Academic ghostwriting — in which individuals hire others to write papers or articles for them without attribution — is not an uncommon practice. And it has no place in academia.
Students who pay others to write their papers are violating Penn’s policies on academic integrity and should be punished. However, students are not the only ones who engage in the practice. Professors and researchers sometimes employ the use of ghostwriters, with the actual writer’s name never appearing in print.
We understand the value of enlisting the help of another writer when publishing research. Professors who conduct the research may not have the time to write the final report themselves or may not consider writing to be their strong suit. It is perfectly acceptable for them to ask colleagues, graduate students or others to help them write their papers.
But not disclosing a ghostwriter’s role in academic publications is unacceptable. A paper should be properly attributed to all those who contribute to it, or at least mention that ghostwriters were used. Not only is this disclosure a matter of academic integrity, but proper attribution allows readers to know exactly who is behind the reports so they can identify potential biases and conflicts of interest.
At an institution of higher learning where so much depends on the exchange of knowledge, we need academic publications to be transparent.
