Have you ever passed off someone else's work as your own?

[TobiasW]

Having just been looking at a website where people can post their homework assignments and have other people bid to do it for them I'm wondering whether you'd consider that cheating or a just means to an end - assuming you can afford to pay for the answers.

Is it wrong, or is it creative thinking?

 

[dyanmarie25]

Well, no. I have never tried those bidding sites before, and I have never asked other people online to do the work for me. But yeah, I have done some sort of cheating in school in the past. My friends and I would copy answers from one another.

 

[T J Tutor]

A person cheats themselves in some ways by doing this. Experience at everything, no matter how tedious and insignificant, makes an impact on our lives. We lose those experiences by farming it out.

 

[TobiasW]

I recently took part in an online course and one of the tasks was to write a short reflective piece of text which was submitted online for marking and was visible to all the others on the course. Now clearly, with thousands and thousands of participants, it wasn't going to be possible for it to be marked in any other way than by computer and, bearing in mind the nature of the assignment, the only real way to mark it was by the number of words submitted since there would be almost as many different opinions as there were participants. When the responses started coming in, there were dozens which just said 'posting for credit, posting for credit...' until the word limit was reached. These were met with a storm of comment from other participants to the effect that the only person these 'cheats' were cheating were themselves! What made it especially poignant was that the course was about ethics!

 

[pwarbi]

I've never passed other people's work off as my own but in the past I've been on the opposite side and others have used my work to get what they wanted.

It didn't really bother me too much to be honrst as what they did didn't have a direct effect on me, and I just took it as a compliment really. It would have been polite if they'd have asked, but then again I'd have said no, and that's why they probably didn't ask in the first place!

 

[harpazo22]

I would never do that not only because it's just wrong, but because it will eventually be found out! Things always come to the light. And I've been on the opposite end of it as well. It can be very frustrating when people try to pass off my work as their own.

 

[pwarbi]

I think it's probably more common than people think to be honest and while your work might not be copied word for word, there's certainly enough in there for you to be able to tell it's yours.

Being able to prove it is another matter though unfortunately and a lot of the time there's nothing you can do.

 

[arthnel]

I'm not going to look at it as totally wrong. There is some sort of creative thinking to it. Who said a bit of dishonesty eliminates creativity? While not encouraging dishonesty I am highlighting it as means of getting ahead which many businessmen and women have utilized and still come out smelling like fresh roses. There is a place for it, although it will never become the mainstream method of upward mobility.