I think that YA people answering home work questions is unethical. Half of these “homework” questions I see are examples of kids being too darned lazy to look up the info themselves. In the old days, we had books, period. What I really hate are the questions about books they haven’t read. You can tell they haven’t read them because of the types of questions (they’d know the answer if they’d cracked the book).

There are some questions, however, that I will answer if they are posed in a way that I think the person has tried to come up with the answer & is having difficulty. I don’t think YA should be an answer all place for homework. Kids should try every avenue to find the answer instead of taking the easy way out. By providing the answer, you’re helping the child to cheat & preventing him from using his/her brain in the proper manner. You’re teaching him/her that he/she doesn’t have to take the time that others in the class are taking. Researching something instead of being told the answer helps the child’s problem solving skills evolve. It helps their self confidence. And most of all, there’s not going to be a YA person sitting with them during the test!

I totally agree with you, thanks for asking the question.

When I first started answering questions on homework help, I thought it was pretty neat how others could help- now these days for me it’s scrolling through the questions looking for ones I actually think are asking for “help” versus “cheat”. I like to help out in the main direction, or ask for the poster’s thoughts first- I then go back and edit my response accordingly. That way, I hope that I’m helping the student learn. I try to ignore questions that just ask for a free answer, but sometimes I do post “do your own work”- which as I browse the geography, science, etc. sections, the question (is pretty obviously homework) is posted again and usually answered within two minutes. Well, what can you do?

Thanks for posting this question- it has led up to a good discussion! As for best answer- I suggest leaving it up to voting.

Ok, we had another person ask the same question a while before. Yes, I agree with most others. NO, do not offer to solve problems like “What is 4% of 2409?” and so on. You know that these are just a bunch of stupid kids unwilling to exercise their mind. They want solutions off the shelf, without even as much as lifting a pen.

On the other hand, I have seen some students genuinely struggling away at some problems. You can tell the difference. It will just be one or two problems at the most. And they will not be similar to each other.

The ones to avoid answering, or to rebuke (as one of our friends here pointed out) are the ones where they just copy and paste a huge chunk of their assignment.

No, you’re helping a child to learn.

It isn’t good to give exact answers to questions, but it isn’t good to leave a child to struggle on his or her own for too long either. If a child becomes frustrated with his or her homework (or schoolwork) and doesn’t receive any help or explanation, he or she will simply give up and not learn anything.

Most of the questions I see (or at least the ones I answer) ask for help understanding a specific question, or for verification that a specific answer is correct or incorrect. That is exactly what a paid tutor would do, and I see no reason that only children whose parents can afford a tutor should get homework help.

If you look through my answers on homework you’ll see I tell them continually to put down the xbox and study.

If someone shows they have tried to work the problem and don’t get it, I’ll point them in the right direction. If they are specific about what they don’t understand, I’ll help them understand. But the ones that post something like:

5. x^2(y-5) + 1/x(y^2 + 6)

and want to know the answer will get a rebuke from me.

By providing the answers, you help a child learn that cheating is OK. Ironically, Yahoo gives the same message when it is NOT a violation of community standards for the cheaters to post the “questions” but you get one of their “nastygrams” for telling them to do their own homework!

This site does have value if you judiciously answer questions. For example, “Where can I find an answer?” “What is a good topic?” “Can someone edit my work?” “Here are my answers, are they right and if not, where did I go wrong?” All legitimate!

The ones that are blatant are similar to these links I’ve posted below:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Av9ICrFqelRqNhPVl6dUC3jty6IX?qid=20070906070033AApGdRD&show=7#profile-info-GVGl25Qtaa

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApHySLq2p.jgSUERW54L2pXty6IX?qid=20070906072244AA8Q3O4&show=7#profile-info-rZu7LTY6aa

It’s obvious these kids have not even cracked the book!

Or this one, a post of 15 questions so the poster can “compair”

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AlEA_0E4.1LhoM6akFEJrVPty6IX?qid=20070905213958AAjnwPb&show=7#profile-info-58T9zPSQaa

But it’s obvious that people will give up ethics in return for a few meaningless points … and that is the biggest shame of all! Imagine what they would do for real money?

It depends, I think. I don’t see any harm in providing the occasional answer to one little question, but if I see posts on here for people who want someone to write their whole paper for them or give them all the answers on a 20-question test, I usually tell them to do their own homework. It’s called “Homework Help,” not “Do My Homework For Me.”

I agree with everyone who has answered so far. When it’s obvious that the person hasn’t even *tried* to work things out for himself, I give advice on how to go about finding the information for himself. If the person *has* tried and is asking for confirmation, I’ll do that, sometimes suggesting a test the person can use for future reference (such as the use of ‘I’ or ‘me’ in a sentence).

No!!!

I try to first give tell the person where to go for help/ information.

At times, they appear to have no clue and I give the answer. I try to include supporting data to help them understand the concept.

thats a good question. i believe helping some1 for a good coz is always good no matter what. if that kid decides to cheat he/she will cheat no matter what you do. we have a lot of young teens drinking and driving. do you really believe if people dun sell alcohol to these kids coz they are underage they would stop drinking? some people dun have the intention to cheat but they actually need help, YA is a very good and easy way to get it from. well dun u think its better to seek help rather than watching “stuff” in the internet?