Using E2 to cheat in school

No reputable noder would so such a thing, right?

However, there are less-than-reputable people who can and do access E2 - some of them for the purpose of stealing the essays and passing them off as their own work for school assignments.

Not the nicest thought, yes?

I was discussing the concept of E2 with my World Literature instructor before our last class period, and she brought this idea to my attention.

LM: Are you familiar with the website www.everything2.com at all? It is something of a user-written encyclopedia... Each user submits write-ups on basically any topic for others to read. That is the place most of my homework ends up after I am done with it.
Ms. G.: I haven't seen that one, but I know of 96 other sites that you can do the same thing.
LM: 96 other sites like E2? *looks confused*
Ms. G.: Well, 96 other sites where you can freely read other peoples work - essays, poetry, etc. Some of those 96 are advertised as cheat-sites where you can download essays to turn in as your own work, while others are just places where people's work is displayed and the less-scrupulous can copy & paste the text, format it, print it, and turn it in as their own work.
LM: *thinks for a moment* I hadn't thought of people using E2 that way...
Ms. G.: Yes, it is not a fun thing to think about - that someone could be stealing your work and selling it to someone else to plagiarize. Thank you for giving me that site, though. I will be looking at it, and adding it to my list of sites to monitor for plagiarism. Most English teachers know about the 96 sites I mentioned - I'll let them know about this one.

Just something to think about in the future. While the idea is not a pleasant one for me to consider, being a future English-teacher myself, I will likely still node my homework, poetry, and stories.

Why you will get caught:

University assistant instructors and professors are all aware that students periodically face the temptation to plagiarize, and that some give in to it. It's not just the ones who seem less-than-bright, either. A brilliant student can crack under other time commitments and personal pressures and end up on the dark side of the law as well. If a teacher reads something which is uncharacteristic of a student's intellectual and/or communication style, he or she will spot check by running suspect phrases through google. That will not catch plagiarism via purchased papers, but it will catch the most, if not all, thefts of language via C&P.

E2 is indexed on google. Q.E.D.

With that said, plagiarizing off of e2 comes with its own perils - mostly, being WRONG. E2 is edited for writing style, but it is not peer-reviewed or otherwise fact-checked prior to "publication." E2 relies on the supercessions of other noders to improve the quality of factual writeups. Factual writeup noders are often not credentialed to write authoritatively on their subjects (although, of course, some are). Standards of research vary widely by noder as well. I have a friend who is an evolutionary biologist doing a prestigious post-doc. I suggested that he might find e2 a pleasant and rewarding hobby. He was so exhausted by the radical inaccuracy in the bio writeups he read that he has never been back. Too much to undo before beginning to do.

There are some excellent scholars here who generously share their hard work with the public at large via E2. But someone who is inclined to plagiarize may not be able to distinguish between the wheat and the chaff.