“I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention. Invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness – to save oneself trouble.” – Agatha Christie
When students don’t want to study themselves, they “invent” easier ways to get knowledge.
Five steps on the way to cheating (each step is closer to cheating):
1. Tutoring. Of course tutoring is useful and has nothing in common with cheating. But students hire tutors because they are too lazy to read books and study alone.
“Why should I read a 200-page book when someone else has read it and will enjoy telling me about it,” I have often heard students saying at school. “I have better things to do.” Tutors are useful if one does not understand what is being taught because oftentimes teachers cannot explain correctly to everyone. Everyone learns differently. Although cheating strives from laziness, curriculum in schools should not adhere to the same age-old boring reading material, but what students are interested in. All you need to do to find out what they are interested in is ask them. So now, let me tutor you in better ways to cheat.
2. Proofreading. Then it comes that it’s too difficult to learn grammar rules. And do we really need them if we may order a professional editor’s assistance? So does it look like cheating – no it seems to be an “innocent” grammar checking and rewriting only.
Ahh yes, proofreading. Many people hate to write. When receiving a writing assignment, students will rarely double check their work, therefore, most of the time the teacher will ask the students to write again. It’s like forgetting to save a word document on your computer and rewriting the entire thing. It is impossible to rewrite exactly the same thing unless you had it on paper somewhere. I always hated those “rough drafts” because I knew I had to write many words again. But some people are so lazy, even the rough draft is rough and maybe only a quarter of the assignment.
Even grammar in business has recently become nonessential. Who cares about commas and periods and exclamation marks. Okay, maybe you care about the exclamation mark when the boss yells at you. Many people are horrible at grammar, but hey, if you have the money to hire a proofreader, why bother learning?
3. Essay consultancy. – It’s a bit different from tutoring, as we receive advice on a specific topic from the subject, because we are just a bit too lazy to study the whole course.
If I want to persuade you in an essay to not smoke, can I just write something like, “Please do not smoke, I hate the smell? Of course not – You are too lazy to understand on how to write examples and give reasons, so you ask for advice. Does smoking really cause health problems? What kind of health problems? Well now you are twice as lazy because you do not want to research because that requires the daunting task of reading and thinking. So, of course, let’s find an essay consultant.
4. Essay examples collections– I’m not going to cheat, I just want to look through a bunch of someone else’s ideas and come up with my own. Well I could come up with my own ideas without research, but it would have made me to strain my brain a bit more.
Now, we really start becoming a cheetah – cheater – whatever. Sure, I can sit and brainstorm my own ideas, but that takes time. Yes, I would usually think of a person who writes essays, but I have the whole internet in front of me so instead of coming up with my own idea from another person, I will just look at another website. Wait one minute please while I cheat.
I found two essays. One called “Naked” by David Sedaris and another called “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs.” Hmm…. I got it. My own essay idea now is “Breakfast and Hobbies without Clothes.” This took me about 2 minutes. If I did some brainstorming and researching, I would still be reading and thinking and that is just not going to happen.
5. Essay writing services – Of course I can write that essay myself, and I already have some great ideas – but it’s really time consuming, and I don’t think it will be cheating if I explain all my ideas to someone else and he will write it instead of me, because my fingers are really tired of typing this evening.
The excuse for everything – I am tired and I just do not have time aka lazy. Well, it is nice that grammar fanatics can make money off of lazy people. I thought that was what television was for.
So, where do I draw the line where cheating really begins? I’m sorry, I am too lazy to get up and get a pencil. Actually, I draw the line from when you need to pay for services because I believe anyone can learn on his own. No matter what you do, things take time. Is it cheating if I ask someone to paint my house even though I know how to do it? I say yes, but I do not believe the types of cheating mentioned above are wrong. I believe laziness in free countries is just being human.
