with me.:redface: I consider them friends, but unfortunately they only know what I have written in my profile, and that’s not good enough. Well that’s my final thought on this. Once again thank you.
You're probably making the best decision there to be honest with you. Plus, as Cogito touched on, even if you were being totally honest you could be penalised for submitting your piece to this site because of plagiarism software. Nowadays essays and coursework are often checked against the internet to see if there are any matching pieces there. If you were to post your work up here then the plagiarism software might detect it and thus penalise you.
