Wednesday, April 30, 2014

The Legalities of the College Homework Industry

I proudly allow Academic Composition to be a sponsor on my little Internet media empire because I not only believe in the business, but I also believe students should not have to pay, let alone, jump through all the hoops Big Education makes them while raping them for their tuition money for a degree that more often than not isn't worth it.

Still...

It has recently come to my attention that paying other people to do your homework is actually ILLEGAL is several states.

In the effort to remain above board and full disclose I present...a...um....full disclosure:

Selling and falsifying student homework and fraudulently taking online courses on behalf of students is illegal in New York and 17 other states. It is also a violation of CL rules. Violating NYS laws on Craigslist puts the site and the founder, Craig Newmark, in jeopardy. The NY County DA's office is currently monitoring this listing category and will prosecute those selling homework to the full extent of the law. You would be advised to remove your ad or rewrite it to remain in accordance with NY State law. FYI -NEW YORK STATE LAW: New York: Section 213-B of the New York Education Law criminalizes the unlawful sale of "a dissertation, thesis, term paper, essay, report or other written assignment" as a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by incarceration of up to three months. Local district attorneys or the state Attorney General can initiate investigations into this misconduct. Academic tutoring and counseling services are exempt from prosecution. In 2013 the NYS legislature amended the bill to include any sale of student papers on the internet. Selling homework and student papers is also illegal in Massachusetts, California, Illinois, Florida,Texas, Virginia, Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina,Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington.

It is my personal opinion these people may kindly go fuck themselves because as far as I can tell it is nearly impossible to determine whether or not somebody is writing papers for another person and their "punishment" seems to be nebulous or (at worst) a "class B" misdemeanor (so you know, you'll probably get a government check and some counseling or something).

Regardless, when using the services of Academic Composition realize you are taking on the full legal consequences of doing so and that neither I nor Academic Composition are responsible for whatever consequences befall you.

YOu have been warned.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

About this:

"as far as I can tell it is nearly impossible to determine whether or not somebody is writing papers for another person"

Actually, as a professor I can tell you that it's really, really easy to tell.

I'll have a student that is barely literate, or can't use punctation properly, turn in a perfect paper. I know it's not right, and sure enough, turn-it-in comes back with a 90% match.

Very few of these paper places actually do the work properly, and even if they do a good job, they are known to get lazy sometimes. If a paper is used more than once, the turn it in system can find it and the student is busted.

This is why ALL good colleges REQUIRE all research paper submissions to be electronic, so they can automatically go through the turn-it-in system.

Unknown said...

Hahaha this is BS! Next thing you know they will be outlawing Asshole Consulting.

Anonymous said...

The problem with yhe turn it in system is that there is absolutely nothing a college freshman can write about english literature that hasnt already been written by a thousand other students.

Glen Filthie said...

Those sleazy educators are not duping the kids Aaron. The lazy, feckless kids want a degree without having to work for it. Those profs of the mickey mouse programs are serving an eager and receptive market.

It IS sleazy is hell, but so is what you are doing, IMHO. Unless you really, really need the money...you should reset your moral compass. That isn't a market for real men.

As for our anonymous professor...those illiterate kids shouldn't even be in your classroom. They should be in remedial programs at the high school level or out working. The market Aaron is dabbling in wouldn't even exist 50 years ago. Back then high school kids learned Latin, today they learn remedial English in University.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous professor,

Were you able to get any of your illiterate students to confess that they used an essay mill service?

Although there are a lot of scammers in the essay market who sell the same papers over and over again, a lot of them do original work every time.

Even if they do get lazy sometimes, it will still be difficult for you to prove that their clients cheated.

In the worst case scenario, the lazy essay-writers will write an original paper but won't do a great job.

In that case, you'd be able to mark the student down for not complying with the requirements of the assignment, yet there would be zero evidence that they are guilty of plagiarism.

As far as I could see, there are only two ways for you to tell that someone used an essay mill service.

A. The essay mill recycled the paper and turnitin.com caught it.

B. You got the student to confess.

As far as I know, very few essays are recycled and it is not easy to get a student to confess.

Anonymous said...

The issue isn't really state law as state laws regulating homework are unconstitutional with respect to the privileges and immunities clause. Craigslist however, does have the right to control who accesses their servers and anyone who violates their TOS can be civilly and criminally liable.

Anonymous said...

Thanks to those that took the time to respond to me!

This:

"those illiterate kids shouldn't even be in your classroom"

You are 100% right about that. The BS work the students are doing is equal to Freshman high school work at best. NONE of these students would last even a day in my BS program from 30 years ago.

My personal PhD work (in an unnamed accredited uni) is just a re-hash of materials that were required for my BS over 30 years ago. The maths are LESS INTENSIVE for my current PhD program than my BS program was 30 years ago. Yes, a small part is that the school I went to 30 years ago was really good, but MOSTLY it's that the standards have fallen so low.

I read an article that at Harvard, the average grade received was A-. You would think that Harvard people would know, BY DEFINITION, the average grade SHOULD be a C, and any deviation in the average from that "C" is the amount of grade inflation at that particular uni. So basically ALL college is a joke.

I am ashamed of my job and contributing to the corrupt system. I will be leaving very soon.

Anonymous said...

This:

"The problem with the turn it in system is that there is absolutely nothing a college freshman can write about english literature that hasnt already been written by a thousand other students."

It's not about what they write, it's about how, the word choices, the turn of the phrase, the size of the vocabulary, the length of the words used, this is all as individual as a fingerprint. Turn it in will nail them every time.

The students never confess. You have them dead to rights, with a paper with 90% or higher match, and they just drone on and on about it being a mistake until some administrator takes pity on them and lets it slide. The admin is so corrupt you can't even imagine.

I once even caught a student in an on-line class that had paid someone from India to complete their courses! I only caught this one, because the jerk in India emailed me with a question from the class USING THEIR REAL NAME AND ADDRESS!

I freaked and whet right to administration. They said, "NO PROOF"!! I said that's bull, you can easily check the IP logs for that student classroom an see who is signing in from India. Never got an answer.

As bad as in-person uni's are now, the on-line are 1000 times worse.

I can't wait for it all to come down.

Anonymous said...

RE: Anonymous. BS 36 years ago and I could not agree more with your assessment. I'm accused of being "some kind of professor" for knowing basic facts that college grads should be aware. The college system today is the Ford factory line, mass production of the early 20th century.

Anonymous said...

The college system today is the Ford factory line, mass production of the early 20th century

That's a poor analogy. The ford factory line at least produced cars, something of value in teh marketplace. The modern university is only providing a place for 18-22 year olds to goof off while other people pay their bills. In exchange for tuition money, the students get a degree. No implied warrantee that they will learn anything useful while they are there.

Unknown said...

But you should open up the essay applying an attention-grabbing piece of info suitable to the phrase becoming described. For occasion, you can use an anecdotal research paper help hook sentence and notify an appealing story. To make guaranteed your essay is ready to seize the reader's interest. You can understand the art of opening your essay with catchy sentences from this thorough write-up on hook examples.two Definition Essay Thesis.