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Subject:Re: Ethics of Helping with Student Paper From:David Ibbetson <ibbetson -at- IDIRECT -dot- COM> Date:Wed, 3 Jan 1996 13:19:30 -0500
At 08:07 AM 1/3/96 -0500, Butler Scott wrote:
>> Of course, it would be perfectly ethical for a student to
>> seek editorial assistance for a dissertation, if the professor urges it.
>>
>I disagree. As one who is writing a dissertation, it is my experience
>that editorial reviews are perfectly ethical, whether or not the
>professor urges it. Of course, editorial reviews are just that --
>editorial. They do not contribute meaningfully to content, except for
>reducing reader confusion, and they certainly do not advance a science,
>which is the purpose of a dissertation.
>Scott Butler
Rockwell Software Inc.
This is beginning to look like "different times, different places, different
customs".
I wrote my dissertation in the UK in the late 50s. Apart from the prof's
input it was all my own work and was expected to be.
An earlier writer mentioned special help to people whose first language
wasn't English. That happened and sometimes went further if a higher
qualification was needed in their home country for a job that a first degree
would be adequate for in the UK. [not very elegantly expressed]
