Papers written by others

In this article The Shadow Scholar the author claims that s/he makes over $60,000 a year writing college papers for others.

Do I believe it? Unfortunately, I do. I have always suspected that college application essays, for example, are written by parents or older siblings, and some have even confessed that they did this. I think the teacher needs to give enough writing assignments to get a feel for what the student can do and then it is easy to spot the fake. However, this means that the institution should not overload the number of students in the teacher's class.