Thursday, February 19, 2009

Home School Allows for Custom Education and Evaluation

The primary benefits of home school is that it allows for customization of education, personal attention, and personalized evaluation.

As some parents become increasingly less satisfied with the quality of public education available to their children, many are turning to home-schooling. Naysayers may feel that the lack of formal structure or standardized teaching or testing means a lower quality education. However, the primary benefits of home school is that it allows for customization of education, personal attention, and personalized evaluation.



Just as adults have strength and weaknesses, so do children. They will develop at different speeds in different areas, sometimes called asynchronous development. For example, a ten-year-old may be a late-bloomer in writing, but a genius in math. This child simply may not have the motor skills to write as quickly as he or she can think. Sadly, these days people are quick to label, and a child with uneven abilities may be deemed learning disabled or as having ADD. While these conditions certainly do exist, any child that falls below “average” in some way may be inappropriately labeled. The greatest benefit of home-schooling is that a curriculum can be customized to the abilities of the child. In a traditional classroom, the ten-year-old from the above example may, over time, fall so far behind in one subject that they are held back from going to the next level (i.e. the next “grade”) because their abilities fall short of what is assumed to be “normal.” Instead of following the coursework of any particular grade, a home-school curriculum can be designed around the needs of the child.

Along with customization of curriculum, home-schooling allows for the personal attention not always available in a traditional school environment. Not only can coursework be tailored to the individual, but so can the method of delivery. Learning styles can be classified in three ways: visual (learn through seeing), auditory (learn through listening), and kinesthetic (learn through doing, moving, or touching). A typical classroom will attempt to support all three styles in order to reach everyone. However, if your child is clearly a visual learner, the method of delivery can be adjusted to fit their needs specifically.

Some fear that since not all states require home-schoolers to take state standardized tests, the progress of home-schooled students is not being measured in any way. When given the choice, many parents still choose to have their home-schooled children take these standardized tests as a diagnostic tool. But, instead of being measured against an “average,” custom testing lets parents measure students against their own development goals. Affordable exam software is available for anyone that wants to create a test. Test Generator is a popular test maker that allows tests to be designed specifically for the student, the content, or both. Parents customize the test content based on the child’s specific curriculum, and they can also choose the evaluation method. For example, a student who is not particularly strong in writing shouldn’t penalized by being forced to take an essay test; instead, the exam software can be set up in a multiple choice format.

Some may feel that home-school doesn’t offer the same kind of formal structure or standardized testing as traditional schooling. However, this informality allows for greater flexibility. A customized curriculum can developed around the abilities of the child, and delivered in a teaching style that meets the needs of the student. With custom testing, this student can be evaluated on their specific progress, in a method that works best for them. They also are measured against their own development, rather than against an average. In conclusion, the lack of formal structure is the very thing that leads to the greatest benefits of home-schooling.

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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Custom Essays - Cheating or Study Aids?

What is a custom essay? A custom essay is a paper written by a 'ghostwriter' - i.e. a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other content but who does not receive any credit for it. The essay is 'custom' because it is written to the student's exact essay question. A custom essay may be distinguished from a pre-written essay obtained from an 'essay bank' or 'paper mill'. These types of essays are past essays donated by students, either in exchange for part of the sale proceeds or in exchange for access to other pre-written essays. They will be essays written in answer to a particular topic and therefore not 'custom' to the student's essay question.



Where did custom essays come from? Getting another student to write your paper for you is one of the oldest 'cheats' in the book - this might have been in exchange for cash, or if the student was weak, as a result of threats. This underground business was formalised in 2003 when Barclay Littlewood founded 'Academic Answers Limited', a registered UK company that trades under various names including UK Essays, Law Essays, Law Teacher and Degree Essays. The Company sought to clean up the industry by giving the custom essay customer, who would be used to dealing with dodgy companies often based in poorer, non-English speaking countries, a legitimate and worthy customer service experience. The Company attracted much criticism as 'encouraging cheating' and spawned many 'copycat' services.

How do custom essay services work? The customer orders their essay usually through an essay company's website. The Company sends out the order to their team of writers and those writers who can complete the project will put themselves forward to do the work. The Company usually seeks payment from the customer at this point. When the customer pays, the Company picks the writer they think is best suited to the project and tells them to start. The customized essay is delivered on the day the customer has agreed with the Company.

Is it cheating to use a custom essay service? Arguably, to use the service alone is not cheating. Take, for example, a lecturer who sets a nice easy essay question: 'Who was John F Kennedy?'. Most students will use Google to search for initial information on this topic and they will find some 7.6 million answers to their question. The process of reading through these answers is not cheating. However - if the student takes one of the answers and hands it in, passing it off as their own work, then without doubt, they are cheating. In fact, there are many more subtle ways they could use their material to cheat - rewording a website they found, rearranging words, citing the source but relying too heavily on the material - and so on. But they could also use the material as a guide and write their own, original answer to the question set. In the same way, a student who orders a custom essay can use the essay as a guide and can write their own original answer to the question that has been set for them. They can even do their own research.

How can a student benefit from a custom essay? Universities are often cited in the press as saying that when a student orders a custom essay, they are being lazy - all the work is done for them. However, our earlier example of using Google or using a Question and Answer book - or even a model answer provided by the tutor themselves - shows that there are times during the research process when the student will come across what they think is the right answer. However, this does not mean they have to copy the answer word for word, neither does it mean that what they have found is the only answer and they should stop researching. If a student takes a custom essay and uses the sources to 'read up' on a subject, and to help them generate more sources and a greater understanding, then the custom essay is just a stepping-stone on the road to something greater. It is an example - a template, if you like - for students to see how the question could be dealt with - but after doing their own research, the student could well think that there are far better ways of dealing with the question!

When is using a custom essay service cheating? The problem that is often publicised by the Press is that not all students who use custom essay services will use the service honestly. Some will hand in the essay that has been written for them, without doing any work themselves. When custom essays are viewed in this context, they help students to cheat and they reduce the value of a university education. Honest students, who do their own research and writing, are angry to know that their counterparts have completed the same degree, gained a better mark than them - and not lifted a finger for themselves.

But hang on .. degrees aren't all about essays! True. Even the most dishonest student HAS to do some work. Why? Because degrees usually involve at least: (a) Some practical assessments; and (b) An exam - or more often, several exams. So for the great majority of degrees, it's not possible to cheat your way through university, even with the help of the best custom essay company. However - let's say that in weighting your degree, your coursework element is worth 50% and indeed, the custom essays you receive and submit get you full marks. Your exam is worth 50% and you need a 40% grade to pass. This means you can get away with writing 2.2 standard answers in your exam and still gain a 2.1 degree, or writing 2.1 answers in your exam and still gain a 1st degree. This doesn't work in every case though - the Open University for example, grade your course based on your exam and your coursework. If you only gain a 2.1 in your coursework then you can only get a 2.1 for that module, even if you get 100% in the exam. Even in that case, you could use custom essays to significantly reduce your workload. You could, for example, submit them all as coursework and have a lot more time to revise for the exam as a result. So understandably, there is a great deal of concern from Universities and from the Press about how these tools can be misused.

If they are open to misuse, why are custom essays still legal? Custom essays are 100% legal, just as model answers that teachers hand out are 100% legal. Question and Answer books such as those produced by Blackstones are also 100% legal and sometimes, the questions in those are very, very close to the questions set for essays and for exams. The idea of these resources is that they are used as guides - they are not to be copied verbatim with no other research done. There are many things that are open to misuse that are still legal. Alcohol can be abused to the point of death but it also can be enjoyed sensibly, and so it is not a banned substance. Many over-the-counter drugs are potentially lethal if taken in large doses, but they also can cure the symptom of headaches, stomachaches and so forth - so they are not banned. Knives can kill, but they are also useful for chopping food. All these things have a use - as do custom essays. However, because the custom essay industry arose from a shady background, unlike alcohol, over-the-counter drugs and knives, people are not educated properly in their use and they do use them to cheat. This problem is further accelerated by the fact that a huge number of essay companies are happy to let their customers hand in the work and don't offer any guidance on how it should be used. In addition, because the work is custom, it is difficult for teachers to detect that the student is cheating.

How could universities stamp out this kind of cheating? Universities have already developed several strategies to combat this type of academic fraud. Some professors require students to submit electronic versions of their term papers, so that the text of the essay can be compared against databases of essays that are known to be plagiarised, 'essay mill' term papers. Although the student is ordering a 'custom essay' and expects it to be 100% original, in fact, many companies just rehash internet content and previously submitted work so what the customer receives is nothing like original - and so they get caught cheating when they hand it in. Other universities allow lecturers to give students oral examinations on papers which a lecturer believes the student did not write; if the student is unfamiliar with the content of an essay that they have submitted, then the student can be charged with academic fraud. Most lecturers know their students' work well and will quickly spot if a student has changed style.

Should custom essay companies be banned? Universities would certainly like to solve the problem by banning custom essay companies. However, the likely effect of this is that the service would just go 'underground' as it was prior to 2003. There are other ways that the problem could be dealt with. For example, if custom essay companies agreed to submit all of their papers to the universities to scan, then students could not hand in the work as they would be quickly detected. Barclay Littlewood of Academic Answers Limited has offered in the press to discuss this possibility with the relevant authorities, on the understanding that those authorities stop banning the use of his company, but to date, the prospect of working with the Company has not been entertained.

To use .. or not to use? That is the question! The answer is a matter for your own judgement - if you plan on using a custom essay service to cheat, then it is likely you'll be caught. The fact that the essay is 100% original is no safeguard for your lecturer's sharp eye and if you've not done your research, you could be caught out when asked difficult questions about the content or the sources you've read. If you're planning on using the custom essay properly, it's a fantastic piece of research to use as a starting point for your own work. Don't forget, however, that there are many dishonest websites out there - make sure you know where they're based and ensure they are 100% legitimate, or you'll end up paying a lot for something you could have found on Google for free.



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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Academic Writing - A Students True Exam!



Academic Writing is a list of genres of academic writing. Writing in these forms or styles is usually serious, intended for a critical and well-versed audience, based on closely-investigated knowledge, and posits ideas or arguments. It usually circulates within the academic world, but the academic writer may also find an audience outside via journalism, speeches, pamphlets, etc.



Typically scholarly writing has an objective stance, clearly states the significance of the topic, and is organized with adequate detail so that other scholars could try to reproduce the results. Strong papers are not overly general and correctly utilize formal academic rhetoric. Academic writing may involve following types of writing

• Custom Essays; usually short, between 1,500 and 6,000 words in length.

• Research Paper; longer essay involving library research, 3000 to 6000 words in length.

• Dissertation Writing; usually between 6,000 and 20,000 words in length.

• Thesis Writing; completed over a number of years, often in excess of 20,000 words in length.

• Conference paper.

• Research Article.

• Abstract.

• Custom term paper

• Book Reports

• Boo Review

• Book chapter

• Book, in many types and varieties.

• Translation.

• Explication

The main purpose of these academic writing is to prepare students to be original. These jobs required students to present something new and original and take first step to contribute something new in pre existing knowledge. But this doesn’t mean you start copying other people’s ideas and research and make some changes in it and claim it as your study. You may get some coursework help from others but If you ever copy from some past documents, then you have to mention the original source.

The point of documenting sources in academic papers is to demonstrate that you know what is going on in your field of study. It's also a courtesy to your readers because it helps them consult the material you've found. That's especially important for Internet sources. So mentioning what others have said doesn't lessen the credit you get for your own thinking—in fact, it adds to your credibility.

The point to remember when doing any of the above mentioned academic writing is that, you should give something new and original that helps other to understanding the concepts of the subject or study.

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Friday, February 13, 2009

English Coursework Guidelines

English coursework articles depict information on the language, its growth as well as customs. Students are open to select whichever topic for their English coursework.

Good GCSE English Coursework also demands:

* Critical thinking skills as well as composition skills;

* Original research of the issue addressed;

* Creative approach to the article;



Writing an English Coursework-Some hints

* if probable, students should try to choose a topic in which they are interested – when the writer is concerned into the procedure of writing, the time required is too short;

* Deadline management should be the prior concern – students should work out their personal plan that may assist them to map out their time. Although writing an English coursework demands definite mood, students must work on the usual basis not to make immense pauses in the writing procedure. When students come to write their English coursework after 3 months rearrangement students are in all likelihood to be unsuccessful writing in the similar tone as well as manner, furthermore, students can forget their preceding achievements, otherwise what is worst, student may not find the materials offered previously.

* take your time – Students should not hesitate to edit and rewrite their work. Students should be sure to communicate the rules of official writing content as well as their teacher’s specifications.

* Consult your teacher – Teacher is the mainly dependable basis of the data on student’s English coursework topic. This is his/her opinion student must take care of, considering it as student’s last hope.

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Thursday, February 12, 2009

Efficient Coursework Writing

Coursework is a significant and integrated part of studying in most academic institutions. That’s why our company pays particular attention to developing the ideal system for helping students through their course works. One of the most important issues of writing a high-quality course works is picking an appropriate topic. It often poses a serious problem for students as they have little experience in this matter. Custom essay writing company Educationalwriting.net can help you to overcome all these difficulties.



We are qualified to provide course works at any level: GCSE coursework, A-level coursework, I.B. Coursework, Undergraduate Coursework, Masters, PhD etc. Unlike many other writing companies we do not supply our clients with plagiarized essays. We guarantee that every paper we deliver is entirely original and unique.

We have created the bi-level anti-plagiarism quality control system to eradicate plagiarism of any form in our company. Each completed custom essay automatically goes through the anti-plagiarism software. After passing this first security level, the essay is submitted to the Expert Service Department to be manually checked for plagiarism by our Expert Team. As a result of such scrutiny, all custom essays and papers you receive from Educationalwriting.net are 100% authentic.

All the information concerning your cooperation with us is kept private and deleted after you receives the ordered pieces of writing.

Custom essay writing company Educationalwriting.net priority is to employ only experienced and highly-qualified writers and editors who have at least Master degree in their field of knowledge. They adhere to all specified instructions so that you receive an original custom coursework and custom essays covering all the aspects of your assignment. The delivery always takes place prior to the deadline.

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