Saturday 29 September 2018

Essay writing websites exploiting dumb students

Hi guys, I talk a lot about further education and degrees on my blog, so when I came across an interesting story today on the BBC, I felt I had to respond to it. Now this story is nothing new, it is about essay mills - or websites where you can pay someone to do your homework for you right up to university level. Such websites have been around for a while now and students cheating by getting someone else to do their course work or essays is really nothing new, but this BBC article focused on how one such website EduBirdie has paid Youtubers popular with young people to endorse their services. If you're currently a student, I'm sure you may have come across such services or heard your friends talking about them. Now please allow me to make it very clear that I have not been paid to endorse any of these websites and I'm merely offering my own response to the story primarily because I felt the BBC article wasn't thorough and could have offered a more balanced response. This issue has been around for a while already and thus, so here's my response to it.
The short answer is no, don't even go there, don't do it. You'll get caught and expelled. Here's the much longer answer:

I think there are several reasons why you shouldn't use such services: firstly, the whole reason you go to university is to get a degree in a subject you are interested in. When I was at university, there was a choice of different modules you choose from: sure some modules like statistics were compulsory, but the rest you were free to pick the ones you liked. I remember starting out in one module, attending one lecture and deciding that I really didn't like the lecturer. He came across as a boring old man and I decided to cut my losses whilst I could. So I ran back to the admin office and quickly enrolled myself in a different module, thankfully that other module was taught by a charming lady who was super enthusiastic about her subject, she had this quality that made me equally enthusiastic about learning from her. She encouraged us to form our own opinions and responses about the topics that we discussed in her tutorials and when it came to writing essays for her, I had a lot to say - oh yeah, I was often frustrated by the word limit for those essays. That is what university should be like - you should be studying a subject that you are passionate about, you should be so interested in what you're learning that writing the essays should be a fun process because you have that platform to express your opinions on the topic. And if you're so stuck with writing the essay because you either don't understand the topic or you're just so disinterested in it that you can't be asked to do your research, then that suggests that you're studying in the wrong course altogether and if that's genuinely the case, you have much bigger problems to worry about!

If you're doing a degree that you have little or not interest in, then how the hell are you going to use the degree to help you get a job in there future? If you're not at all interested in the subject matter as a university student, can you imagine dealing with the subject matter at work? No, it's a recipe for disaster and simply getting through the degree by cheating doesn't resolve the fundamental problem here. Yes you may end up doing something totally unrelated to your degree in your future career, but why invest so much time and energy in a degree that you have little or no intention to use? You're going to be better off cutting your losses, quitting the degree and pursuing something you are actually interested in, a field which you could see yourself making a career in. This is the kind of situation which we call 'symptomatic treatment' - so for example, if you have diabetes, you may exhibit all kinds of symptoms which the doctors can treat, offering you temporary relief, but unless they start dealing with the root cause of the problem which is the diabetes, you're still not going to make a complete recovery. This is why doctors often check to see if the ailment you're suffering from is a symptom of a far more serious condition rather than just writing you a prescription for you to deal with it. In this case, a lack of interest or desire to even write an essay for your degree course is a symptom you definitely should never ignore.
I can already anticipate the response to my first point, "but I am interested! It's just that I don't want to risk getting a bad grade, that's all. I want to make sure I have good results, in Singapore we call that being kiasu. If there's something I can do, someone I can pay to guarantee a better result, then why not?" Well, allow me to share with you a story from around 2006. I was working in this company that hired a lot of Mandarin-speaking part-time staff to help with a project in China. I became good friends with one of them who was doing a masters degree at the time, let's call her Emily (not her real name). Emily struggled really with English because it was only introduced to her as a foreign language when she was a teenager in secondary school. Ideally, she should have spent a year or two improving her English before even attempting to do a masters degree in England, but somehow her university agreed to let her do that. One day, she asked me to simply "correct her English" for one of her essays and since we were good friends, I agreed - thinking that it was going to take ten minutes or so. I was so wrong: I had no idea what the hell she was trying to say in the essay and her writing stank of Google Translate. I basically rewrote the entire essay for her and of course, Emily got an A for that essay. I then sat down and explained how I wrote that essay: she wasn't stupid and in fact, she's incredibly intelligent. It's just that her English sucked and having studied in France, I know how difficult it is to try to do a degree in a second or foreign language. Emily became quite dependent on my help and yes, she cheated by getting me to help her with her essays - but I was thinking, you're simply not going to pass without my help and I didn't do it for the money (in fact Emily never paid me anything for my help), I just didn't want to see her fail because she was struggling to express herself in English.

Now if you could get a really good writer to build a relationship with like a mentor, so you get the same person doing your essays every time, then maybe you could get away with it. I did wonder how Emily's tutor didn't question the fact that her essays were eloquently written in fluent English whilst she struggled with basic conversations, but at least it was the same person writing all her essays. My regular readers will recognize my distinctive style of writing and a lot of my personality does go into my writing. It is as personal and recognizable as one's thumbprints. So you could get five different writers doing five different essays for you: that means the likelihood of being caught is a lot higher even if all five essays are indeed well-written and free from plagiarism - that still doesn't change the fact that they are clearly not written by the same person and that's pretty easy to detect. Many students who use such services are counting on the fact that the staff marking their essays are overworked and simply do not have the time or inclination to bother trying to investigate. If a struggling student suddenly hands in a flawless piece of assignment, then eyebrows would be raised of course and the tutors would probably get suspicious. But that's when the student has to play it a bit more wisely, they should know that getting straight As under such circumstances is not possible but if they want to move from an E grade to a C or B grade, that's actually a lot less suspicious especially if the improvement is somewhat gradual and not drastic.
There's yet another good reason why you need to write your own essays: it is good practice for your exams. In most universities, course work only count towards a certain percentage of final grades, you would usually need to take some exams as well and yes, that means having to write essays under pressure in the examination hall. You are still going to have to have to somehow figure out how to write a good essay because you can't pay someone to sit the same for you - that would be taking cheating to a whole new level and if you've done a course for a few months with your classmates, chances are they'll be able to see an impostor and alert the examiners, "that's clearly not Emily, yet she claims to be Emily. We know Emily." And of course, if you produce an average or poor essay under exam conditions, that's once again even more suspicious as the tutors would think, "that's odd, normally Emily turns in such well-crafted essays with solid arguments, but she is like a totally different person under exam conditions." The only way you are going to be good at writing essays under such harsh conditions is by continually practicing, each time you're given an essay to write, whether or not it actually counts towards your final grades. If you have paid someone else to write all your essays whilst you're out watching movies, hanging out at the mall with your friends or sleeping, then you're going to put yourself in a horrible situation when you realize, "I've not written an essay in months and I have to do one today for my finals exams?"

Is it tempting to cheat? Of course it is. Have I cheated before? Well yes, but not in my exams. Back in Singapore, we all had to do something called the physical fitness test (otherwise known as the IPPT - the individual physical proficiency test). One of the most difficult elements of the test is the 2.4 km run, that involves six rounds of a standard 400 meters running track. When I was in secondary school, the test was conducted like this: because the boys ran at different paces, some were fast whilst others were slow, you were meant to collect a rubber band each time you complete one lap of the track. When you finished the six rounds, you had to show the teacher the six rubber bands around your wrist to prove that you had completed the required 2.4 km. During one such test, I accidentally grabbed two rubber bands instead of one when I passed the table, but nobody noticed as it happened so quickly. When I checked in at the end of the test and showed my six rubber bands, I had ensured that I had made sure that a few boys finished ahead of me so I wouldn't look suspicious but those guys were super fast runners with amazing stamina. I had in fact ran only 2 km and not 2.4 km but I got away with it. I repeated this several times whilst in that school, the teachers weren't watching me as they were more concerned about the fat kids who struggled with the run. It's not just having a result that you wouldn't normally have been able to achieve, I think the thrill was more in being able to keep getting away with it, in having deceived all the teachers.
So for a few years, I actually got away with it as nobody actually questioned my running ability - I wasn't the kind of guy who needed to cheat to pass a test like that. There was this assumption that only people (such as the overweight kids) who would struggle to pass would need cheat like that, that made it so easy for me to get away with it. Besides, I loved sports and was in good shape, but the temptation to cheat was too much for me to resist and I wanted to see whom I could fool, if I could get away with it. But at the back of my mind, I knew that the stakes were very high - back in those days, if you performed up to a certain benchmark in the IPPT, you were rewarded with a two-month reduction of your national service. That's two months of freedom as a civilian - they wanted to give the enlistees a great incentive to become very fit, so the army wouldn't have to deal with too many unfit and overweight guys. I wasn't going to risk missing out on that so from about two years prior to my enlistment, I began training the 2.4 km properly - in the end, yes I eventually could run 2.4 km in the same time I used to run 2 km. It wasn't easy training to get those results, especially given that I was running under hot, tropical conditions. There was a different sense of reward when I managed to achieve the good results without cheating and that was so much better than the thrill of getting away with cheating. The bottom line is that you can probably cheat when it really didn't matter whether you did well or not, but when the stakes are high, you're probably better off simply putting in all the hard work necessary to make sure you can deliver under pressure.

Okay, clearly it is not a good idea to cheat - but for the sake of writing a balanced article, let's look at the other side of the argument: can there ever be a justification of turning to these essay writing services? Well, I actually think there can be. I think it can work properly if you are willing to make it a lot more constructive. So for example, rather than just throw your assignment to someone and make them do it for you whilst having as little as possible to do with it, you really want to find a writer who is willing to sit down with you and explain what they're doing in terms of your essay - much the same way a tuition teacher would. Let me give you an example: I wanted to learn how to bake and my good friend Leila is a great baker, so one day I went round to her house one Saturday and she was going to make a variety of cakes and tasty pastries for a friend's birthday party. She did all the baking whilst I mostly observed and helped a little, but she made sure it was educational for me as she had a running commentary full of helpful explanation as to why she did certain things. When her husband came home, I cheekily said, "hey look the delicious cakes we made this afternoon!" Of course, I was claiming credit for something I didn't do as Leila did all the baking, but did I learn something from the experience? Oh of course I did and the next time I bake something, I would remember all the helpful lessons I have learnt from Leila that afternoon. Now compare that to if I simply went to one of the nicer bakeries in town and bought an expensive cake - I would have learnt absolutely nothing if I had simply handed money over to the cashier in exchange for a beautiful cake.
I remember my first year at university, oh boy. I really struggled with essays - look, I had come from the Singaporean system where the essence of an essay was to simply vomit out onto the paper as many facts, formulas and case studies you know about the topic. For my very first assignment, the tutor was kind enough to give me a second chance: rather than giving me an F, she explained where I had gone wrong and gave me two days to rewrite my essay. She wanted me to demonstrate a deep understanding of a very specific aspect of the topic and come up with my own analysis of the issues discussed rather than just quoting from many sources. It was a very frustrating experience as what I did in Singapore was simply unacceptable in the UK and I was lucky enough to have had someone spend about 15 minutes explaining to me what was expected of me - but that was all I got, a 15 minute briefing about the key elements of a good essay. Imagine if I had say a final year student or someone even more senior at the university help me with the essay - the same way a tuition teacher would. Rather than actually doing it for me, imagine if I got that person to show me exactly how it is done, carefully guiding me step-by-step through the process, just like Leila's baking demonstration. I don't think I was unique - many people struggle during their first year at university to adapt to the more demanding standards, thus it wouldn't hurt to get just a bit of extra help. I was lucky to get just enough help to get by - what about people like Emily who are just thrown in the deep end and expected to sink or swim? Is that giving them a fair chance?

Actually, there are more abstract reason to support using such essay writing services: all great leaders delegate. This is why a boss in a successful company would never try to micromanage every aspect of the business - no, instead they would choose to hire experts to work in the various departments. Is this really that different? You may see university as just a stepping stone towards your ultimate career goals: maybe you're too busy trading cryptcurrencies or getting valuable work experience to handle the very heavy work load and if what you're doing is far more lucrative and important than some boring old essay, then you could argue that it makes sense to delegate and pay someone to do it for you if you have far better things to do with your time. By the same token, there's a lot more to a degree than simply writing essays: if we were to leave any kind of moral judgement at the door, then I say, hats off to the students who manages to hire someone to write their essays and get away with it because you're then developing a whole other set of skills. In order to cheat effectively, you need to first understand the system, figure out what the tutors are looking for, what would result in you getting caught and then come up with a strategy to cheat that allows you to sail under the radar and get away with it. Oh this would involve an undertaking a lot more complex than simply going to one of these essay-writing websites and getting a random person to do your assignment for you - you will need to come up with a pretty good strategy to get away with it and lessons learnt from this endeavour would serve you well in the real world where people often don't really give a shit about fair play, as long as you get the results. Welcome to the real world, the working world.
Another good reason to pay someone to do your essays for you is if you realize that you're doing a module that you have no interest in and you're never ever going to use that knowledge once you've completed that assignment. I would recommend that you try to avoid modules like that, but if you simply cannot, well, then this is a viable option for you to consider. After all, say you're doing a degree in finance, if your teacher is so brilliant and knowledge is so valuable, then why isn't your teacher earning millions working for a top investment bank? Why is he drawing a modest salary working at the university then? Have I been in situations where I have memorized a whole lot of useless facts, only to pass an exam? Of course - was that a waste of time? Totally. I remember how we had this ritual at university: after each exam, a group of us would take our notes and dump it into the paper recycling bin as we know we would never ever use that knowledge ever again as it was so esoteric and useless; and even if we did ever have to draw on that knowledge in the future, well whatever we had learnt for the exam would have become obsolete anyway so it really didn't matter. But if a teacher walks into a class and says, "this module is a waste of time, so with this in mind, let's begin." Hell no, even teachers have egos and so they would probably claim that what they are teaching is so absolutely crucial and important.

As for whether it is fair to cheat when many of the other students will do their own coursework and essays, I say that concept of fairness is totally naive. Of course life is totally fucking unfair. The rich kids will have so much money that they don't need to waste time shopping for food, cooking their meals and doing household chores: they can easily afford to order a take-away and hire a cleaner to keep their homes tidy. Poor students will usually end up in pretty nasty places to live, they may not get a decent night's sleep and on top of having to do a whole lot of housework, they will often need to work part time as well to make ends meet. So of course the playing field isn't level to begin with when they start university and more to the point, the playing field gets even more unfair once they leave university. I once worked with this guy who graduated from the university of Brighton which is near the bottom of the UK university league tables, but as his daddy was rich and influential, he managed to get all the right internships and ended up with a great job at an investment bank. Of course it is all hideously unfair, but didn't you get the memo? Whatever made you think that life was supposed to be fair? So I say if someone wishes to cheat at university, good luck to them because they risk getting caught and expelled but if they can get away with it, then hats off to them for beating the system. It certainly takes a lot more than just money to be able to cheat this way - it is probably far easier to just study hard than to cheat the system.
Lastly though, what made me really uncomfortable was the way these Youtubers are targeting a certain cohort of students: the dumb ones who clearly need help with their essays. In an ideal world, these stupid students really need more help with their studies, rather than a way to cheat the system. It's what a thief once told me, he would only steal because he knew he could get away with it. "With any kind of crime or fraud, you should only attempt it if you know for sure you will get away with it. The people who are hungry, who are desperate, like the drug addicts looking to score their next hit - those are the people who get caught because they pick the wrong targets. A thief would always know when to walk away and abort the mission if he can sense something is wrong, so you will live to steal another day and not end up arrested and thrown in jail. There's no point in trying to steal a diamond ring if the chances of you getting caught is very high. The most stupid thieves are those who steal stuff they like, urgh." Here's the irony: the students who can come up with a good strategy to cheat the system are probably smart enough to score straight As anyway, so they don't need to cheat but the dumb students turning to such services as a last resort are probably not capable of planning such a complex operation and have a high risk of getting caught. These Youtubers are paid good money to endorse these essay-writing websites and by the same token, they really don't give a shit if you end up being caught and expelled. They are encouraging dumb students to commit a fraud that they're most unlikely to get away with and that is very immoral.

So that's it from me - I certainly would never advice anyone to try to use such an essay writing service, but instead to try to seek help through legitimate sources. What do you think? Do you know of people who use such essay writing services at university? Is it a black and white issue for you or are there shades of grey? Why aren't universities catching people who are using such services then? And would you ever pay someone to do an essay or assignment for you at university if you had the money? Do let me know what you think - please leave a comment below and many thanks for reading.

4 comments:

  1. If you can't churn out a half-decent essay, why are you in university?

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    1. There are many reasons why students are not enthusiastic about writing essays - imagine if you told a class there'll be no homework this weekend, how happy would the kids be? It goes way beyond laziness per se, it's about getting something for nothing. Or at least getting it for the best possible price. These young people do realize that they need a degree, they need to go to university - but how much work are they willing to put into that degree? Some universities do have quite a party atmosphere where the students suddenly realize, hey I am living away from home for the first time, I don't have to go home by 10 pm and my mum doesn't know what I am doing tonight so the temptation is to have fun, drink too much, have loads of sex and do so many other things apart from writing your essays. So such services are appealing to the students who want to have fun and don't want to spend hours writing essays (which I did as a total geek who was passionate about what I was studying). The problem though is that it is addictive to try to get someone else more qualified to do your work for you - once you start using such services, you become less able to write your own essay, to do your own research and it's a slippery slope.

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  2. I find this very disturbing that ignorant viewers will fall for it and waste their precious money. Another example is Youtubers selling tips, claiming can easy to make a living as a Youtuber. I think it is unethical for such marketers to make such claims.

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    1. It goes beyond wasting one's money - if you get caught plagiarizing, the university isn't going to let you off with a scolding. You will be suspended and thrown off your course in most cases. You need to be extremely careful if you intend to get away with it and that's not the impression that these Youtubers gave - needless to say, many of them hurriedly removed those videos after the release of the BBC report.

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