The Jewish Ethicist: Selling Term Papers

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Can I sell my term papers to an online service?

Q. I'm a good student. Sometimes I make a little extra money by selling my
term papers to a website which maintains a kind of archive of papers on
various topics. Of course I would never use one of these services, but is
it unethical to contribute to them as well?

A. It's a good thing that you don't use these services to submit bogus term
papers. The very foundation of academia is that the student is judged on
his or her own work on an equitable basis; this foundation is completely
undermined by any kind of plagiarism.

Rabbi Moshe Feinstein points out that copying work in school is not only
misleading the school; in many cases it actually constitutes a kind of
stealing, because a person may get a job in which the employer is willing
to pay only based on the understanding that the employee or professional
has certain basic qualifications that the degree testifies to. If the
diploma was fraudulently obtained, then the payment is in effect stolen.

Apart from this universal ethical problem, there is the simpler problem:
all college students are bound by the academic rules of their
institutions, which invariably prohibit plagiarism. So even if this scourge
weren't inherently unethical, it would still be wrong to go against this
basic agreement to abide by the rules.

But your question is more subtle. You, yourself, are not engaging in
plagiarism; you are only aiding others to do this. Furthermore, there are
some convincing arguments in your favor: First of all, many people
undoubtedly use these services for permissible reasons, in order to get
ideas and references which they will then use as source material for
original work. (The truth is that even this is academically questionable if
they fail to reference the bought term paper itself.) We might reason that
it's not your fault if some unscrupulous individuals submit the paper as is.

Second of all, you may reason that really you are not contributing to the
plagiarism problem at all. There are plenty of other papers out there, and
if your paper were missing from the archive there would still be plenty of
others.

These arguments are correct, but they are not enough. Jewish law discerns
three different levels of connivance with wrongdoing.

1. The most serious level is when a person actually enables wrongdoing. You
are indeed off the hook from this point of view because in fact there
really are plenty of other people offering the same merchandise.

2. A less serious level, but still ethically improper, is what we call
"abetting" a transgression. The exact boundaries of "abetting" depend on
many details, including the likelihood that your work will be ultimately
used for a permissible reason. And practically speaking, the chances seem
overwhelming that your papers are wanted for misleading instructors.

Even a cursory look at the most prominent term paper sites show that
they are carefully targeted to meet the needs of students who want to
submit the paper they purchase. One site starts out by mentioning that they
can't guarantee a particular grade; only afterwards do they mention that
you should use the paper only as a source. Another site implies that
plagiarism is illegal only in some places, and in other places it is
permissible. Many sites offer special "personalizing" services regarding
style and structure, which are of absolutely no use to someone wanting to
use the site for reference material but which are very important to
students who want to actually submit the downloaded papers.

3. Finally, there is the problem of "condoning" a transgression.
This is violated when you give the impression that there is nothing wrong
with wrongdoing. The completely anonymous nature of these sites seems to
greatly minimize this problem. So for example if you actually wanted to use
one of the problematic sites for a legitimate purpose, to obtain ideas or
source references, you could do so without seeming to condone the more
common illegitimate uses.

The phenomenon of plagiarism demands ethical behavior from students, but it
also places demands on instructors to take reasonable steps to avoid
putting honest students at a disadvantage. Here are some useful tips:

1. Assign paper topics which are a little off the beaten track. If you ask
students to write a paper on "The concept of 'nature' in King Lear", you
are inviting trouble. Ask them instead to compare the concept of nature in
Lear to that in some other, more obscure work, or to compare it with some
provocative suggestion which you compose.

2. Do the same thing for paper structure. Make unconventional demands like
requiring some minimal number of citations from the original or demanding
that a particular approach to analysis be adopted.

3. Give occasional oral quizzes to students to make sure they understand
what they submitted. This may not be enough to make the student write the
paper he submits but at the very least it will induce him to read it!

By the way, if you use material from this column, please be sure to
attribute it!

SOURCES: Shulchan Arukh Yoreh Deah 151 and commentaries, 334:48 in Rema.
Igrot Moshe Choshen Mishpat II:30.

Send your queries about ethics in the workplace to jewishethicist@aish.com

The Jewish Ethicist presents some general principles of Jewish law. For specific questions and direct application, please consult a qualified Rabbi.

The Jewish Ethicist is a joint project of Aish.com and the Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem. To find out more about business ethics and Jewish values for the workplace, visit the JCT Center for Business Ethics website at www.besr.org.

JCT Center For Business Ethics

Copyright © JCT Center for Business Ethics.

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