difficult to detect some types of cheating
There is a fascinating chapter worth perusing for the university reader. It talks about cheating in American universities. Apparently, many lecturers see or suspect this in papers turned in by their students. But there is little reward in the typical college apparatus for a lecturer putting in much effort into proving that a paper was bogus.

One positive countermeasure is discussed. The anti-plagiarism search engine websites, that have arisen to combat the scourge of paid-for essays. But the chapter points out serious flaws in these websites' techniques. The matching of an essay against a website's databases is often brittle. An all or nothing comparison that can be easily defeated by some trivial, minimal rewriting of a few sentences.

Also, the websites are unlikely to have in their databases high quality [and high cost] essays. Or custom essays that are sold to only one buyer.

Another response has been a trend towards closed book, proctored exams. As opposed to weekly take home essay assignments. One problem is that exams can be far more stressful to some students, compared to writing essays. And that each type of assessment tests different abilities.

The above is scarcely peculiar to American universities. A global problem. But the chapter also describes a variant probably confined mostly to the US. Where some students are on athletic scholarships, but could be weak academically. The chapter cites notorious incidents where tutors working for a university would write papers for those athletes, who then turned these in as their own.

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