Academia Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for academics and those enrolled in higher education. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Is it unethical to research journals for other students?
For example, a student is researching gifted students and their subsequent ACT/SAT scores. Then:
Would it be unethical for me to research educational journals and give the student the title of articles that pertain to their research?
Would it be unethical for me to charge for this?
What would be unethical is for the other person to misrepresent work that you did as having been done by them, or for you to knowingly aid someone in such a misrepresentation. It’s important to credit people for the work that they’ve done. Relatedly, if the work results in an academic publication, it may be an ethical requirement to list you as a co-author depending on the standards of your field.
There's nothing intrinsically unethical about the work you describe, or about charging people for it.
There are at least two sides to the question: whether the actions are unethical when applied to anyone (not just students), and whether there is an ethical difference when a student is involved.
First, considering the actions when applied to any person, in principle, there is nothing unethical about doing a literature search for someone, nor is there anything unethical about you charging the person to do intellectual work for them. In fact, whether you are paid or not, shouldn't make much of a difference (except for the very important point I make at the very end). Ethical problems would mainly come up when asking if that person credits you for your contribution or not.
If a researcher has someone do some research work for them and then published the work, it is usually considered a professional courtesy to at least acknowledge the other person's contribution, but this is not usually considered an ethical obligation. (Indeed, it would probably be unethical to credit you as a co-author for such little work; see Literature review and authorship).
Second, the fact that the person is a student only really matters if the student intends to submit the work for academic credit. If the student is expected to submit work that they did on their own, then the student would be obligated to report the extent of your assistance to their instructor. Again, whether or not the student paid you is irrelevant--what matters is that the instructor should understand that they received outside help for the work they are submitting.
From your side, it probably isn't strictly required for you to care what the student does with your help. However, if you have reasonable ground to suspect that the student is using your work to cheat on an assignment, then I think you should certainly ask the student to clarify this suspicion. If the student's explanation is acceptable to you, then act as you see fit. However, if you still suspect that the student is cheating, then you should act with the understanding that you are probably collaborating in their cheating.
Ultimately, you should take care of your conscience and act accordingly. And that's where the matter of payment really matters: if the fact that you are being paid makes you less sensitive to your conscience, then you certainly shouldn't receive any payment. Your conscience is worth far more than any monetary price.
Although your question is about a student, consider first the situation of professional researchers. It is certainly not unethical for researchers to employ assistants to do some of the work for them; this is common in academia. If this leads to published or submitted work, the employer should not attempt to pass-off the employee's work as their own, and this would usually mean giving some acknowledgement to the assistant in the paper (or giving co-authorship if their contribution is sufficiently substantial to warrant this).
Now consider your problem where the employer is a student rather than a professional researcher. The only difference here is that the work is being submitted as assessment for courses rather than as an academic publication. The same considerations apply: the employer should not attempt to pass-off the employee's work as their own, and should give appropriate acknowledgement in the submission. If the course requires the work to have been done without assistance, then this will fall foul of that requirement. If you have reason to believe that your employer will use this work in a way that is unethical (i.e., submitting as his/her own work for an assessment item that was supposed to be done without assistance) I recommend that you should decline to participate.
Finally, the fact that you are being paid is irrelevant. Whether you are being paid or not, the ethical issue is about whether the student receiving your work is attempting to pass it off as their own.
