: Re: Is Academic Ghostwriting legal? I recently learned of the concept of academic ghostwriting (see, e.g. this article) - by which I mean the situation where a student goes to another person, or

@Murray165

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In response to your specific question, I would say that ghostwriting is NOT illegal. However, I would say that it IS unethical, unfair, cheating, and a violation of academic policies. We had a discussion on this topic on the meta site a short while back after someone had asked about how to lower his writing standards to make it seem more like he was a younger writer.

As I mentioned there, I have two teenagers in high school, and each of them was required to sign an agreement that specifically addressed this and a number of other topics, such as plagiarism. This document was intended to be a social contract with the students to state that they understood these academic policies, while also stating clearly that the school has a zero tolerance policy against such activities. Furthermore, I was required to sign the document as well to indicate that I also had read and understood the policies.

Not too many years ago I went back to school to obtain my MBA, and I was required to read and sign a similar document that clearly stated that these types of activities would not be tolerated or accepted. While these examples are not legal documents stating that these activities were illegal, they are clearly stated policies. As such, they made it perfectly clear that such behavior was considered cheating and would not be tolerated.

Anyone can justify something in their own minds if they really want to do it, but the bottom line is that there are policies and procedures that provide acceptable guidelines for performance and behavior. Anyone who uses a ghostwriter to create their writing assignments is in clear violation of these policies.

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