CHAPTER 6

Academic Dishonesty

Dave Tomar wasn’t always a cynic. An aspiring writer, he began his stud-
ies at Rutgers University excited to take on a new intellectual challenge,
free from the dull repetition of high school. He soon started writing his
first novel, which he finished before the start of his junior year. In short,
everything seemed to be going exactly as planned.
But that, of course, is not how the story ends. By his own account,
Tomar found undergraduate life at Rutgers uninspiring. Grades were the
ultimate goal of most of his peers, won through routine class attendance
and performance on multiple-choice exams. Upon finishing his novel, he
asked his academic department to develop an independent study course
that would give him the opportunity to have it published, but his request
was rejected. His career as a novelist was at a standstill.
Later a friend asked Tomar to write an academic paper for him. In no
time he was building a small writing business crafting essays for his fellow
undergraduates. After graduation, this turned into a decade-long career
working for an online essay company, a career that abruptly ended in 2010
when, under the pseudonym of Ed Dante, Tomar revealed his line of work
to The Chronicle of Higher Education—along with his intent to retire from
it. In his own words, “I’m tired of helping you [faculty] make your stu-
dents look competent.”
During his decade as an academic ghost, Tomar wrote about virtually
every subject, from ethics to biology to accounting, for clients ranging
from prospective students to doctoral candidates. He could produce 5000
anonymous pages a year, and made up to $66,000 annually. He  wrote

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 85

J.C. Knapp, A.M. Hulbert, Ghostwriting and the Ethics of Authenticity,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-31313-3_6
86 J.C. KNAPP AND A.M. HULBERT

primarily for international students, domestic students who were ill pre-
pared for college, or those who simply wanted a credential, not an edu-
cation—and who had the funds to pay for it.1 Education and nursing
students were the most likely to use his services. In Tomar’s mind, the
reason for his success was the faculty who—in his opinion—caused stu-
dents to cheat by ignoring the dishonesty they knew was occurring, and
by failing to inspire students to excel.
Truthfully, Tomar’s cynicism is not all that different from other atti-
tudes expressed in academe toward students who cheat. It is often true
that the faculty bemoan the systemic nature of student cheating, but pay
little attention to their own roles in allowing the behavior to continue.2
Remarkably, though, many faculty are enthusiastic about Tomar’s mes-
sage, despite the fact that he has—in more ways than one—made a career
of cheating. Today he continues to profit from his past career by writing
articles, making television and radio appearances, and even writing a book
based on his experiences.
So why are people willing to ignore his career as an “academic merce-
nary” and enable him to continue to profit from that work?3 Perhaps Dave
Tomar fascinates precisely because he is a manifestation of an academic
illness that we know is pervasive, and yet have no idea how to stop.

GHOSTWRITING VERSUS PLAGIARISM

Academic dishonesty is defined as “any type of cheating that occurs in
relation to a formal academic exercise,” including plagiarism, fabrica-
tion, deception, cheating, or academic sabotage.4 Informally, there is a
completely different language that surrounds academic dishonesty, and
informal ways in which we define those acts. For instance, to make such
concepts more accessible to students, we might define academic dishonesty
as an act that provides an unfair advantage to one student over another. A
student who employs a ghostwriter has a clear, and demonstrably unfair,
advantage over a peer who does all his own work.
Likewise, we might define an act of academic dishonesty as one that a
student would be unwilling to tell her professor about. Needless to say,
a student who employs a ghostwriter has no intention—at least not vol-
untarily—of admitting this to a professor. Thus, it would seem likely that
students who use ghostwriting services recognize this as cheating.
 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 87

Of course, not all ghostwriting involves academic dishonesty, nor does

all academic dishonesty involve ghostwriting. So how do we determine
what instances of ghostwriting constitute cheating in the academic con-
text? And how can we differentiate the practice from its closest relative:
plagiarism?
As we previously defined it, ghostwriting is the writing of material by
one person (the writer) for use by another (the client) who will be credited
with its authorship, and where both parties agree that the writer’s role will
be invisible to readers or hearers of the words. Plagiarism, on the other
hand, is the theft and fraudulent use of someone else’s words or ideas,
without the consent of the original author and without attribution of the
source.5
Teddi Fishman, an internationally-recognized expert on academic
integrity and  director of the International Center for Academic Integrity
(ICAI), more explicitly defines plagiarism as follows:

Plagiarism occurs when someone (1) uses words, ideas, or work products
(2) attributable to another identifiable person or source (3) without attrib-
uting the work to the source from which it was obtained (4) in a situation in
which there is a legitimate expectation of original authorship (5) in order to
obtain some benefit, credit, or gain which need not be monetary.6

Based on this definition, ghostwriting might well be classified as plagia-

rism. The named author uses the “words, ideas, or work products” of
the writer without attribution and obtains a tangible benefit. This benefit
might be monetary, as in the case of a celebrity who uses a ghost to write a
tell-all autobiography, or reputational, as in the case of a student who uses
a ghost essayist in order to appear more competent than she actually is. As
we have already seen, however, there are instances of ghostwriting where
an audience has little “legitimate expectation of original authorship”—for
example, the State of the Union address. Even in instances where original
authorship is expected, ghostwriters do not expect attribution, but instead
expect anonymity.
Ghostwriting, then, is not plagiarism—despite a number of notable
similarities. It is, however, a form of academic misconduct increasingly
practiced by students—and sometimes professors, as we will explore in the
next chapter—at all stages of the educational enterprise, starting in the
high-pressure arena of college admissions.
88 J.C. KNAPP AND A.M. HULBERT

GHOSTWRITING IN THE ADMISSIONS GAME

Imagine for a moment you are a high school junior beginning to apply
to colleges. The big question, of course, is whether you will be accepted
to the college of your dreams. And the odds aren’t good: in 1980, 12.1
million students were enrolled in a degree-granting institution in the
USA. By 2021, 23.8 million students are expected to enroll.7 Your fellow
applicants are seeking to improve their odds of acceptance by applying
to record numbers of colleges. Close to 30 percent of them will apply to
seven or more schools.8 This begs the question: How will you differentiate
yourself from the rest of the crowd?
The answer may lie in the personal statement that many schools require
of their applicants. Individually, the personal statement allows students
to share an inside glimpse of their personalities, interests, and life experi-
ences. Collectively, a competent admissions staff can use these insights
to shape the culture and identity of an incoming freshman—or graduate
school—class. The type of questions, then, that admissions committees
pose, often read like this:

• Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that

is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete
without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.
• The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success.
Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did
it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?
• Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What
prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?
• Describe a problem you’ve solved or a problem you’d like to solve.
It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical
dilemma—anything that is of personal importance, no matter the
scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or
could be taken to identify a solution.
• Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked
your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture,
community, or family.9

Of course, responses to these questions are supposed to be unique, and

deeply personal. These five questions come from the Common Application,
accepted by more than 500 post-secondary institutions.10 Such questions
may be retained for more than one year.11 Thus, with the wide use of these
 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 89

questions, opportunities for fraud abound: students post their personal

statements online for peer review;12 essay editing services publish sample
essays, “for review only”;13 and even credible journalistic sources publish
the best sample essays on the web.14 Any student motivated enough to
avoid real work can find ample inspiration online.
This, however, merely highlights the risk of plagiarism. In the race to
deter such copy-and-paste activities, many schools have become ever more
creative—or bizarre, as the case may be—in their pursuit of questions that
require students to respond insightfully and uniquely. To be sure, they are
at least partially motivated by a desire to test the creative mettle of their
applicants, but assuring individuality seems to be a primary goal of ques-
tions like these:15

• Have you ever walked through the aisles of a warehouse store like
Costco or Sam’s Club and wondered who would buy a jar of mus-
tard a foot and a half tall? We’ve bought it, but it didn’t stop us from
wondering about other things, like absurd eating contests, impulse
buys, excess, unimagined uses for mustard, storage, preservatives,
notions of bigness…and dozens of other ideas both silly and serious.
Write an essay somehow inspired by super-huge mustard. (University
of Chicago)
• Make a bold prediction about something in the year 2020 that no
one else has made a bold prediction about. (University of Virginia)
• You have just finished your three hundred page autobiography.
Please submit page 217. (University of Pennsylvania)
• You have 150 words. Take a risk. (University of Notre Dame)
• So where is Waldo, really? (University of Chicago)16

No assignment is plagiarism-proof, but a quick Google search reveals that

ready-made essays in response to these questions are much harder to find
(and are predominantly found in online forums, where student authors
seek peer critiques). More importantly, since these questions are school
specific, the same admission staffs will review the essays, making plagia-
rism easier to spot. But while such efforts have succeeded in reducing
opportunities for plagiarism in the admission process, they may have bred
a monster of a different kind: the ghostwritten admission essay.
Before we examine this issue further, it will be helpful to step back for a
moment to consider that applying to college is not inexpensive, especially
as students apply to (and often pay application fees to) an increasing num-
ber of schools.17 Campus visits can also add substantially to the cost of the
90 J.C. KNAPP AND A.M. HULBERT

college search. In the process, much effort is expended to make the right
impression and convey the right fit to the college(s) of choice.
The pressure to impress is even more intense for international students.
International enrollment in American institutions is growing, with much
of this increase coming from China.18 The prestige of a Western education
draws many to the USA,19 and international students—especially those
with money to spare and no expectation of a tuition discount—are sought
after by American institutions.20
However, the American application process is a mystery to many of
them—and not only from a linguistic perspective. For example, China’s
educational system stresses memorization and repetition, and admis-
sion to a post-secondary institution is based on a placement test with no
requirement for personal essays or recommendation letters.21 In Japan, it
is considered inappropriately boastful to write about one’s own accom-
plishments.22 In short, while not every international student will deal with
each of these issues, such factors create pressures that domestic applicants
may not face—pressures that can lead some to seek help.23
Enter admission “editing services.” Andrew Ferguson, journalist and
author of Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid into
College, offers a compelling look at this cottage industry. On one end of
the continuum, he discovered many cases where parents ghostwrite or
heavily edit their children’s essays, often to the point of depersonalization.
At the other end, he found the truly ghostwritten essays, purchased online
and delivered complete and ready for submission. For Ferguson, the pro-
cess of ordering one of these ready-made essays for his research confirmed
his moral distaste for the concept, and his disdain for the quality of the
products. He concluded, “You [prospective student] write the check, we
[custom essay companies] write the dreck.”24
Based on Ferguson’s research and the continued existence of these com-
panies, we can assume that some personal statements of domestic appli-
cants are less than personal. The situation may be worse with international
applicants. A small survey of 250 Chinese applicants to US institutions
of higher education found that 70 percent of these applicants submitted
ghostwritten admission essays. Some companies even pride themselves on
providing a higher level of security—at least for the fraudulent applicants—
by testing their essays against plagiarism detection software. Furthermore,
up to 90 percent of Chinese applicants in this survey sample faked their
recommendation letters, in some cases by providing a pre-written letter to
the recommender—along with a token bribe.25
 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 91

As students have developed new ways to game the system, universities

have broadened their focus on plagiarism prevention to include ghostwrit-
ing prevention, a more daunting task. At the graduate admissions level,
the Haas Business School at UC Berkeley compares admission essays—
especially those that seem particularly well written for a non-native English
speaker—to the content and score of the applicant’s GMAT analytical
writing section. Interviews are also commonly used to assess applicants
who seem a little too good to be true.26
Such measures, employed at the graduate level, might be impossible to
implement in undergraduate situations where thousands of applicants are
under consideration. Admissions officers simply cannot have the level of
personal knowledge of each of their applicants, or their writing skills, to
spot ghostwritten work in every case. So if ghostwriting helps students get
admitted, might they continue to rely on it after they arrive on campus?

GHOSTWRITING IN THE COLLEGE CLASSROOM

Cheating is a problem at all colleges and universities, an indisputable fact
borne out by research again and again. How students cheat, how much
they cheat, and why they cheat, on the other hand, are not easily ascer-
tained. Many researchers have tried to answer these questions over the
years, but perhaps none with such commitment as Rutgers University
professor Donald McCabe. Since 1990, McCabe and his colleagues have
surveyed thousands of students and faculty at hundreds of institutions,
trying to gain some insight into the how and why of the cheating culture.
Among other factors, McCabe’s research examined faculty and student
perceptions of a number of behaviors commonly identified as academi-
cally dishonest. In his book, Cheating in College, he compares his findings
to similar research conducted by Bill Bowers in the early 1960s. At first
glance, the trends look encouraging: while 20 percent of student respon-
dents from Bowers’ 1962–1963 study had “turned in papers done entirely
or in part by other students,” only 13 percent of respondents to McCabe’s
1990–1991 survey reported doing so. And between 2002 and 2010, a
mere 6 percent of student respondents self-reported such misconduct.27
It is worth noting, of course, that this is a very broad category with a
number of possible interpretations. It could include ghostwritten work
in the form of a paper intentionally created by one student (the ghost)
for the use of another (the client or friend). Alternatively, it could simply
refer to shoddy group work, where one student completes a paper for the
92 J.C. KNAPP AND A.M. HULBERT

rest of a group, or even to outright plagiarism. The only certainty is that

students admit to less academically dishonest behavior, which may or may
not include ghostwriting, than they did in the early 1960s. Nonetheless,
this suggests an interesting longer-term trend.
Using McCabe’s findings, we can be much more confident in the num-
ber of contemporary students who have contracted the services of a ghost-
writer or used a website that provides ready-made papers to students.28
A sample of the specific behaviors that McCabe has studied includes the
following:

• Turning in work done by someone else.

• Turning in a paper from a ‘paper mill’ (a paper written and previ-
ously submitted by another student) and claiming it as own work.
• Submitting a paper purchased or obtained from a website (such as
schoolsucks.com) and claiming it as own work.

The first of these behaviors is open to interpretation; the latter two directly
pertain to academic ghostwriting, differentiating such conduct from sim-
ple plagiarism. In a version of McCabe’s survey conducted at a private
university in Birmingham, Alabama in 2011, findings showed that 3.54
percent of undergraduates and 1.62 percent of graduate students admit-
ted to having turned in work done by someone else within the previous
year. No graduate students admitted to engaging in the latter two behav-
iors; only 1.19 percent and 0.89 percent (respectively) of undergraduate
respondents had done so. If applied to the entire population of students at
the institution in question, these seemingly small percentages represent a
significant number of students—between 40 and 60 each year. However,
when compared to the prevalence of almost any other form of academic
dishonesty—plagiarism, unauthorized collaboration, outright cheating—
the amount of ghostwriting that occurs in the college classroom seems
relatively insignificant.29
But is this an accurate conclusion? In the early 2000s, British research-
ers Thomas Lancaster and Robert Clarke embarked on an ambitious
project to monitor essay mills over a nearly eight-and-a-half-year period.
During that time, they recorded close to 19,000 student requests for
custom work.30 Regardless of the study’s limitations—we can’t know, for
instance, how many individuals or what percentage of students made these
requests—this represents a significant amount of ghostwritten material
making its way into the college classroom.
 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 93

When faculty perceptions of student cheating are taken into consider-

ation, the accuracy of the students’ self-reported conduct is thrown fur-
ther into question. In just one example from the previously cited version
of McCabe’s survey, 15.31 percent of faculty said they had experience
with students submitting papers obtained from sample essay sites. While
there are many possible reasons for this discrepancy—including the fact
that faculty respondents were asked to consider the previous three years,
and students only one—this is still a significant departure from fewer than
1 percent of students who admitted to such conduct.31
Finally, a close examination of McCabe’s findings further confirms that
self-reported data, while useful, should be viewed with healthy skepticism.
As noted earlier, academic dishonesty involving ghostwriting declined
significantly between the 1960s and 2010, as did behaviors in the other
eight broad categories. Is this a decrease in these behaviors or in self-
reporting?32 Collaborative cheating appears to have increased during this
period, including unauthorized collaboration where one student does all
the writing on a project credited to multiple authors.33
So far, we have suggested that a small but significant number of college
students submit ghostwritten material as their own, but that the practice
is far less widespread than plagiarism. Plagiarism, of course, is easier; with
so many resources available online, students can copy and paste, creating
their own custom essays. But as with all trends in academic dishonesty, this
is changing. We refer to the influence and rapid rise of plagiarism detec-
tion software, most notably Turnitin. As more institutions adopt this type
of software, fewer students may be able to copy and paste their way to a
good grade—and even the products of traditional paper mill sites will be
more easily detected. Custom essay providers will become an even more
valuable commodity, especially those that guarantee an original essay and
minimize risk of detection by software.34
Even custom essays can be spotted, though. Researchers who have
purchased such papers are highly critical of the end products; dishonesty
expert Dan Ariely referred to them as “awful” and “gibberish.”35 Could
this be intentional since faculty should be familiar with the writing capa-
bilities of students, and would likely catch those who spent a semester
producing mediocre work, only to turn in a polished and presentable final
paper? Some essay sites actually take pride in advertising that their writ-
ers do not edit their work, apparently assuming that students who need
ghostwriting assistance would be less-than-competent writers in their own
right, or at least less competent than the professional writers employed by
such services.36
94 J.C. KNAPP AND A.M. HULBERT

So who are these ghosts, and how do they view their own work?
Increasingly, academic writers-for-hire seem to be disillusioned faculty or
students. This may be one of the most insidious things about this industry:
ghostwriting—to some extent in college admissions, but even more so in
the classroom—has its roots in the academy. This irony is not lost on some
writers like former Texas Tech instructor Jennifer Sunseri, who describes
her behavior as “[u]nethical, though completely legal.” An anonymous
ghost from the UK confesses that he cannot “justify the work I’m doing
on ethical grounds,” and notes that his work is “a symptom of an ill-
ness, a fracture, in our universities.” By contrast, an anonymous Temple
University student describes his work as “certainly not morally wrong,”
and posits that “[i]t’s not the ghostwriting that stops students from learn-
ing, it’s themselves.”37
It’s certainly true that these services wouldn’t exist without all the play-
ers involved making it possible, willingly or not. As evidence of this, we
turn now to one of the most systematized forms of academic ghostwrit-
ing—ghostwriting that doesn’t happen in the classroom or in the race
to gain access to higher education, but in the locker room, especially of
Division I schools.

GHOSTWRITING IN THE LOCKER ROOM

I didn’t write any papers. I didn’t write any papers, but I know that the
tutors did help guys write papers—as far as help them through the grammar,
the structure, paragraphs, so on and so forth. But, for some of the premier
players, we didn’t write our papers. It was very simple. When it was time
to turn in our papers for our “paper classes,” we would get a call from our
tutors, we would all pack up in one big car . . . and ride over to the tutor’s
house, pick up our papers and go about our business.38

In the hypercompetitive, commercialized world of big-time inter-

collegiate athletics, massive academic support structures buoy stu-
dent-athletes, some of whom are woefully unprepared—and often lack
time—for the academic demands of college. These support structures,
which involve a host of tutors, advisors, coaches, and faculty, provide
legitimate assistance to struggling students.39 But ghosts lurk where
opportunity exists, in some cases as part of a scheme that purportedly
functions with the best interests of student-athletes at heart but which
only serves to further disadvantage those it is supposed to help. As the
 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 95

stark accusations presented above by Rashad McCants suggest, not

everyone plays fair.
The larger story that McCants points to is an academic scandal that
blanketed the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, after it
was brought to light in 2010. Through investigative reports, culminating
in 2014 with a comprehensive analysis by consultant Kenneth Wainstein,40
the public became aware of a practice that over an 18-year period involved
3100 students, of whom nearly half were athletes. Students registered for
lecture courses that never met and were graded on a single research paper.
Otherwise known as “paper classes,” these would not inherently have been
illegitimate (the courses were originally designed as independent studies)
if not for the fact that an administrative assistant graded nearly all of the
papers, and awarded students—and especially student-athletes—with A or
B grades for work that often was not their own.
This system, devised by Debby Crowder, who graded many of the
questionable papers, proved beneficial to athletes and non-athletes alike,
particularly, in the latter group, fraternity members. However, student-
athletes arguably benefited the most as a result of the massive support sys-
tem that worked to keep them academically eligible to play sports. Their
academic advisors and tutors crossed multiple lines, requesting specific
grades on papers from Ms. Crowder, even going as far as ghostwriting
their advisees’ work.
The assistance offered to student-athletes ranged from wholesale writ-
ing of term papers to more limited, but nonetheless substantial, assistance,
as in the case of Jan Boxill, the former director of UNC’s Parr Center for
Ethics and an advisor to the women’s basketball team. She admitted to
writing introductions and conclusions for students, but argued that her
assistance was minimal and did not rise to the level of academic fraud.
Wainstein’s report undermines this argument, noting that “many paper
class students and student-athletes would submit a paper with quality
text in the introduction and conclusion and nothing but ‘fluff’ or largely
unoriginal material in between.”41
This account, with those of other tutors involved in ghostwriting for
student-athletes,42 substantiates McCants’ interpretation of events, to an
extent. Though the credibility of his allegations has been heavily debated,
especially in the absence of other student-athletes willing to corroborate
his claims, it is indisputable that, while plagiarism and lack of academic
oversight were the significant problems at UNC, some level of ghostwrit-
ing did occur.
96 J.C. KNAPP AND A.M. HULBERT

And UNC is not alone. While reported incidents of ghostwriting in

intercollegiate athletics are rare, they do exist, largely publicized through
sanctions handed down by the National Collegiate Athletic Association
(NCAA). Another scandal was reported in the mid-1990s at the University
of Minnesota, where a former tutor wrote 400 papers for 20 student-
athletes over a period of five years.43 In 2009, it was revealed that at
Florida State University football players were provided with ghostwritten
term papers. Both schools received NCAA sanctions in these incidents.44
And for years, a freelance “fixer” wrote papers for student-athletes at insti-
tutions including the University of South Florida and the University of
Texas at Austin to help them maintain eligibility or even to gain admission
to these schools in the first place.45
The use of ghostwriters by students can negatively affect others by
increasing the competitiveness of otherwise less competitive students and
by providing an unfair advantage over peers. The use of ghostwriters, while
temporarily helping students get ahead, ultimately fails them in the end.
But given the relatively limited and localized impact of ghostwriting within
intercollegiate sports, how important is this to institutions as a whole?
In the UNC scandal, one of the key actors who helped bring the mat-
ter to light was a learning specialist named Mary Willingham. She worked
with athletes for several years and became uncomfortable with the work
she was asked to do as it became apparent to her that many of her student-
athletes were functionally illiterate and had been brought to UNC under
apparently false pretenses, such as promises of careers the school would
be unable to prepare them for. Willingham blogs that one student-athlete
“thought that he had come to UNC to be a barber,” while Michael
McAdoo, a former star football player who has played a recurring role in
the scandal and its aftermath, was told “that he could study criminal jus-
tice at UNC, though no such major exists here.”46
Similar concerns are raised by scholars who study the constant tension
between athletics and academics, specifically vis-à-vis the academic unpre-
paredness of athletes when they enter college, and the lack of rigorous and
meaningful academic opportunity once there.47 Thus, it becomes apparent
that the student-athlete is not the beneficiary but the victim of ghostwrit-
ing in this context. Yet, unlike the cynical ghostwriters described earlier,
the ghosts of intercollegiate athletics seem a warm and sympathetic bunch,
who want to help academically underprepared athletes. Tutor Jennifer
Wiley Thompson “simply felt sorry for them,” and “felt she had little
choice but to cross the line.”48 Boxill apparently felt such students needed
 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 97

a “cushion.”49 And Crowder, although not one of the active ghostwriters,

devised the scheme because of her sympathy for student-athletes and her
own negative experiences in college, where she felt a lack of support from
faculty and staff—interestingly enough, a motivation not dissimilar from
that of Dave Tomar.
This, of course, represents a misguided view of help, but nonetheless
represents not only an ethical lapse on the side of both client and ghost,
but a radical departure from an authentic representation of self. However,
while most ghostwriting clients in academia operate under their own
agency and violate their own personal authenticity, this cannot necessarily
be said about the student-athletes just described.50

GHOSTWRITING BY FACULTY
We would be remiss if we did not touch, albeit briefly, on the issue of fac-
ulty who engage in academic dishonesty. In the next chapter, we will focus
more exclusively on ghostwritten academic, especially scientific, publica-
tions, many of which are created through the actions of professors and
academic researchers. Journal articles, books, or other evidence of a pro-
fessor’s research prowess can be judged by strict standards, especially since
tenure and promotion are largely based on the quality of faculty research
output. While the cases are few, they show that faculty may be caught in
much the same way as students: by using shoddy ghostwritten work.
In a striking case, a Harvard Law professor was accused of plagiariz-
ing parts of his 2004 book, All Deliberate Speed. He could not deny that
plagiarism occurred, but could deny his personal involvement: he instead
pointed the finger at a research assistant and ghost.51 The use of research
assistants to produce a book that reflects the faculty member’s area of
expertise is questionable at best, but failing to credit them with author-
ship implies an intent to deceive, not dissimilar from the more blatant
forms of academic and scientific fraud that we will discuss in the following
chapter.

IN BRIEF: APPLYING THE ETHICAL FRAMEWORK

Is it ghostwriting?
Any form of academic ghostwriting involves writing of material by one
person (the writer) for use by another (the client) who will be credited
with its authorship, and where both parties agree that the writer’s role will
98 J.C. KNAPP AND A.M. HULBERT

be invisible to readers or hearers of the words. In fact, academic ghost-

writing is one of the most secretive forms of ghostwriting, as the personal
stakes for clients are often so high.

Why was a ghostwriter involved? What alternatives were available?

In the case of students who make use of academic ghostwriters, a ghost
may have been involved for many reasons: lack of time, lack of confidence
or actual ability, parental pressure, and so on. The alternative, of course,
would be for the student to do her own work. Admittedly, these are the
same pressures that lead students to cut corners or to cheat in other ways.
In what ways is ghostwriting different from other forms of cheating?

Whose interests are at stake in the project?

For students and faculty who rely on academic ghosts, the stakeholders are
numerous, ultimately including the reputations of the institution and the
academy as a whole. In the admissions process, students who use profes-
sional writing services gain an unfair advantage, perhaps excluding other
qualified students whose work was simply not up to the level of a profes-
sional. Similarly, in the classroom, students who do not make use of ghosts
may find themselves at a disadvantage—either real (i.e., because of scaled
or curved grades) or perceived. However, we must also consider the inter-
ests of the client, as they often choose to hire ghostwriters for personal,
high-stakes reasons: enrollment in and completion of college.52 Indeed,
future employers and graduate schools rely on student records to make
important decisions.

What consequences may result from a decision to use a ghostwriter?

As noted above, students who use ghostwriters may gain an unfair advan-
tage and exert negative influence over the opportunities of their class-
mates. What other consequences might arise from a student’s decision to
use a ghostwriter to complete coursework? And what of the consequences
of a professor’s decision to use a ghostwriter—perhaps a graduate assis-
tant—to write a journal article?

What principles or duties are at stake?

While plagiarism and the use of ghostwritten work in academia are distinct,
both practices require deliberate deception to succeed. Thus, the general
duty of students to do their own work is particularly critical. Institutions
have a duty as well, however, to defend academic honesty—but how can
 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 99

they do so in situations, such as ghostwriting, where dishonesty is almost

entirely concealed? And what duties or obligations do ghostwriters have
in these situations? Professionally, some are employees—even academic
advisers—at the institutions where the clients are enrolled. For ghosts with
good intentions and a desire to help students remain enrolled, which duty
rises above the rest?

How might the ghostwritten work affect the personal authenticity of the client?
For students who outsource work, the practice hinges on deception, a
false portrayal of their own abilities. Might they even come to overesti-
mate their own expertise or skill, given the positive feedback they receive?
Can a credible argument be made that student-athletes turning in ghost-
written work are behaving with authenticity if the athletics enterprises at
their schools treat them as athletes first and students only incidentally?
For further reflection, consider the following:

1. When ghostwriters are used in an academic setting, whose interests

are most at stake? Why?
2. If blame can be assigned for perpetuating academic ghostwriting,
who is more culpable, the students who seek the product, the ghost-
writers who supply it, or the institutions that permit it or fail to find
ways to stop it?

NOTES
1. Fellow academic ghost Nick Mamatas, in a 2008 interview with On the
Media, added a fourth category: the “one-timers,” desperate students who
felt they had no choice but to buy and submit a custom essay. See Nick
Mamatas, interview by Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield, On the Media,
November 28, 2008.
2. Author and scholar James Lang directly confronts this issue, pointing out
that faculty hold some responsibility for student misconduct, and that the
same teaching strategies that promote academic success also tend to deter
cheating. See James M. Lang, Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic
Dishonesty (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013).
3. Ed Dante, “The Shadow Scholar,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, last
modified November 12, 2010, http://chronicle.com/article/The-
Shadow-Scholar/125329/.
4. “What is Academic Dishonesty?” Berkeley City College, accessed February
13, 2016, http://www.berkeleycitycollege.edu/wp/de/for-students/
what-is-academic-dishonesty/.
100 J.C. KNAPP AND A.M. HULBERT

5. “What is Plagiarism?” Plagiarism.org, accessed February 13, 2016, http://

www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism.
6. Teddi Fishman, “‘We Know It When We See It’ Is Not Good Enough:
Toward a Standard Definition of Plagiarism that Transcends Theft, Fraud,
and Copyright” (presentation, 4th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational
Integrity, Wollongong, Australia, September 28–30, 2009).
7. Admittedly, the number of institutions has increased, but this increase has
not kept up with the number of students. Using rough figures, there was
one institution for every 3745 students in 1980. By 2011, the ratio was
1:4515. See (1) National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 5.
Number of Educational Institutions, by Level and Control of Institution:
Selected Years, 1980–81 through 2011–12,” Digest of Education Statistics,
accessed February 12, 2016, http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/
tables/dt13_105.50.asp. (2) National Center for Education Statistics,
“Table 3. Enrollment in Educational Institutions, by Level and Control of
Institution: Selected Years, 1869–70 through Fall 2021,” Digest of
Education Statistics, accessed February 12, 2016, http://nces.ed.gov/
programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_003.asp.
8. (1) Jacoba Urist, “Is College Really Harder to Get into Than It Used to Be?”,
The Atlantic, last modified April 4, 2014, http://www.theatlantic.com/edu-
cation/archive/2014/04/is-college-really-harder-to-get-into-than-it-used-
to-be/360114/. (2) Dan Edmonds, “College Admissions: The Myth of
Higher Selectivity,” Time, last modified March 20, 2013, http://ideas.time.
com/2013/03/20/college-admissions-the-myth-of-higher-selectivity/.
9. “What Are the 2015–16 Common Application Essay Prompts?” The
Common Application, accessed February 13, 2016, https://appsupport.
c o m m o n a p p . o rg / l i n k / p o r t a l / 3 3 0 1 1 / 3 3 0 1 3 / A r t i c l e / 1 6 9 4 /
2014-15-Common-Application-Essay-Prompts.
10. Allen Grove, “Colleges that Accept the Common Application,” About
Education, last modified February 9, 2016, http://collegeapps.about.
com/od/choosingacollege/a/colleges-accepting- the-common-
application.htm.
11. (1) Carol Barash, “The New Common Application Essays #1: Tell the Story
Only You Can Tell,” College Greenlight, last modified July 23, 2013, http://
blog.collegegreenlight.com/blog/the-new-common-application-essays-1-
tell-the-story-only-you-can-tell/#sthash.xlK49XuM.dpbs. (2) The College
Whisperer, “Common App Essay Prompts Are Keepers for Class of 2015,”
Patch, last modified February 20, 2014, http://patch.com/new-york/plain-
view/common-app-essay-prompts-are-keepers-for-class-of-2015_012efee1.
12. See, for example, a sample essay posted to EssayForum, last modified
October 24, 2013, http://www.essayforum.com/undergraduate-2/
background-story-central-identity-common-app-essay-52725/.
 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 101

13. “College Admission Essay Samples: Personal Statement Samples for

College,” Top Admit, accessed February 13, 2016, http://www.topadmit.
com/en/samples.
14. Ron Lieber, “Standing Out from the Crowd,” The New York Times, last
modified May 17, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/18/your-
money/four-college-essays-that-stand-out-from-the-crowd.html.
15. Ralph Vigoda, “Colleges Working to Stamp Out ‘Mcessays’ The Latest
Hurdle to Admission: Quirky Questions on Entrance Applications,” philly.
com, last modified October 25, 1999, http://articles.philly.com/1999-10-
25/news/25504784_1_college-application-essay-bold-prediction-applicants.
16. Peter Jacobs, “The 15 Most Ridiculous College Application Questions,”
Business Insider, last modified July 13, 2013, http://www.businessinsider.
com/most-ridiculous-college-questions-2013-7.
17. Liz Weston, “How Many College Applications Is Too Many?”, Reuters,
last modified April 25, 2014, http://www.reuters.com/article/
us-column-weston-applications-idUSBREA3O1VU20140425.
18. Institute of International Education, “Open Doors 2013: International
Students in the United States and Study Abroad by American Students are
at All-Time High,” last modified November 11, 2013, http://www.iie.
o r g / W h o - We - A r e / N e w s - a n d - E v e n t s / P r e s s - C e n t e r /
Press-releases/2013/2013-11-11-Open-Doors-Data.
19. Adam Taylor, “Three Reasons China’s Students Are Desperate to Study in
America,” Business Insider, last modified October 9, 2012, http://www.
businessinsider.com/why-chinese-students-come-to-america-2012-10.
20. (1) Hassan Siddiq, “American Universities Eye Chinese Students,”
YaleGlobal Online, last modified November 12, 2013, http://yaleglobal.
yale.edu/content/american-universities-eye-chinese-students. (2) Patrick
Winn, “Elite Asian Students Cheat Like Mad on US College Applications,”
GlobalPost, last modified January 4, 2012, http://www.globalpost.com/
dispatch/news/regions/asia-pacific/thailand/120103/
US-college-application-fraud-asia-elite-economy-china.
21. (1) Jiang Xueqin, “Thinking Right: Coaching a Wave of Chinese Students
for College in America,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, last modified
July 19, 2011, http://chronicle.com/article/Thinking-Right-
Coaching-a/128287/. (2) Michelle FlorCruz, “Outsourcing Your College
Admissions Essay: China’s Application Ghostwriters,” International
Business Times, last modified February 7, 2014, http://www.ibtimes.
com/outsourcing-your-college- admissions-essay-chinas-application-
ghostwriters-1553839. (3) Hannah Lincoln and Sean Ages, “Ghostwriting
for Chinese College Applicants,” Forbes, last modified February 3, 2014,
http://www.forbes.com/sites/hannahlincoln/2014/02/03/
ghostwriting-for-chinese-college-applicants/#419f2d38a831.
22. Emily Kubo, “The Ghost is in the Details,” Japan Inc., last modified January
14, 2007, http://www.japaninc.com/mgz_autumn_2006_ghostwritten_
mba_applications.
102 J.C. KNAPP AND A.M. HULBERT

23. An interesting, tangentially related example also comes from China. In a

2011 article on the robust business of test prep for Chinese students,
Daniel Golden profiled a Princeton Review competitor in China, New
Oriental, that has become well-known for its ability to propel students with
poor English skills into Western universities. The culprit here was not the
Common Application or its essay questions, but the Test of English as a
Foreign Language, or TOEFL—a test required of all non-native English
speakers applying to English-speaking schools. The TOEFL requires stu-
dents to write an essay under supervised conditions, which theoretically
should deter, or even eliminate, cheating. But companies like New Oriental
have devised a way around this, by identifying the common themes on
exams like the TOEFL, and essentially ghost-scripting portions of answers
for their clients. For students who have been raised in an educational envi-
ronment that values rote memorization and repetition, it’s simple enough
to memorize these scripts and reproduce them on test day. See Daniel
Golden, “China’s Test Prep Juggernaut,” Bloomberg Business, last modified
May 5, 2011, http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/magazine/content/11_
20/b4228058558042.htm.
24. Andrew Ferguson, Crazy U: One Dad’s Crash Course in Getting His Kid
into College (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011), 148.
25. (1) Winn, “Elite Asian Students Cheat Like Mad on US College
Applications.” (2) Lincoln and Ages, “Ghostwriting for Chinese College
Applicants.” (3) Anonymous, “Ghostwriting Haunts China’s Expat
Students,” last modified February 2, 2014, http://www.globaltimes.cn/
content/840597.shtml.
26. Kubo, “The Ghost is in the Details.”
27. Significantly, the sample size of McCabe’s aggregated 2002–2010 data (n =
between 58,168 and 73,738, depending on the question) is far larger than
any of the previous samples collected by either McCabe or Bowers (n  =
2313), resulting perhaps in a more accurate reflection of the situation. See
Donald L.  McCabe, Kenneth D.  Butterfield, and Linda K.  Treviño,
Cheating in College: Why Students Do It and What Educators Can Do About
It (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 53, 66.
28. For the purposes of this book, we will categorize the use of these websites
as ghostwriting, not plagiarism. It is not unreasonable to assume that the
original authors provide their work with the expectation that it will be
used, in part or verbatim, without citation. While they are not providing
the same personalized ghostwriting that authors like Tomar do, what they
provide can be considered part of the broad practice of ghostwriting.
29. Even though the survey was small, we are confident in the broad applica-
bility of our findings, which were compared to a significant pool of aggre-
gated data taken from versions of the same survey conducted at several
 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 103

other universities between 2009 and 2011. Universities of all sizes, affilia-
tions, and locations were represented, and the findings across all institu-
tions were remarkably similar. See Samford University, Survey on Academic
Integrity [unpublished], 2011.
30. David Matthews, “Essay Mills: University Course Work to Order,” Times
Higher Education, last modified October 10, 2013, https://www.
timeshighereducation.com/features/essay-mills-university-course-work-
to-order/2007934.article.
31. The truth probably falls somewhere between these two extremes. This sur-
vey was entirely voluntary and required self-selection. Faculty, unsurpris-
ingly, were more than happy to participate, but students were not quite as
eager to do so. We can guess which way the survey results are skewed, but
we can’t know for sure.
32. This might be observed, for instance, if students consider their behaviors
to be less than serious. In such a situation, they might not see their actions
as cheating—and therefore would not report them.
33. (1) McCabe, Butterfield, Treviño, Cheating in College. (2) Samford
University, Survey on Academic Integrity [unpublished], 2011.
34. A good example of these services is found online at http://www.academic-
ghostwriting.com/, accessed February 12, 2016.
35. (1) Dan Ariely, “Essay Mills—A Coarse Lesson on Cheating,” Los Angeles
Times, last modified June 17, 2012, http://articles.latimes.com/2012/
jun/17/opinion/la-oe-ariely-cheating-20120617. (2) Coryander Gilvary,
“Plagiarism Compromises Integrity,” The Temple News, last modified April
17, 2012, http://temple-news.com/opinion/plagiarism-compromises-
integrity/.
36. Dante, “The Shadow Scholar.”
37. (1) Lincoln and Ages, “Ghostwriting for Chinese College Applicants.” (2)
Gilvary, “Plagiarism Compromises Integrity.” (3) Arthur Delaney,
“Unemployed for Years, Professor Turns to Ghostwriting for Students,”
The Huffington Post, last modified April 9, 2012, http://www.huffington-
post.com/2012/04/09/unemployed-professor-texas-tech_n_1412585.
html. (4) Anonymous, “Why I Write for an Essay Mill,” Times Higher
Education, last modified August 1, 2013, https://www.timeshighereduca-
tion.com/comment/opinion/why-i-write-for-an-essay-mill/2006074.
article.
38. Rashad McCants, interview by Andy Katz, Outside the Lines, ESPN, June
11, 2014, quoted in Kenneth L. Wainstein, A. Joseph Jay III, and Colleen
Depman Kukowski, Investigation of Irregular Classes in the Department of
African and Afro-American Studies at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, last modified October 16, 2014, http://3qh929iorux3fdpl5
104 J.C. KNAPP AND A.M. HULBERT

32k03kg.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/
UNC-FINAL-REPORT.pdf.
39. (1) Brian K. Richardson and Joseph McGlynn, “Blowing the Whistle Off
the Field of Play: An Empirical Model of Whistle-Blower Experiences in
the Intercollegiate Sports Industry,” Communication and Sport 3, no. 1
(2015): 57-80. (2) Vaughn A. Calhoun, “Division I Student Athletes and
the Experience of Academic Clustering” (doctoral thesis, Northeastern
University, 2012). (3) Anne Browning, “Chasing Paper: A Qualitative
Systems Analysis of the Tensions between Money, Diplomas, and Learning
in High Profile Intercollegiate Athletics” (doctoral dissertation, University
of Washington, 2014). (4) William W.  Berry III, “Educating Athletes:
Re-envisioning the Student-Athlete Model,” Tennessee Law Review 81
(2014): 795–828.
40. Unless otherwise noted, all information on the scandal at UNC is from
Wainstein, Jay, Kukowski, Investigation of Irregular Classes at UNC.
41. Ibid, 20.
42. Ibid, 121–122: Jennifer Wiley Thompson reported that “it became easier
to suggest how to phrase something and the student-athletes would write
the statement down verbatim. . . . [then] it became faster for her to type
and write portions of papers for them. . . . she eventually would write sig-
nificant portions of student-athletes’ papers.” Whitney Read likewise indi-
cated that she “would provide student-athletes with paper topics that she
developed [and] aggressively guided student-athletes to the content they
should include in their papers, and would heavily edit their papers.”
43. Carolyn Kleiner and Mary Lord, “The Cheating Game: ‘Everyone’s Doing
It,’ From Grade School to Graduate School,” U.S. News & World Report
(Washington, DC), November 22, 1999. Cited in Mark C.R. Polderman,
“Sports Scholarships and Academic Fraud,” Social Cosmos 4, no. 1 (2013):
31.
44. Paul M. Barrett, “In Fake Classes Scandal, UNC Fails Its Athletes—And
Whistle-Blower,” BusinessWeek, last modified February 27, 2014, http://
www.bloomberg.com/bw/articles/2014-02-27/in-fake-classes-scandal-
unc-fails-its-athletes-whistle-blower.
45. Brad Wolverton, “Confessions of a Fixer,” The Chronicle of Higher
Education, last modified December 30, 2014, http://chronicle.com/
interactives/fixer_main.
46. (1) Mary Willingham, “Confessions of a Whistleblower,” Paper Class Inc.,
last modified August 14, 2014, http://paperclassinc.com/confessions-of-
a-whistleblower-by-mary-willingham/. Because of this reported decep-
tion, McAdoo sued UNC in 2014, alleging that the school promised him
a good education but failed to deliver on that promise. See The Associated
Press, “Michael McAdoo, Former North Carolina Player, Files a Suit,” The
New York Times, last modified November 9, 2014, http://www.nytimes.
 ACADEMIC DISHONESTY 105

com/2014/11/09/sports/ncaafootball/michael-mcadoo-former-north-
carolina-player-files-a-suit.html.
47. (1) Richardson and McGlynn, “Blowing the Whistle Off the Field of Play.”
(2) Calhoun, Division I Student Athletes. (3) Browning, Chasing Paper. (4)
Berry, “Educating Athletes.”
48. Wainstein, Jay, Kukowski, Investigation of Irregular Classes at UNC, 20, 56.
49. Wainstein, Jay, Kukowski, Investigation of Irregular Classes at UNC, 100.
50. While not an argument that student-athletes lack agency completely, there
is considerable scholarship indicating that these students hold very little
power, and are steered to courses and majors—and perhaps, to accept
completed coursework from advisors and tutors—that will keep them aca-
demically eligible, and consequently financially dependent on the athletics
department in exchange for their service as athletes. See (1) Richardson
and McGlynn, “Blowing the Whistle Off the Field of Play.” (2) Calhoun,
Division I Student Athletes. (3) Browning, Chasing Paper. (4) Berry,
“Educating Athletes.”
51. Kara Contreary, “Ghost Writers in Academia Alive and Well,” ScienceBlogs,
last modified January 11, 2008, http://scienceblogs.com/pureped-
antry/2008/01/11/ghost-writers-in-academia-aliv/.
52. See, for instance, Brian Burnsed, “How Higher Education Affects Lifetime
Salary,” U.S. News & World Report Education, last modified August 5, 2011,
h t t p : / / w w w. u s n e w s . c o m / e d u c a t i o n / b e s t - c o l l e g e s / a r t i -
cles/2011/08/05/how-higher-education-affects-lifetime-salary.