Scrip
Mechanical
- Jun 19, 2017
- 9
The business of writing other people's academic articles has been going on for quite some time. I read a book by a certain lawyer today who complained that in the 80s, some of his friends would mail the details of their projects (term papers, as they are known in some countries that don't use metric, haha) to other students/researchers in Europe, US, etc., and send them money via Western Union to have them done for them. His friends would then enjoy the rest of their semester stress-free, while he had to go to the uni library and do lots of work.
Fast-forward a few decades, and today, the case is quite a bit different. From what I've heard, more and more students, "researchers", etc., in the west are sending their projects to people in other parts of the world to do their work for them. You could say that academic research is being outsourced. It's actually cheaper, because a writer from, say, Kenya or India, can underbid a writer from the US since 10$ goes a longer way in their country. Almost all the writers I know of/have heard of are in higher education, or have just recently graduated and are still tarmacking (job-hunting), so to them, academic writing is a side-hustle. Although I do have a former classmate who paid his school fees, bought his own car, and is building a farm, I hear, all from being paid for these jobs.
It's way easier too, nowadays. Instead of Postal Mail that might take weeks, you have email that takes seconds. Instead of Western Union, you have services Paypal, MPesa, mVisa, various escrow services, etc. Some of these services send the money straight to your phone. Instead of browsing a directory looking for people/companies that can write for you, you have sites like upwork, etc., that quickly connect you to them.
I've never wanted to do academic writing jobs for others online, because I've always felt like it's just dishonest. To be honest, I don't think I ever will, but I'd like to know:
1. What do you guys think of term papers being outsourced in this way, from an ethical standpoint?
2. Do the people who use these websites know the kind of people doing their work for them? The questions to be written on have varying levels of difficulty. Some are easy, others are hard, and I'm sure that there are people competent enough to do proper research on the hard ones. But, some are just plain incompetent, and I can't help but wonder at the quality of the work being handed in. Just the other day, a classmate of mine whose proficiency in MS Word goes as far as the keyboard and the save button came to me asking him to help him write a paper on the benefits of Outlook. Then, I know someone who studied accounting in school, who was given a job related to power plant efficiency.
3. Do they also know that there's a blackmarket for the most highly ranked accounts on these sites? Your visibility on these sites depends on how many articles you've written, plus other factors like your previous "employers'" ratings of your work, etc. But, these accounts sell like crazy, because if you sign up the proper way, it'll be a long time till you get any work.
4. Do professors know when their students submit outsourced work?
Which way, engineering?
Some references:
1. 2. (from 2015, outdated)
3. The list on outlines some popular academic writing websites.
........................................
The EAC - One People, One Destiny... One Federation.
Fast-forward a few decades, and today, the case is quite a bit different. From what I've heard, more and more students, "researchers", etc., in the west are sending their projects to people in other parts of the world to do their work for them. You could say that academic research is being outsourced. It's actually cheaper, because a writer from, say, Kenya or India, can underbid a writer from the US since 10$ goes a longer way in their country. Almost all the writers I know of/have heard of are in higher education, or have just recently graduated and are still tarmacking (job-hunting), so to them, academic writing is a side-hustle. Although I do have a former classmate who paid his school fees, bought his own car, and is building a farm, I hear, all from being paid for these jobs.
It's way easier too, nowadays. Instead of Postal Mail that might take weeks, you have email that takes seconds. Instead of Western Union, you have services Paypal, MPesa, mVisa, various escrow services, etc. Some of these services send the money straight to your phone. Instead of browsing a directory looking for people/companies that can write for you, you have sites like upwork, etc., that quickly connect you to them.
I've never wanted to do academic writing jobs for others online, because I've always felt like it's just dishonest. To be honest, I don't think I ever will, but I'd like to know:
1. What do you guys think of term papers being outsourced in this way, from an ethical standpoint?
2. Do the people who use these websites know the kind of people doing their work for them? The questions to be written on have varying levels of difficulty. Some are easy, others are hard, and I'm sure that there are people competent enough to do proper research on the hard ones. But, some are just plain incompetent, and I can't help but wonder at the quality of the work being handed in. Just the other day, a classmate of mine whose proficiency in MS Word goes as far as the keyboard and the save button came to me asking him to help him write a paper on the benefits of Outlook. Then, I know someone who studied accounting in school, who was given a job related to power plant efficiency.
3. Do they also know that there's a blackmarket for the most highly ranked accounts on these sites? Your visibility on these sites depends on how many articles you've written, plus other factors like your previous "employers'" ratings of your work, etc. But, these accounts sell like crazy, because if you sign up the proper way, it'll be a long time till you get any work.
4. Do professors know when their students submit outsourced work?
Which way, engineering?
Some references:
1. 2. (from 2015, outdated)
3. The list on outlines some popular academic writing websites.
........................................
The EAC - One People, One Destiny... One Federation.
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