Two Bits: Cheating soars to a new level

British prime minster and acclaimed writer Winston Churchill admitted that he had cheated at school, oh, more than 100 years ago now.

He was very good at English but hated Latin and a friend was the opposite.

So, Churchill wrote his friend’s essays and the friend translated Latins scripts in exchange.

It didn’t end well though. One of the friend’s Churchill-scripted essays was considered absolutely brilliant, so the headmaster of the fancy English school Harrow summoned the boy and quizzed him about the ideas he had expressed and asked him to expand on them. When the boy spluttered and stammered the headmaster remarked drily, “You obviously write better than you speak”.

Methinks the headmaster smelled a rat but didn’t want to accuse his wealthy pupil of cheating. Once I got a friend to do my maths homework that I absolutely did not understand, but the teacher was no fool.

That was before corporal punishment was outlawed, unfortunately, because I got a sound caning for that little episode. Fast forward to the present and the world is a very different place. The opportunities for cheating are countless.

Google “essay writing” and there is a long list of websites devoted to ‘help students with their study assignments’.

You can buy just about anything on the web and papers produced on demand is obviously a growth industry.

For instance, a piddling little 500-word paper on almost any subject at university level can be produced within two weeks for R185.

If you really have been out partying all night just before your assignment is due, for R1300 a writer somewhere can come up with 1000 words within a day.

All these sites, like Cheapwriting and Professor Essays, naturally take Visa, Mastercard and PayPal. There’s even a site called Unemployed Professors that claims to employ those who lost their jobs in the downturn, earning money producing papers for other professors to be employed to mark . . . So, if you have a rich daddy and matching pocket money, there is a possibility you can leave school or university, degree and all, as thick as you went in.

I have to wonder about the quality of the papers you’d be buying though. I wouldn’t like to submit an essay with a sentence that starts “There is a large number of academic assignments . . .”

This particular site claimed to be South African, but it soon became obvious because of the stilted English and a few other clues, that it was probably based in Singapore.

It will come as no surprise that the primary motive of these sites is making money, not producing quality papers. One student who had worked for an essay-writing site revealed to Huffington Post that as the writers were paid by the word, their goal was to produce as many words as possible in the shortest time.

So they’d dash off 1000 words and move on to the next assignment. References? Well, make them up! Who reads the bibliography, anyway. Cheating? Oh no, says Professor Essays.com.

“Some people perceive it as a support of cheating. We would like to clarify that the cheating view arises from critics who do not want to see you excel in your academic work. It facilitates queries such as do my paper as it saves students from stressful academic situations.”

As fast as these sites spring up, so are the programs being written to find plagiarism.

A university lecturer pops the student’s essay into programs like Plagscan or Turnitin and if it finds three words or more matching in a sentence amongst the billions or papers on the net, it throws up a red flag. A senior lecturer friend tells me that plagiarism is alive and well in KZN’s institutes of higher learning.

“It is a huge problem. I’d say about a quarter of students are using online essay writers and the number is growing by the year. It is so very, very tempting and so easy.”

The plagiarism checkers only work to a certain extent, she says. A professional essay writer will change enough words to evade detection, but that essay will be entered into the database and the second time it is used, it will be picked up.

The penalty is severe if caught: two warnings then expulsion and the student will be excluded from all reputable places of learning for life. With university and Matric exams looming, desperate learners and students who feel that cheating may be their only shot at passing should reconsider, and not only for ethical reasons.

Dr Gillian Mooney, Dean of Academic Development and Support at The Independent Institute of Education, SA’s largest and most accredited private higher education institution, says: “At this stage, you may feel that it is the only option remaining for you, but what you think is the quickest and easiest route may very well destroy your future, and have repercussions that follow you throughout your life.

“If you cheat, you risk turning what would have remained a private challenge that could have been overcome within a year or two, into a public scandal that could ruin your reputation for life,” she says. By the way, I would like to assure readers that at least one in three words of the above column are mine.

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A new webcam has been placed on our Dolphin Coast, all the better for advertising it with. Inus van Schalkwyk has placed a camera at Thompson’s Bay giving a fine view of the bay and tidal pool.

This takes the number of cameras on his Cyberview Letting page to four. Already up and running are cams for Willard Beach, Salmon Bay and Granny’s Pool. Says Inus: “I don’t know what Steve Honeysett’s said to his lifeguards, but you can see them running and exercising every day!” So you have been warned – Big Brother is watching you!

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Our favourite TV show, Strictly Come Dancing, is on the Beeb channel again and is compulsory viewing in our house. Takes me back to our days of learning ballroom and Latin at Ken and Jayne’s studio in the old village.

I was a truly awful dancer, but now that I know just a little bit of course I am a professionalstandard armchair judge and can spot at least some of the more obvious errors on the dance floor. It’s quite amazing how quickly these celebrity amateurs learn and we so enjoy seeing them improve by the week.

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A 90-year-old man goes for a physical and all of his tests come back normal. The doctor says, “Larry, everything looks great. How are you doing mentally and emotionally? Are you at peace with God?” Larry replies, “God and I are tight. He knows I have poor eyesight, so He’s fixed it so when I get up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, poof! the light goes on. When I’m done, poof! the light goes off.”

“Wow, that’s incredible,” the doctor says. A little later in the day, the doctor calls Larry’s wife. “Bonnie,” he says, “Larry is doing fine! But I had to call you because I’m in awe of his relationship with God. Is it true that he gets up during the night, and poof, the light goes on in the bathroom, and when he’s done, poof, the light goes off?”

“Oh no,” exclaims Bonnie. “He’s peeing in the refrigerator again!”