Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy a parent editing college papers?

I saw my dentist yesterday and we talked about our kids who are in college. He is a very friendly guy and went on at length about his son, who is a freshman. He also has a daughter in med school. I was a bit shocked to hear that his wife actually edits the papers for both children- and has always done so. They email their work to her and she corrects it and sends it back. My husband calls it cheating. What do you think? To make it even weirder, the dentist wanted to take his wife away for a week. She refused, saying that the kids would need her help with homework!

Sheesh! I don't even go that far for GS8! By the time a child is in high school I see no reason for the parent to edit a paper.

If I recall correctly, people used to charge to edit other's papers. I never thought of it as cheating. I made some pocket change editing papers for graduate students when I was an undergrad. I thought it was a legitimate service, but maybe I'm just a big undercover cheater!!!!!

Not going on vacation with hubby to stay home in case the kids need help with homework, that's just pathetic.

CUT THOSE APRON STRINGS ALREADY LADY!!!!!!!!!!

cheeesh

Incog

I agree that this situation seems extreme and it does sound as though the mother may be going too far. Though I do believe students should always have someone edit their papers. Ideally the editing process is also a learning process. I will always encourage my children to have someone edit their papers. I would have never turned in a paper without having someone edit it. Professional authors have people who do this. They are called editors.

I suspect behaviors such as what this mother displays is why this recent generation of parents is called "helicopter parents."

Maybe I'd be less surprised if I was accustomed to having someone edit my school work. However, it is an honor code violation for someone to edit some of my papers. I'm crazy about my son, but I can't imagine contributing to his college assignments and delaying a vacation b/c of it.

LOL! I don't think you were a cheater. Just an enabler, keeping your clients addicted to you.

When I was in grad school for English, I worked as a tutor in a position provided by the university itself. Generally speaking, we didn't just mark up a paper and hand it back to a student, since that would make the student reliant upon our service (Hint, hint, dentist's wife!). However, we were never instructed that doing such editing was cheating. Professors who place significant weight on spelling and grammatical errors rather than on content are around, but I'm a former English teacher, and I'd say that those who give an F for one error (or such extremities) are asking--begging!--for editors to pop up. I don't think that's cheating. It's just good sense.

Having other readers look at your work before you turn in a paper is smart. If you have to pay for that reader, then so much the better for the reader. I don't think that's cheating, as long as the content is not rewritten by the editor. It must be sentence-level editing, not idea-level revision. It's a fine line sometimes--how do you edit a paper that has no thesis statement, for example? (Correct answer: you don't! You tell the person that there is no thesis statement and return the paper to him/her!)--but as long as the ideas and examples remain those of the original writer, editing at the sentence-level is not cheating.

Still, I would argue that the mom's time would be FAR better used if she taught her kids how to edit their OWN work. Are they going to be sending their memos and reports from work to her to edit, too? If not (and I really hope not!), then I'm with 'Neato:

PATHETIC! CUT THOSE APRON STRINGS ALREADY LADY!!!!!!!!!!

So is the mother going to be editing daughter's chart notes when DD is in her residency? Yikes--she'll be busy then, won't she?

One can hope! I mean, how shortsighted is this mom, anyway?!

LOL, I fully second the cut the apron strings I do remember having my sister who is a writer by profession edit some of my college work. However, she never suggested changes to content, just spelling and grammer.

Now, for my almost 9 year old, I do review his writing assignments for neatness (ie, can I read what he wrote?) and spelling and grammer. However, I tell him I saw at least x number of mistakes and make him try to find them. If he can't find the last couple I try to talk him through what he is missing so he still finds them himself. For content he is on his own. If I feel he hasn't quite hit the mark, I will make a copy of it and after he has turned in his work, we will go over it with some suggestions on things he can think about for the next assignment.

I also make a point of letting him read some of my writing to find my errors so he knows that this is just a part of the writing process. Since I am lousy at spelling, he can usually tell me I have x errors to find as well :P.

I'd take the vacation over editing papers anyday

WOW. I hope that mom allows her children to fail at some point in life. The real world will be a harsh reality.

I love the "I see x # of errors" idea.

Merely circling the errors without correcting them can be useful, too. Not cheating.

You can help with content without directing too much, though it's a skill that takes a little finesse, and you do move out of strictly editing into tutoring when you do this. But if you're mom, I think that's perfectly fine.

I often helped students--the ones with no thesis statement, for example--to make substantial revisions. The trick is to ask questions only, tell them nothing, ever. Answer questions with questions, even.

"What's your point?" or "If you had to tell me your whole paper in just one sentence, what would that sentence be?" are good questions to ask to get them to a thesis.

"What are you trying to say?" or "What do you mean?" are great for helping students to clarify murky or overly complicated language, then write down their answers word-for-word, capturing it *exactly* as they say it. Most people speak more clearly than they write, and they can get all wrapped up in words to the point that they forget the meaning they intend. You wouldn't believe the number of times students I tutored said to me "You're a genius!" when I used this technique. (Literally dozens over the course of 5 years of teaching and tutoring...Once three students in a row said it. LOL!) It cracked me up every time, and I always pointed out that it was their words; I just wrote them down.

I've gone a little OT, but maybe it will help all those moms struggling with how to help a little, but not too much?

I'm lucky if I ever get to see any of my son's college work. I think he has shown me a couple papers after they were graded, but I don't recall him ever asking em to look at them beforehand.

DS 11 just won a local essay contest, and his paper has also won the district and gone on to the state level. Frankly, I don't think it's that good. But it's all his, and I only offered some very small suggestions when he was in the process of writing it. The topic was, "What is an American?" and he chose to go with the dead white guy angle. He talked about the American Revolutionary war, great inventors, etc. *I* would have gone in a completely different direction, and made reference to our "great American melting pot", different religions, etc. Maybe I should have edited it to give him a better chance. But you know, he very rarely makes the sort of grammatical or spelling mistakes that I would feel comfortable pointing out as wrong. It seems there is a fine line between editing those types of errors and rewriting sentences for better flow or to enhance the vocabulary used. Then there's going all out and changing a writer's ideas!

I guess it's another case of the word "editing" being somewhat vague and possibly meaning vastly different things to people. Just as people differ in the way they define when a child is actually "reading"- editing might be perfectly legit and ethical, or it might be a bit shady.

I don't agree. I always tell my kids their work needs a second set of eyes--mom's, dad's, brother's, whoever. Careless mistakes can easily be caught and it's expected at college level. In fact, many college offer a Free proofreading service. Some people might just feel comfortable with who they know--mom. I review my kids' work, when I have time. I've asked teachers if that's ok and they've said Yes. I don't re-write, but point out blatant errors. If I don't do this, no one will (teacher's don't seem to have time anymore to give thorough review) and stuff often comes back with a single grade at the top--no other marks or corrections or comments. I think proofreading aids them in learning, and that's what we want, right? I know a teacher who still proofreads her college daughter's work. I proofread my ex-boyfriend's thesis (even though I knew nothing about computer programming). When I was working, even though I was in charge, I always had someone read my reports before submitting.

Can't they go somewhere with Internet access?

((Humor Alert))

I certianly don't think it's cheating, as many people hire tutors to proofread their college level work. And doesn't Spell and Grammer check do the same thing? I figure that your do what you have to do to help you kid function well enough that they can keep moving forward. My DH's Mom typed all his college application essays.

Just my .02$

LOL - can you imagine me trying to proof my DS11's spelling? HA HA. Actually he fights tooth and nail to keep me away from his homework and school projects!

Grinity

Cym-

I'm not clear on what it is that you disagree with here. Do you disagree with the editing Mom in my OP being out of line? Or do you disagree with me not editing my son's essay?

I want to clarify that *I* didn't call the Mom in the OP a cheater. That was my husband, who is a bit black and white in his thinking at times. But I do believe that the dentist's wife needs to let go a bit and allow her children to find other ways to get their work polished. If she is reluctant to go away, it makes me think that she may be doing more than she ethically should.

Oh you guys,
Can't you smell an excuse when you hear on?
Maybe Mom doesn't want to go away with Mr. Extrovert Dentist, and she told him what she thought would work. Or am I that much more sneaky than all of you?

((shrug))

Or maybe I just like to see a situation from an unusual angle!
Grinity

My big problem is that the kids have GONE AWAY. She should let them go!

If you don't let them go when they go away to college, when exactly are you going to let them stand on their own two feet, independent of you?

Not going away with your DH because the kids--who are at college!--need you, seems WAAAAAY over the top.

If it's an excuse, as Grinity suggest, she really should have come up with a better one!

IMnot-soHO...

I think that it is all very relative and it really depends on a child/student whose work you are editing.

I do not edit my kids school work, but if I have time I will proofread it. Sometimes they will not want me to read it at all, which is fine.
When it comes to DS, who is a good writer and writing on almost any subject comes easily to him, editing can in my opinion teach him TONS. But like Cym has mentioned earlier, the teachers do not have time, or there are other reasons for not doing it. I strongly believe that you learn by the sheer process of writing, but you also learn when someone edits your text, with explantions as to why. This is very, very important - to show why something should be written differently. So DS would benefit greately from having a regular editor of his work. Mind you, there is always this question of style, so it can be tricky :-)

DD on the other hand, is a great fiction writer, her imagination is endless, but she is having problems writing on a given subject. Because of that editing is pointless, she needs to be directed, like Kriston writes, with questions like "what are you trying to say here", "this is not clear, what do you mean" etc. She would learn a lot from a process like that. This is partially the reason she is working with writeguide.

I believe that all the important papers my kids write should be edited by someone - teacher or parent.
Just the other day when DS was putting together his science fair diplay I was editing the procedure part - it had to be re-written several times, each time with less and less scientific terms, so that a layman could understand it, and not only an aeronautical engineer:-) This is a learning process and I want to be there for my kids. I think that they deserve it.
On the other hand, like I indicated earlier, if they say no I have to respect it:-)

As for the dentist's wife, I do not think we are getting the whole picture, but if she truly cited the kid's homework as a reason for not going on vacation, that marriage is in deep trouble.

I heard that, Ania!

Poor Dr. S. I think you've got something there, Ania.