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klm0506
Community Member

Ethics question

Hi! I am new to Upwork as a freelancer looking for jobs in the writing and editing field. After searching through jobs, I have a question about ethics. Any advice is greatly appreciated! There are many job postings in which 1. the client is looking for a freelancer to write their cover letter and/or resume for a particular job, and 2. the client wants a paper/essay written for them. Where do freelancers draw the line between helping a client with their writing and actually writing it *for them* in situations that would not be appropriate? Thank you!
8 REPLIES 8
martina_plaschka
Community Member


Kelsey M wrote:
Hi! I am new to Upwork as a freelancer looking for jobs in the writing and editing field. After searching through jobs, I have a question about ethics. Any advice is greatly appreciated! There are many job postings in which 1. the client is looking for a freelancer to write their cover letter and/or resume for a particular job, and 2. the client wants a paper/essay written for them. Where do freelancers draw the line between helping a client with their writing and actually writing it *for them* in situations that would not be appropriate? Thank you!

The line is where it becomes academic fraud.

Thanks for your insight, Martina. Academic fraud is exactly what I'm trying to avoid. I'll just steer clear of any job postings that ask the that the writing be done for them.

Kelsey, academic fraud is a huge problem on the platform.  When you see such jobs, please flag them.  Unfortunately, CS doesn't seem to understand that it is against the TOS to do "homework" for students but some of us valiantly continue to flag the jobs.  Hopefully, at some point the CS reps will begin to understand.

Thanks, Mary! I most certainly will flag them as I come across them.
yitwail
Community Member

Kelsey, going back to your original question, I'm pretty sure writing resumes is permitted, given that "Resume Writing" is a skill you can list in your profile.

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"No good deed goes unpunished." -- Clare Boothe Luce

I would not necessarilly have a problem with resumes and similar. It depends on the request. 

Somebody could have poor writing skills and still be a great graphic designer/coder/web builder/whatever. I don't think those people will be deceiving potential clients in terms of their ability to deliver if they have some help with their applications. 


Essays/homework and the like are a different matter entirely though. It's cheating, plain and simple.

I came to the forums looking to find a clear answer to this very question and I did find one. Thank you everyone on this thread and especially you Mary for making this so clear cut.

 

I just flagged another job that explicitly said it was about homework.

 

I find this really annoying, unethical and deeply concerning. And also, I find it that there is a trend to the countries from where these requests are made. Is this just me? Are there statistical data of the flagged and reviewed jobs for this reason that can be checked?

 

In any case, we need to do anything we can do to try and keep this platform clean.

 

P.S. I would also be fine with writing and formatting a resume containing information that are true, as far as I can tell...

klm0506
Community Member

Thank you, everyone, for your advice! I really appreciate it!
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