Chegg primarily deletes questions that violate its academic integrity policies or contain inappropriate content. This ensures a fair and respectful learning environment for all users.
Common Reasons for Question Deletion
Chegg maintains strict guidelines to uphold academic honesty and community standards. If your question was deleted, it likely falls into one of the following categories:
Violating the Honor Code
The most common reason for question deletion is a breach of Chegg's Honor Code policy. This code is designed to promote academic integrity and prevent various forms of cheating.
- Direct Answers for Exams: Submitting questions that appear to be from ongoing tests, quizzes, or assignments where external help is forbidden. This includes questions that are clearly identifiable as part of a current exam.
- Plagiarism and Misrepresentation: Seeking direct answers that you intend to submit as your own original work without proper citation or attribution, especially for assignments that require independent thought.
- Facilitating Dishonesty: Posing questions that could enable other users to cheat, such as asking for solutions to entire problem sets that are known to be part of graded coursework.
- Using Proprietary Materials: Uploading copyrighted textbook material or solutions manuals that are not intended for public sharing.
Containing Inappropriate Language
Chegg has a zero-tolerance policy for offensive or harmful content. Questions may be removed if they include:
- Offensive or Discriminatory Terms: Use of slurs, hate speech, or any language that targets individuals or groups based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, etc.
- Harassment or Threats: Content that is intimidating, abusive, or poses a threat of violence or harm to others.
- Sexually Explicit Material: Any content that is overtly sexual, pornographic, or exploitative.
- Promotional Content: Questions used for spam, advertising, or self-promotion unrelated to academic assistance.
Other Potential Reasons
While less common, other factors can lead to a question's removal:
- Unclear or Unanswerable Questions: Questions that lack sufficient detail, are poorly phrased, or are simply too ambiguous for tutors to provide a helpful answer.
- Duplicate Questions: Posting the same question multiple times.
- Personal Identifiable Information (PII): Including sensitive personal data in the question, such as names, addresses, or student IDs.
Does Chegg Alert Your University?
A common concern when a question is deleted is whether Chegg notifies your educational institution. Generally, Chegg does not automatically alert your university when a question is deleted. The deletion is typically an internal action to enforce their platform policies.
However, it's crucial to understand the broader context of academic integrity:
- University Investigations: If your university suspects academic misconduct, they may initiate an investigation and, in some cases, subpoena information from platforms like Chegg. Chegg's policy states it may cooperate with official legal requests from educational institutions as part of such investigations.
- Your University's Policies: The primary risk lies in violating your university's own academic honesty policies by using unauthorized external help, regardless of whether Chegg itself deletes the question or notifies the institution. Many universities have explicit rules against using sites like Chegg for graded assignments.
Quick Summary of Deletion Reasons
| Category | Description | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Honor Code Violation | Breaching academic integrity rules. | Questions from live exams, requests for full solutions to graded homework. |
| Inappropriate Language | Containing offensive, harmful, or sexually explicit content. | Hate speech, threats, explicit images or language. |
| Content Guidelines | Violating general platform rules for content and behavior. | Unclear questions, duplicate posts, spam, personal information. |
