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Unethical Website of the Month March 2005
eCheat
With its wonderfully shameless euphemistic motto, "It's not cheating…it's collaborating!" eCheat is March's Unethical Web Site. Like other web sites of its ilk, eCheat works to undermine the education of our youth by making it easy for them to cheat on essays and projects by using pre-written papers. eCheat's special hook is that many of the papers are free: the ones "written and graded by high school and college students." The ones written by pros will cost you.
One useful lesson a lazy student can learn on Echeat is that you get what you pay for. That, and the fact that, thanks in part to eCheat and its fellow paper mills, American students are too inarticulate and illiterate to write a paper worth copying. Here, as a prime example, is a free eCheat essay on "Moral Courage." The Ethics Scoreboard has not edited or corrected it.
Moral Courage
In our society, we face situation, that are determined by moral courage. Two works of literature that support moral courage are "Truth and Falsehodd" from The Book of Virtues and "Our Heroes" by Phoebe Cary. Both these passages indicate that one must be honest to oneself. In the end, the truth defeats all lies.
In "Truth and Falsehood," temptation is led by Falsehood. "So Truth promised and agreed to go along with Falsehood..." The waiter helps truth back to the side of honesty. Truth decides to go back to his honest ways. He said, "I'd rather starve than live as you do." It is ironic that you can never find the truth ina lie. "Oh Truth, where have you hidden yourself..." is an example of irony. "And so Truth and Falsehood went their separate ways..." is an example of an allegory. This shows us that in life you choose the direction in which you want to follow.
In "Our Heroes," the boy fights temptation daily, "...he falls in the way of temptation..." His comrades help him fight off temptation. The boy stays to what he believes is right. He stood "firm by the colors of manhood..." There is a themem shown in "Our Heroes" by Phoebe Cary. SHe shows us that no matter how difficult the battle is, the boy has the courage to win because he knows what is right. The boy, courage, and the battle symbolize the soldier conquering temptation.
In life the truth is what strengthens someone. WIthout it, we are led astray by lies. We begin to lose the battle and become weakened by temptations. Bravery adn believing in what is right help us defeat temptation. "Our Heroes" and "Truth and Falsehood" show us this moral courage.
Now there's a "themem" that we all can support.
eCheat effectively undermines its own premise with the low quality of its product, and those who accept its services are too unskilled to notice. Using someone else's essay is unethical; using someone else's bad essay is ridiculous. Or to slightly re-phrase eCheat's slogan: "It's not cheating…it's moronic!"