I've been lurking around and looking at google answers for a while. 
From the start, it was my understanding that google researchers would
not do homework for people.  Yet more and more I see questions that
are blatantly homework, where the person asking the question will
frequently even mention that it is an assignment for a class.  Once or
twice I've even seen a researcher write an entire essay for someone. 
And now there's even a section for homework help, where some questions
appear to be the entire assignment answered by a researcher.

Why are the researchers answering these questions?  Is there no
enforcement policy that is preventing this?  Will they just answer any
question they can as long as they get paid?

And a side question... what would happen if it was found out that a
student had paid google answers for their homework?  Would this
student be in trouble?

Hello stephenvakil,

I agree with what kriswrite has said in her comment.  (Please note
that we are independent contractors, and do not speak on behalf of the
Google Answers editors.)  I should note that the policy in the Google
Answers FAQ states:

"It is not always possible for Google Answers to tell when a question
posted to the site is a 'homework' question.  In general, we recommend
that you use Google Answers as a tool to assist you with your homework
rather than as a substitute for you doing your homework yourself. 
Please note that we reserve the right to remove questions from the
site for any reason, and questions that are clearly homework may be
subject to deletion."

"Google Answers: Frequently Asked Questions - Will Google Answers
answer my homework questions?"
Google Answers
http://answers.google.com/answers/faq.html#homework

As for whether students will get in trouble, it depends on the
individual school's policy.  From the number of media reports about
plagiarism, my sense is that, at least at the post-secondary level,
plagiarism rules (of which rules regarding paying someone to do the
work for you are a subset) are becoming more and more strict.  Another
indication of the increased concern about plagiarism is the number of
plagiarism-related web pages ( see the Google Directory category at
http://directory.google.com/Top/Reference/Education/Educators/Plagiarism/
), and in particular the popularity of Turnitin (
http://www.turnitin.com/ ), which itself has spawned another web site,
Plagiarism.org ( http://www.plagiarism.org/index.html ).

Turnitin checks submitted papers against (among other sources) "a copy
of the publicly accessible Internet (more than 2 billion pages updated
at a rate of 30-40 million pages per day)", which might well include
Google Answers.

"Plagiarism Prevention"
Turnitin
http://www.turnitin.com/static/products_services/plagiarism_prevention.html

So if a academic institution submits its papers to Turnitin or a
similar service, or if a teacher decides to search on Google for
phrases in a student's homework assignment that seem too good to be
the student's own work, then indeed, the student may get in trouble. 
Again, the rules and enforcement may vary from school to school.  But
it seems that students would be well-advised to follow Google Answers'
recommendation not to ask a Researcher to do the homework for them.

- justaskscott-ga


Search term used on Google:

plagiarism

Thanks for the notes on plagiarism.  I guess the only way a researcher
would really know is if they searched for the question and found it in
a university's website as a homework question or similar.  It just
seems like one of those policies that aren't or can't be enforced
because people are 'innocent until proven guilty'.  My conclusion is
that google answers should just take it out of their FAQ and policy
descriptions and let people do what they want.

I think you're really hitting upon two topics here. One is homework
HELP, and the other is doing someone else's homework.

There is nothing in the GA "rules" that says homework help questions
are not allowed. (Indeed, in answering such questions, Researchers are
not covering territory that reference librarians and tutors already do
not tred.) However, Researchers are discouraged from actually doing
someone's homework. So while it's acceptable to help a student find
links that will aid them in researching their term paper, Researchers
are discouraged from actually *writing* the term paper.

In addition, most Researchers have learned that to assume someone is
asking a homework question is dangerous. There have been numerous
cases where this was assumed by most Researchers, but a lone
Researcher disagreed. And lo! in the customer's response to the final
Answer, we discover that it wasn't for school work at all. (Obviously,
questions that mention classes don't fit into this category.)

I hope this sheds some light on this difficult topic.

Kriswrite

Note also that sometimes somebody ask for an essay, this essay is may
be for reading and understanding a topic, is like to purchase a
lecture paper to prepare an exam.
When somebody ask for the resolution of a problem (statistics,
economy, math chem, phys, etc.) may be he want to see some solved
problems in order to know how to do his homework, I used "Solved
Problems" papers when I went to the University and this is a common
and ethical practice, at least in my country.

When a question is not an explicit a "do my homework" question, we
give to the asker the benefit of the doubt.

Regards.
livioflores-ga

Colleague livioflores-ga says "When a question is not an explicit a
"do my homework" question, we give to the asker the benefit of the
doubt."

Please note that this is not a universal "we" -- as independent
contractors, each Researcher makes an individual decision whether or
not to address questions that may be homework. We're expected to make
our choices privately, without public judgmental or negative comment
on individual homework questions.  Not all Google Answers Researchers
endorse, or even condone the sort of homework help that is allowed and
provided, however dissent is, for many of us, an internal issue.

---larre