Have you ever bought an essay online?

OP

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7290333/amp/Inside-African-essay-factories-producing-essays-cheating-UK-students.html

This is the article that made me ask this question

Reply 21

StriderHort

21

Original post by syrialove1981

Really? Even if they were anonymous in their reply? 😱

Yup, anon just means reg users can't see, TSR can.

Reply 22

mnot

Universities Forum Helper

20

Original post by syrialove1981

I’m curious - apparently over a hundred thousand British students did last year.

No.

This is something I despise when I see advertisers for it.

Reply 23

username2908878

20

I wouldn’t dare :cry2:

Reply 24

CTLeafez

22

Original post by syrialove1981

I’m curious - apparently over a hundred thousand British students did last year.

Nope, I've never bought an essay and never will. It's academic misconduct, plain and simple. If you are found out, ALL of your prior assessments will be brought into question.

I do not recommend anyone, even if you're desperately behind on work, buys an essay from a mill.

It would be interesting to see the statistic of those 100,000 students, a. how many were caught for collusion/plagiarism on that assessment or a future one? b. What their average grade is across Uni? c. On a scale of 10 to 10, how stupid are they to use an essay mill/ essay writing service.

Reply 25

sourapples

9

Would never consider this! Someone at my workplace actually recently asked me if I knew of any good websites to buy essays as she'd been searching for some and she said they were asking for hundreds of pounds!!

I told her taking shortcuts isn't the way forward and it's so risky IMO! You can expose yourself to scammers/get a badly written (or plagiarised) essay/get no essay at all/get caught cheating, the list goes on! At the end of the day you won't be improving yourself and if you're paying student fees for uni/courses, what's the point getting someone else to do your work, haha!

Reply 26

CTLeafez

22

Original post by PhoenixFortune

A few reasons to take the risk come to mind: poor time management - for example, they might think it's quicker to get an essay mill to pump out a generic essay than to put effort in very close to a deadline, lack of motivation to do their own, lack of confidence in their English proficiency to write something 'academic' enough...

A student wrote about using an essay mill for The Tab, not for his actual formative essays, but an essay title he had invented himself. The lecturer he asked to mark it said that he wouldn't have actually believed that it was an essay mill product, as he hoped someone wouldn't pay for an essay that was so poorly written. I think he awarded it a 2:2 at most, even though the student paid £65 for it to be of first class quality.

I saw that article, the fake essay title was something like "Female empowerment or role of women in Victorian literature". :biggrin:

Reply 27

999tigger

19

Original post by syrialove1981

I’m curious - apparently over a hundred thousand British students did last year.

Source.

You should also take into account a high % will be foreign students.
Not that many UK students have the money.

Reply 28

PhoenixFortune

21

Original post by CTLeafez

I saw that article, the fake essay title was something like "Female empowerment or role of women in Victorian literature". :biggrin:

That's the one! I liked that the first thing the essay writer decided to do, on seeing that title, was to define when the Victorian era was. Vital info, that is.

Reply 29

username4903866

OP

14

Agreed. It definitely puts a sinister twist on the whole concept

Reply 30

CTLeafez

22

Original post by PhoenixFortune

That's the one! I liked that the first thing the essay writer decided to do, on seeing that title, was to define when the Victorian era was. Vital info, that is.

"The Victorian era was a period of time when the women; defined as 'an adult human female' in the Oxford Dictionary, were present in day to day life of Victorian England (Oxford Dictionary, 2020)." :biggrin:

Reply 31

PhoenixFortune

21

Original post by CTLeafez

"The Victorian era was a period of time when the women; defined as 'an adult human female' in the Oxford Dictionary, were present in day to day life of Victorian England (Oxford Dictionary, 2020)." :biggrin:

"The Victorian era, interestingly enough, was a period of time when a woman, specifically the Queen, was called Victoria". :top2:

Reply 32

CTLeafez

22

Original post by PhoenixFortune

"The Victorian era, interestingly enough, was a period of time when a woman, specifically the Queen, was called Victoria". :top2:

-"Victoria is a name given to female offspring of humans within human society, specifically the Victorian era, showing the great level of influence that the Victorian era had on society."

Reply 33

Napp

22

A particularly dumb thing to do in any event..

Reply 34

Kutie Karen

19

No. I would not dream to. Why would I lie and cheat to myself let alone the system? Only people who are not capable would resort to such tactics. Anyone that does should be punished severely if caught.

Reply 35

username4521132

19

Original post by PhoenixFortune

A few reasons to take the risk come to mind: poor time management - for example, they might think it's quicker to get an essay mill to pump out a generic essay than to put effort in very close to a deadline, lack of motivation to do their own, lack of confidence in their English proficiency to write something 'academic' enough...

A student wrote about using an essay mill for The Tab, not for his actual formative essays, but an essay title he had invented himself. The lecturer he asked to mark it said that he wouldn't have actually believed that it was an essay mill product, as he hoped someone wouldn't pay for an essay that was so poorly written. I think he awarded it a 2:2 at most, even though the student paid £65 for it to be of first class quality.

I do an MSc and questions are up on public domain a few hours after being released. It’s not laziness or time management but desperation. With uni expansion you are letting in people who shouldn’t be let in who result to seeking out answers because they don’t have the ability to solve it themselves.

(edited 3 years ago)

Reply 36

dangermau5e

9

A mate of mine at college several years ago paid another mate's straight A's older sister £30 to write a psychology essay for him and a few of us read through it as, although we had ideas of what we wanted to write, we were all struggling with the structure and what the question was actually asking. I don't know if he ended up submitting it as it was but I certainly remember finding it useful for helping me with how to structure my own essay and as some examples of what to write myself. Whether an example of an essay structure and some ideas was worth the price he paid is up for debate but to say essay mills are bad and wrong in every way is probably not a fair assessment. It's the students who use them purely to pass off work as their own that are the ones in the wrong. I don't think its wrong to use a paid essay purely for guidance if you struggle to understand what is being asked of you, if you have the cash to spare of course!