lewpoints EDITOR JESSE WINTER

THE VOICE, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17,2011 6

Ghost-written essays might not
be illegal, but definitely unethical

le =-pay
for a lot
of — ser-
vices in

our lives.

If I need to
submit my taxes,
I'll pay someone
at H&R Block to
do it. If Ineed to
take the bus,
there’s a fee for
that too. There
are a lot of things for which I have
neither the time, inclination or skills
to complete myself, so I will pay
someone to do it for me.

It’s called ‘fee for service’ and
these kinds of transactions happen
every day in our capitalist economy.

But there is a big difference
between filling out grant applica-

OPINION

MORNA CASSIDY

tions and cheating on a school essay.

There’s a new service provider on
campus who will take some of the
stress off time-starved-sleep-de-
prived students by turning around
an original term paper in 48 hours or
less.

As a freelancer, I have been paid
to concept events, complete grant
proposals and draft an entire
business identity for clients who
have felt that they did not have the
skills, patience or time to do the
work successfully themselves.

This is a fair exchange. I don’t feel
that I deceived the arts council who
granted my client funding nor did
my client feel they were cheating.
Fee for service works, it provides a
livelihood to hordes of freelancers, it
creates a competitive marketplace
that forces us to be on our games

and it alleviates stress for people
who are less capable in one area so
they can succeed in domains where
they excel.

In principle this is just another
standard fee for service business,
it’s not illegal and it’s not technically
plagiarism. However, it’s also
definitely not ethical.

I’m not saying that the service
provider in this case be shut down,
(although I may judge their charac-
ter). They are merely capitalizing
on an opportunity and they are
staying in business because people
are using their service. In theory,
this is an ideal scenario for a past
and future freelancer like me. We
are the new enterprise generation,
after all. I like that and want it to
continue. The flaw in this particular
service is with the client; while you

may not yet have the skills to
complete a particular paper, I would
assume you are enrolled in school
because you supposedly want to
learn them. If someone else is
writing your papers for you, how
will you learn? If you don’t get
caught, you will perhaps take this
easier route for most of your
diploma, enter into employment and
produce half-assed work for the rest
of your life, never really knowing
the satisfaction of completing
something yourself.

Personally, I would rather take a
zero because I was lazy or just did
not have time then take that
particular easy route.

If you choose to use a paper
writing service or to provide one,
may the karma gods get you in the
end.

iPhone election app necessary

ter turnouts
Vy: the decline,
young people

feeling totally dis-
connected; heard
that before? With
civic elections this
Saturday, are you

OPINION

going to vote?
What might it take

PATRICK to get you to the
polls?

JOHNSTON Civic politics is
the often-neglect-

. ed sibling in the

Here ts political family

but it shouldn’t
r

you be.

chance to In the hopes of

make a making it easier
for voters,

statement especially

in how You phone-obsessed
youths, the City

want your of Vancouver has

city to be released the

run “Vancouver

Votes” iPhone
App. The app features profiles of all
candidates for city council, parks
board, school board and mayor,
information which is also available
on the city’s website.

Users can also find out where,
when and how to vote, as well as
details on the $180 million loan for
capital projects the city hopes
voters will approve on election day.

Last month, The Voice covered

We want to hear
from you

Did we get a fact wrong?
Tell us.

Got a different point of view?
Write to us.
Problems with something we've
said?

Let us know.
Journalism instructor
Nicholas Read oversees
The Voice. Email him at
nread@langara.be.ca

the poor voter turnout in the
Langara Student Union fall election
and the idea of switching to online
voting. Some institutions, UBC for
example, have already made the
switch, seeing online voting as being
more in line with how modern
students interact with their world.
Could municipalities be next? Last
month, the Union of BC Municipali-
ties told the provincial government
that BC communities would like to
have online voting as an option.
Making voting easier is an
admirable notion. Civic politics
historically has the worst turnout
rates of the three levels of govern-
ment elections. This is a real shame
because municipalities have broad

and direct impacts on our daily lives.

Those property taxes your
parents complain about? That’s a
decision made by city politicians.

Unhappy with the traffic on your
street? That’s a city responsibility.
Does your local park need better
facilities? That’s a city responsibility.
Concerned about police oversight?
That’s a city responsibility.

It’s a common complaint that it’s
hard to see the relevance of politics
today, but when it comes to where
you live, civic politics has a direct
and usually immediate impact.

Here is your chance to make a
statement in how you want your city
to be run. Inform yourself. Download
the Vancouver Votes app!

[oe Wienes

Vandals

make us
all look bad

0, apparently we at Langara just
can’t have nice things.

The vandalism of the new
couches in the breezeway outside
the cafeteria is frustrating and
shameful. Just yesterday cops from
the Integrated Riot Investigation
Team were outside the school
distributing flyers with photos of
suspected Stanley Cup rioters. Is
this the kind of thing we’re going to
need at our school? Is campus
security going to have to start
prowling the halls in search of
knife-wielding sofa slashers?

The school shelled out a lot of
money so we could have more
comfortable couches to relax on
between classes, and given how
difficult it is to
find an empty
seat in that
hallway, the
loungers are a big
hit. Now the
school is threat-
ening to remove

them if the

damage doesn’t OPI N ION
cease,and = JESSE WINTER
security is saying

that it’s likely the

result of only one person.

That means they should be pretty
easy to spot if we all keep our eyes
open.

Some students have dismissed the
damage as college kids being
juvenile. Well that may be true, it’s
still no excuse, and the bad behavior
reflects poorly on all of us.

We've all got exams and final
projects coming up, and that means
lots of late nights at school hunched
over textbooks. I don’t know about
you, but the end of semester is
taking a big enough toll on us in The
Voice newsroom without us losing
what little comfortable seating we
have.

Other schools get fancy student
pubs with pool tables and coffee
shops with great, luxurious booths.

We deserve that stuff too, but you
can be sure no one’s going to pony
up the cash as long as we can’t be
trusted to keep our seats safe.

The Voice is

published by Langara
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PAGE 6
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