Students get academics to write their essays for €50 an hour

kjl

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/students-get-academics-to-write-their-essays-for-50-an-hour-1.2181603

So basically students are paying ridiculous prices to get other people to write college essays for them.

Ill be honest, I tried to do this when I was back in college. I was studying Economics and had a paper to write on Game Theory. I went to one of the college papers website and paid €250 for a paper, it took them the weekend and what they gave back to me was total garbage. The essay was basically one paragraph introduction about game theory which was just a definition and then a 6 page essay on some b52 bomber which he tried to pass off as an essay. I was able to get my money and ended up getting off my lazy ass and just writing the essay. Funny thing I actually got an A in the paper.

When I was studying IT, I used to make loads of money around project time. In first year we were given an assignment to make a game, I think I wrote 10 different games and charged €100 a pop.

I personally think that the real people who get cheated are the people paying for the service, they miss out on the opportunity to learn as they write the paper or do the assignment.

What are your thoughts? Have any of you ever cheated on an assignment? Do you think it's fair on the students who do their own work?

smash

ridiculous prices? Seems cheap to me.

Aongus Von Bismarck

It's a disgraceful thing to do. It's just cheating, plain and simple. It also lessens the quality of your education, and brings about a set of results that don't reflect your actual knowledge and competencies. As well as cheating the system you are also cheating yourself.

kneemos

To lazy to protest or even write their own essays.

Bandit0

Surely you may as well just Photoshop your degree and lie to employers.
Save you money in the long run!

smash

Bandit0 wrote: »

Surely you may as well just Photoshop your degree and lie to employers.
Save you money in the long run!

In the long run it'll bite them in the ass anyway. They'll get to the real world and they wont have a clue what they're doing and as such, wont be able to hold down a job.

Lau2976

Passing someone else work off as your own us deplorable. Students caught doing this should be forced to resit the module.

Diabhal Beag

I'd never pay €250 to cheat. That's mental.

hfallada

The most shocking part of the article is that a third level institution is only implementing anti-plagiarism software in 2015. Everything in my college has to be uploaded to anti-plagiarism software site to check that our work is original. If you caught plagiarising its a trip to college dean.

the_syco

kjl wrote: »

What are your thoughts? Have any of you ever cheated on an assignment? Do you think it's fair on the students who do their own work?

I think it's not fair on the colleagues of the cheater, as the colleagues end up correcting the cheaters screwups, and carrying them past the project completion date.

limitedIQ

smash wrote: »

In the long run it'll bite them in the ass anyway. They'll get to the real world and they wont have a clue what they're doing and as such, wont be able to hold down a job.

i'm not so sure, you are not going to use most of the stuff you learn anyway and if you need to know something specific just google it. A lot of jobs ask for a Degree but once you are in the role you get training, learn as you go etc.

Remember studying for exams and the teacher saying your books would be there in the exam so you have to learn all this stuff ? I thought that was ridiculous because your books are there in the REAL world.

anncoates

Why bother getting a higher education if you can't even write your own assignments.

The_Kew_Tour

When I went collage a lad paid a "expert" £300 (about 450euro at time, was in Wales) and he barely managed to pass.

I say pretty much everyone he knew passed and got a better result. It was not even the hardest module in the course which is why it was stupid thinking on his part.

arayess

anncoates wrote: »

Why bother getting a higher education if you can't even write your own assignments.

maybe they can and they don't want too.

fair play to them, i say

ScumLord

smash wrote: »

In the long run it'll bite them in the ass anyway.

Not if they work in a company that outsources most of the production.

megaten

smash wrote: »

In the long run it'll bite them in the ass anyway. They'll get to the real world and they wont have a clue what they're doing and as such, wont be able to hold down a job.

Really? I found that with essays in college the skill of writing essays itself was the main skill and knowing and understanding the content didn't actually help a whole lot. Employers aren't necessarily going to be judging candidates on their essay writing skill.

the_syco

hfallada wrote: »

The most shocking part of the article is that a third level institution is only implementing anti-plagiarism software in 2015.

Where did you see that?

=-=

Also, the part that said

Dr Glynn said universities faced a challenge in “proving without doubt the person has plagiarised”, especially in today’s litigious culture.

But, he stressed, “most plagiarism I have come across has been out of ignorance rather than malice, where they did not reference properly. So we spend a lot of time explaining to people what is plagiarism because at second level they’ve gone through a system of rote learning, or cutting and pasting.”

is very true.

Stinicker

I see nothing wrong with it, the majority of what is apparently learned in schools and universities have absolutely no relevance in the real world. What people need is work experience and jobs to be made available to the youth.

spurious

It's common place for some doing LC to use 'sample' essays, so how they expect to be able to write a real essay in college amazes me.

Many of the present day LC cohort don't know how to write their own notes, but rely on using those made by others. No wonder they struggle in college.

hatrickpatrick

The problem is that colleges don't teach people properly how to write in an academic style.
I'm in my final year at the moment and never before this year were we told not to write in the first person about projects we're doing ourselves. You can't expect someone to just "pick up" a completely new style of formatting grammar which they have never used or encountered before, on top of all the other stress that comes with doing finals.

To give you one example, they explicitly told us the other day not to write in the first person but ALSO not to write in the passive voice. Isn't that a complete contradiction? I can't speak for anyone else in my class but I have no problem whatsoever writing 20,000 words (do a word count on my posts on Boards to see how often I write far more than that ) but they're not telling us how, and so everything I write for these assignments is a stab in the dark, hoping by some miracle I'll be able to decipher the incredibly confusing and contradictory instructions on how to suddenly, after three years of it not mattering, switch from writing in an ordinary conversational tone to some kind of bizarre no-person tone which attempts to discuss doing a project while avoiding mentioning that the project was done by people.

In that context, it doesn't surprise me in the least that people would cheat like this. I'm not going to do it, but I have every sympathy with those who do - based on talking to my friends in other courses my experience is in no way isolated. Being asked to write academic papers without ever having been taught how to write them is like asking someone to lay down a guitar track when they've never learned or been taught how to play guitar. It's ludicrous.

Tarzana2

smash wrote: »

ridiculous prices? Seems cheap to me.

€50 per hour. So the cost could rack up, depending on if the person you hire would need to research it too.

An old classmate of mine did this all the time in college, paying people to write essays for her. She was one of the laziest people I've ever met.

On my biology course, we did literature reviews. Up to 10% similiarity was acceptable as it was understood we weren't doing original research, so it's hard to word things differently to all the related literature out there. We also had to make sure the reviews were extensively referenced.

A lad in my class however, got caught for plagiarism. His was something like 25% plagiarised. He was given 40% for the essay and still graduated with a 2:1. He was very lucky he was given the degree or anything higher than a third class honours. He's a lecturer now.

suicide_circus

hfallada wrote: »

The most shocking part of the article is that a third level institution is only implementing anti-plagiarism software in 2015. Everything in my college has to be uploaded to anti-plagiarism software site to check that our work is original. If you caught plagiarising its a trip to college dean.

Would have gotten away with it too if weren't for that crusty old dean!

Wompa1

The only way to fix this is by investing more into our third level education. Who's with me!?

Seriously, I wouldn't put much stock in a degree, masters or PhD. It's proof that the person can memorize enough to pass exams. In Ireland, going to college\university isn't even a huge sacrifice, it's the good life.

Google have been going through different hiring practices for years. The infamous 7 interviews and the stupid personality tests, that they have recently admitted were useless.

Recently, They've started to hire more people without degrees. They beleive people who didn't attend a third level institute have a different way of thinking, approach problems in a different way and bring less bad habits with them.

5rtytry56

@Tarzana2 "only in Ireland"

Tomagotchye

When I was in 2nd year I lived with 3 commerce/business students. One of them was brilliant, knew everything. They all got him to do their home tests for him and some assignments. They even got some of their mates in on the action. Now the home tests were worth only 10-15% I guess but it still adds up. Wild coming back to the house to see 10 guys sitting around watching him work out the problem and then them just selecting the answer when he got it.

Another year my fellow room-mate and arts student got his mate to write an assignment for history. He's a history teacher now.

Point is that there will always be people trying to cut corners. They're not great people but the way to beat them is be better, go higher and then crush them from above while they sit in a pool of their own complete moral failure. Still these cheating bastards are nowhere near as high on my disgust list than those who run for student unions. Despise them.

Satori Rae

I was shocked and disgusted when I found out my ex (just before I broke up with him) he was paying a friend of his who finished the same course a yr or 2 before to write an essay or 2 for him.

Cheating is cheating plain and simple. To lazy to do it himself not sure if he passed or failed his course after, but he wasted so many years and a great deal of money I would say "doing" his course and barely knew anything about it.

Anyone doing this should be made give there degrees back it is not fair on other people who worked hard for there's.

Kathnora

A colleague of mine told me once that he "allowed" another student to read his essay for "guidance". Needless to say almost the entire essay was copied. However, at the end of the last page the original author's name was printed in a small font and this was overlooked by the fella who copied and of course that's how he was caught! Karma.....

spurious

spurious wrote: »

It's common place for some doing LC to use 'sample' essays

Couldn't believe that when I first heard it
Learn off an essay

folamh

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

The problem is that colleges don't teach people properly how to write in an academic style.

Funnily, in my course, I felt that too much time was given to teaching students how to write essays. Even through to fecking second and third year, wasting tutorial time that could've been spent learning the actual content.

Wompa1

Mourinho wrote: »

I've said it many a time, but the way most are taught is a joke. The majority of memorizing note after note and then writing the same thing down on an exam is useless, it's memory testing thats all. I was doing an IT networking degree and only 25% of the course was lab time messing about with all sorts of equipment, learning how to connect and set them up, etc.

Most lads ended up being pure useless in the practical application side and grand for the rote learning. The companies that hired them ended up training them in the practical side again anyway. Everyone of us have said that 99% of the note learning as we called it has not in any way been used where the practical application would have been far more beneficial.

Whats worse is there were lads brilliant at the actual practical stuff, you know the actual thing 99% of the jobs they'd be applying for would be anyway. But struggled with the memorizing large volumes of notes to be put down again on an exam paper. Most courses in the likes of IT and whatever other areas should be 90% practical and then have the odd couple hours a week for say project management and that which would be needed.

I'm IT too but even in other courses. Memorizing specific articles and papers for an exam does not lead to retaining that knowledge. Knowing the theory isn't worth a damn

Shemale

anncoates wrote: »

Why bother getting a higher education if you can't even write your own assignments.

It opens more jobs up to them.

Tomagotchye

A lot of exam hate going on. Exams are actually a good thing. When done correctly they give a good indication of how people can apply and adapt knowledge on the spot/within a limit. Drawing up ideas/technical knowledge quickly and effectively. What I hated was that they'd give you "hints" or keep the layout the same each year or recycle questions from previous years so if you looked back you'd be "rewarded." That defeats the entire purpose.

LenaClaire

In my course it was an automatic fail of that module if you plagiarized and an automatic expulsion if you were caught a second time.

Wompa1

LenaClaire wrote: »

In my course it was an automatic fail of that module if you plagiarized and an automatic expulsion if you were caught a second time.

Hard to prove plagiarizism if it's original work they are buying.

Wompa1

Tomagotchye wrote: »

A lot of exam hate going on. Exams are actually a good thing. When done correctly they give a good indication of how people can apply and adapt knowledge on the spot/within a limit. Drawing up ideas/technical knowledge quickly and effectively. What I hated was that they'd give you "hints" or keep the layout the same each year or recycle questions from previous years so if you looked back you'd be "rewarded." That defeats the entire purpose.

Yip, I remember I blogged about that before and got contacted by some lecturer in Ireland, he\she had their own blog too. They stayed anonymous for obvious reasons and had a few posts of the many shortcomings of the Institution we have in Ireland. The "hints" was a major topic on their site. I guess they don't do that in every other country...

I got tips from a lecturer in 2nd year and then tips from two other lecturers in 3rd and 4th year. But where I went, you didn't really need the tips. The previous years exam papers had predictable patterns. Every once in a while you'd get f'ked if you relied on the papers, because the lecturer would throw a swerve at ya. But for the most part, it was very easy.

cloud493

I would, but I wouldn't do any better even if I got someone to cheat for me. Plus whose got €50 for that :eek:

RedPandaDan

Not surprising. Really, for a lot of people having a degree is far more important than knowing that material. As more and more people have degrees, the worse and worse you look for not having one, even if the job you are looking to get doesn't need one.

Jesus Wept

Wompa1 wrote: »

The only way to fix this is by investing more into our third level education. Who's with me!?

Seriously, I wouldn't put much stock in a degree, masters or PhD. It's proof that the person can memorize enough to pass exams. In Ireland, going to college\university isn't even a huge sacrifice, it's the good life.

Google have been going through different hiring practices for years. The infamous 7 interviews and the stupid personality tests, that they have recently admitted were useless.

Recently, They've started to hire more people without degrees. They beleive people who didn't attend a third level institute have a different way of thinking, approach problems in a different way and bring less bad habits with them.

Any links to these degreeless jobs google have?

L'Enfer du Nord

smash wrote: »

In the long run it'll bite them in the ass anyway. They'll get to the real world and they wont have a clue what they're doing and as such, wont be able to hold down a job.

Dishonesty and a willingness to pass the work of others off as your own will unfortunately help many to advance in their careers. Being a born liar certainly helps in an interview situation. As for people being found out, when this does happen it's usually too much trouble to do anything about it. Chancers getting caught out and paying the price is really less common in an workplace environment that you might think.

gutenberg

I'm at a university in the UK, and it's an acknowledged problem here too. However, what's interestung is that the research into the phenomenon here, in so much as they can investigate this, is that it's quite a problem among international students. It's simultaneously a problem of language difficulties- some simply don't have the required level of English, despite taking TOEFL tests etc., but also the academic culture of their home countries, where plagiarism and repeating/copying the words/argument of an 'authority' is accepted.

hatrickpatrick

folamh wrote: »

Funnily, in my course, I felt that too much time was given to teaching students how to write essays. Even through to fecking second and third year, wasting tutorial time that could've been spent learning the actual content.

I can see how that would be irritating, but can you imagine spending three years getting full marks for discussing audio production by writing "We used delay at 328ms and a phaser effect synced to the master tempo when recording the songs", and then in fourth year suddenly being told "You can't write in the first person, you have to avoid referring to who recorded the songs and write it as if the songs were just recorded on their own"?

In my view that's pretty unfair. All through first to third year the emphasis was on writing every report from your own point of view, and now they're telling us that this is precisely what you're not supposed to do for the final essays.

Again I'm not saying I'd consider doing this, mostly because I don't really care enough to bother, but I certainly find it ridiculous that I might fail my finals even when my research and facts are 100% spot on, just because I couldn't get my head around a never-before-required writing style in six months, after three years of doing well writing with my own style.

Tarzana2

Tomagotchye wrote: »

A lot of exam hate going on. Exams are actually a good thing. When done correctly they give a good indication of how people can apply and adapt knowledge on the spot/within a limit. Drawing up ideas/technical knowledge quickly and effectively.

Agreed. I think people are too quick to put down people who do well in their exams. "Oh, they just swotted, they don't really get it."

Dunno about anyone else, but I need to understand stuff thoroughly to be able to talk about it in exams. And exams are often far from straightforward, requiring you to think laterally to answer questions.

Hate "tips" too, but I've learned to ignore them down the years as they often don't even happen! I remember for LC Biology, I was aiming for an A1 and I studied EVERYTHING. I studied the tips, not because they were tips, but because they were part of the course. Not one of the tips came up, not even one. I got my A1.

LenaClaire

Wompa1 wrote: »

Hard to prove plagiarizism if it's original work they are buying.

What they found with some of those bought essays is that they are used multiple times. There are tools that they can upload student's papers and compare them to each other, along with on-line and other reference tools.

Wompa1

LenaClaire wrote: »

What they found with some of those bought essays is that they are used multiple times. There are tools that they can upload student's papers and compare them to each other, along with on-line and other reference tools.

Yip, there's also ways to see if something is copied and pasted. If what they buy is not actually original for them then they are getting screwed.

Wompa1

The Rodgers wrote: »

Any links to these degreeless jobs google have?

Not specific links to jobs. I'm at work, don't want to go looking at job sites, I'm a contractor so that'll throw me into the sh1ts but here's an article about it from Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikaandersen/2014/04/07/how-google-picks-new-employees-hint-its-not-about-your-degree/

kippy

limitedIQ wrote: »

i'm not so sure, you are not going to use most of the stuff you learn anyway and if you need to know something specific just google it. A lot of jobs ask for a Degree but once you are in the role you get training, learn as you go etc.

Remember studying for exams and the teacher saying your books would be there in the exam so you have to learn all this stuff ? I thought that was ridiculous because your books are there in the REAL world.

Id agree. It does depend on the qualification and career path but in general a lot of what you do in college will never be of use to you. There are lots of people out the working away in good jobs and who are very competent at what they do who probably never set foot in a third level institution.
I dont agree with cheating mind but I dont believe you need a college paper to get on in life.

kippy

LenaClaire wrote: »

What they found with some of those bought essays is that they are used multiple times. There are tools that they can upload student's papers and compare them to each other, along with on-line and other reference tools.

Yep and most colleges use these tools nowadays as well.

steddyeddy

Wompa1 wrote: »

The only way to fix this is by investing more into our third level education. Who's with me!?

Seriously, I wouldn't put much stock in a degree, masters or PhD. It's proof that the person can memorize enough to pass exams. In Ireland, going to college\university isn't even a huge sacrifice, it's the good life.

Google have been going through different hiring practices for years. The infamous 7 interviews and the stupid personality tests, that they have recently admitted were useless.

Recently, They've started to hire more people without degrees. They beleive people who didn't attend a third level institute have a different way of thinking, approach problems in a different way and bring less bad habits with them.

Jesus man a PhD is not about memory!

Hans Bricks

These essays and written assignments aren't worth a monkeys nipple. I've done more than enough, in fact too many of them to date. Same regurgitated waffle relating to a subject area with fancy articulation thrown in and a few Harvard referenced style quotes you didn't really bother reading anyway. I'll never really apply the waffle I've written over the years in the real world, just like I won't be using Vogel's method of approximation or tableaus with the Simplex Method.

Level 7 & 8 degrees are just a means to getting that starter job and setting yourself up for a comfy career which pays well.

Wompa1

steddyeddy wrote: »

Jesus man a PhD is not about memory!

That may been a it too daming. Some PhDs do deserve respect. Others.....ahhhh...not so much. There's many PhDs with research based Thesis that are utter muck and result in the person getting their PhD. Personally, now I only have insight into one Irish University but the process is hugely flawed. I know someboy who used sample groups for their study, they had their hypothesis going into the study that they wanted to prove. The results from the study showed there was deliniation..so rather than state that, they cut the people who throw the result off out of the study...

No way for the University to see that, people can just omit data.

Don't worry though, I'm sure in a few years, another student will do a study that will show that one to be incorrect and the circle jerk will continue.

A PhD is a test of attrition, if you are making a sacrifice to get your PhD then you earned and your deserve it. If you did well in exams in your undergrad (which is a memory test) and got accepted and then saw it through...Do you think the output from that person is of a high quality?

Part of the flaws in Ireland though, is the insignificant amount of publications coming out of the country in terms of research. There's a lot of senior academics that are sitting on their arses

mickstupp

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

I can see how that would be irritating, but can you imagine spending three years getting full marks for discussing audio production by writing "We used delay at 328ms and a phaser effect synced to the master tempo when recording the songs", and then in fourth year suddenly being told "You can't write in the first person, you have to avoid referring to who recorded the songs and write it as if the songs were just recorded on their own"?

In my view that's pretty unfair. All through first to third year the emphasis was on writing every report from your own point of view, and now they're telling us that this is precisely what you're not supposed to do for the final essays.

My god, the difficulty of switching from 1st person to 3rd! And to have to make that change in only 6 months! Shocking. Nay, terrifying!

Oh, wait, hang on, you said 'All through first to third year the emphasis was on writing every report...', so you're already well aware how to do it. Possibly because it's not hard.