The Student Room Group

Over 20,000 uni students are buying essays and dissertations

Poll

Have you ever bought a piece of work and submitted it as your own?

Research carried out by the UK’s leading experts in essay cheating has revealed over 20,000 students are purchasing tailor-made essays online via “essay mills”, in order to evade plagiarism software and cheat their way to top-class degrees.

Following the release of new figures from two of the UK’s largest essay-writing services, it was revealed that more than a third of these students were enrolled at Russell Group and Oxbridge universities :shock:

The full article about 'contract cheating' can be found here.

Have you/would you ever buy a professionally-written essay or dissertation?

Or maybe you know people who have at your university?

Do you think the pressure of higher-achieving universities can make students feel they need such services to get through?

Scroll to see replies

Reply 1
Original post by discobish
Research carried out by the UK’s leading experts in essay cheating has revealed over 20,000 students are purchasing tailor-made essays online via “essay mills”, in order to evade plagiarism software and cheat their way to top-class degrees.

Following the release of new figures from two of the UK’s largest essay-writing services, it was revealed that more than a third of these students were enrolled at Russell Group and Oxbridge universities :shock:

The full article about 'contract cheating' can be found here.

Have you/would you ever buy a professionally-written essay or dissertation?

Or maybe you know people who have at your university?

Do you think the pressure of higher-achieving universities can make students feel they need such services to get through?


I would never even think about doing such a thing!
I wonder if there's the will to crack down on this. As revealed in the article, it's for the most part international students who are doing it: the Chinese and Arabs enrolled on masters courses that are their one-year finishing school. For the universities to make the switch to, for example, closed-book exams or presentation assessments that frustrate cheating, would only be to steer the next decade's entrants toward Canada or Australia or wherever else they can still get away with it.

The fact is that these students are an important source of income for universities and provide an economic boost to host communities. Lord love 'em they're often only here because of the expectations of parents having precisely no capacity to gauge their offspring's level of Englis. They've applied with agency-prepared personal statements and been accepted with IELTS scores that suggest them as hardly prepared to order breakfast never mind complete a masters dissertation.
Reply 3
I would never do such a thing because I always wanted to work towards my own marks. Getting someone else to do it just ruins the achievement altogether. Paying for a first class report is silly when you can easily do it yourself if you tried.

I know people who did that at university, I ended up with better marks which is quite funny. These people were the people who constantly bunked lectures and didn't really care about being at university, which is a shame for people who may have missed out on a place at my uni.

Do your own work, it's so much enjoyable that way and even if you don't like it, do your best. Too much workload or the work is too hard are not good excuses, you simply aren't trying hard enough.
No, I'd never think of doing this. I actually enjoy researching for my essays and learning about the topics I've chosen out of interest to study/
If I knew I wouldn't be caught, and it would give me a mark better than I could get for sure, then I'd be pretty tempted... However, given the risk of being caught, and then also that the mark might be worse than what I can and have achieved, I just don't think it's worth it... Quite frankly, if you're going to do this, then why the **** would you want to waste around £40k on going to uni...
This is the most stupid thing i've seen today. What are these people going to do when they leave university and get a job in that field? They most likely haven't gone to lectures, haven't done any of their own work, and have basically got into debt for a degree which they know nothing about. Doesn't seem like they get the last laugh here.
Original post by CarysJSLewis
This is the most stupid thing i've seen today.


Is it, though? Suppose that you're a 22 year old Chinese student completing a one year masters in the UK because that is the done thing for the indulged offspring of China's newly moneyed middle class. Spending a year abroad is going to significantly improve your English, though perhaps not to the extent that you'll be able to write an MSc dissertation, and you will meet a lot of other moneyed Chinese who will become part of your social and business network when back in China. Spending time actually writing the bloody thesis, even if you could, would eat into time better spent visiting the Cotswolds and Bicester Designer Village and working on developing that network. Your boss when you land a job in Shanghai or Shenzhen or wherever won't himself be able to speak English or anyway knows the game for himself having played it.

Where, sensibly, is the very terrible harm? These kids spend fortunes, support the university and the local area, are model visitors, and are not going to use their ill-gotten certificates to compete with Brits for jobs. For many of them the money is as nothing and they're certainly not incurring any debt. Meanwhile, bright Britons are supported twice: with the money secured by the university, that funds the providing of bursaries and so forth, and with their freelance jobs at the essay mill.
Original post by cambio wechsel
Is it, though? Suppose that you're a 22 year old Chinese student completing a one year masters in the UK because that is the done thing for the indulged offspring of China's newly moneyed middle class. Spending a year abroad is going to significantly improve your English, though perhaps not to the extent that you'll be able to write an MSc dissertation, and you will meet a lot of other moneyed Chinese who will become part of your social and business network when back in China. Spending time actually writing the bloody thesis, even if you could, would eat into time better spent visiting the Cotswolds and Bicester Designer Village and working on developing that network. Your boss when you land a job in Shanghai or Shenzhen or wherever won't himself be able to speak English or anyway knows the game for himself having played it.

Where, sensibly, is the very terrible harm? These kids spend fortunes, support the university and the local area, are model visitors, and are not going to use their ill-gotten certificates to compete with Brits for jobs. For many of them the money is as nothing and they're certainly not incurring any debt. Meanwhile, bright Britons are supported twice: with the money secured by the university, that funds the providing of bursaries and so forth, and with their freelance jobs at the essay mill.


nobory is judge you Cambio :hugs:
Reply 9
No and I don't think I'd ever consider doing it. When you write your own work you know its quality. I have confidence in my own work to at least achieve what I want to. I think when you get to university level proper cheating is abhorrent, especially in coursework where you literally have every resource available to you... ok writing a few notes on your legs in exams I don't really care about that because I still don't think your ability to memorise detailed information under high pressure conditions is really an indication of your intelligence... but coursework? No excuse. If you can't write an intelligent essay using the wealth of information university and internet gives you then why are you at uni?
Original post by cambio wechsel
Is it, though? Suppose that you're a 22 year old Chinese student completing a one year masters in the UK because that is the done thing for the indulged offspring of China's newly moneyed middle class. Spending a year abroad is going to significantly improve your English, though perhaps not to the extent that you'll be able to write an MSc dissertation, and you will meet a lot of other moneyed Chinese who will become part of your social and business network when back in China. Spending time actually writing the bloody thesis, even if you could, would eat into time better spent visiting the Cotswolds and Bicester Designer Village and working on developing that network. Your boss when you land a job in Shanghai or Shenzhen or wherever won't himself be able to speak English or anyway knows the game for himself having played it.

Where, sensibly, is the very terrible harm? These kids spend fortunes, support the university and the local area, are model visitors, and are not going to use their ill-gotten certificates to compete with Brits for jobs. For many of them the money is as nothing and they're certainly not incurring any debt. Meanwhile, bright Britons are supported twice: with the money secured by the university, that funds the providing of bursaries and so forth, and with their freelance jobs at the essay mill.


This is a very interesting perspective.
Original post by the bear
nobory is judge you Cambio :hugs:


Haha. Thank you so much. Yes I just leave out odd article for purpose of more plausible.
well surely the profs would be able to distinguish the difference between your quality of work and that of one of these writers and would be able to see the dramatic change in 'your' work
I wouldn't want to risk it.
Reply 14
You would have to be desperate to do that. For one thing, Leaving aside the ethics, I would not trust the guy doing a 'tailor made essay' to actually do that. I think it more likely that someone doing that kind of work will plagiarise it and that would mean I would be found out and expelled for that

Unless you are the son of an evil dictator who has made a large donation, in which case the uni will have one of their staff write it for you. One reason I did not apply to LSE

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8929365/Gaddafis-son-paid-LSE-tutor-4000-per-month-for-help-with-his-homework.html
(edited 7 years ago)
They must be doing pretty generic subjects.

i couldn't even find study material on TSR for my subjects.
I've heard stories of Arab and Chinese students paying thousands to other students to write assignments, dissertations and even sit exams for them. Meanwhile, they drive around in luxury cars. Utter madness.
Original post by Willy Pete
They must be doing pretty generic subjects.

i couldn't even find study material on TSR for my subjects.


me either! glad im not the only one
Original post by shawtyb
well surely the profs would be able to distinguish the difference between your quality of work and that of one of these writers and would be able to see the dramatic change in 'your' work
lol, you really think a professor is going to notice? he's got to mark the work of hundreds of students, there's zero chance he pays attention to your particular writing style.

some modules have only 1 piece of assessed work anyway. so how do they distinguish a difference in quality when they only have 1 piece of your work to go on?
Original post by snowman77
lol, you really think a professor is going to notice? he's got to mark the work of hundreds of students, there's zero chance he pays attention to your particular writing style.

some modules have only 1 piece of assessed work anyway. so how do they distinguish a difference in quality when they only have 1 piece of your work to go on?


alright calm the hell down

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