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- Essay Market
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Essay Market has a rating of 4.88 stars from 4,448 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally satisfied with their purchases. Reviewers satisfied with Essay Market most frequently mention support team, high quality, and term paper. Essay Market ranks 4th among Essay Writing sites.
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“Good experience!”
I really enjoyed this experience. You have written excellent quality articles for me. Unmistakable, with lots of facts and references. As a result, my teacher gave the work a high grade.
“Well, it was disappointing experience”
The issues began with the writer assigned to my research paper. It was evident that they lacked a deep understanding of the subject matter. The paper was riddled with inaccuracies and lacked proper citations, putting my academic integrity at risk. Communication with Essaymarket was frustrating, responses were slow and it felt like.I was chasing them for updates on my paper, and the delay in receiving the work added unnecessary stress to an already tight deadline... Ultimately, the quality of the paper was so poor that I couldn't submit it. I had to rewrite the entire paper myself, which defeated the purpose of seeking their assistance in the first place. Students rely on such services to support their academic journey, and my experience fell far short of the expected standard.
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EssayMarket is not an ordinary essay writing service. It’s an independent platform that unites highly qualified writers with people seeking their professional assistance. Every customer can select a personal essay writer who meets their standards. We assure you that every expert passes a wide range of tests before having access to our platform to prove their credibility and professionalism. As a result, every customer can find a truly professional essay writer based on experience, credentials, area of expertise, and feedback. We guarantee timely delivery, high quality, and quotes relative to your needs.
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Reviews 4.7.
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I wanna share my experience with you
Instead of leaving it to chance, the service takes the reins in selecting the most suitable writer for the task at hand, this ensures that my essays are crafted by professionals with expertise in the subject matter, guaranteeing quality and accuracy! The structure of the essays delivered by the Essaymarket writer is exemplary, each essay is meticulously organized, with a clear introduction, well-developed body paragraphs, and a concise conclusion, I have never had to worry about late submissions, since the essays are consistently delivered well before the deadline, this reliability has been a lifesaver during hectic academic periods, allowing me to submit my assignments with confidence
Date of experience : April 09, 2024
Reply from Essaymarket
We are so happy to see that you enjoyed our papers. We are looking forward for your new orders! Thank you!
Reliability and professionalism
I have no words to explain how happy I am with the results these guys achieve. Professional service from start to finish. I wish I found them earlier, and not in my last semester. I had 3 assignments done, all passed, highest result 73%. They listen to the instructions, change quickly what needs to be changed and always finish way before the deadline. Peace of mind! I worked mainly with a writer called Expert Tyler. No plagiarism at all, brilliant work!!!
Date of experience : February 18, 2024
Your comment is the best reward for us. We will be glad to see you again on our site.
The intermediary role they play between the writer and the client ensures a smooth and efficient process. Instead of sifting through countless profiles and portfolios, essaymarket takes the reins, selecting the most suitable writer for the task at hand. The quality of the rewrite I received surpassed my expectations, the writer assigned to my task demonstrated a profound understanding of the subject matter and delivered a thoroughly researched and well-structured paper, not only was the content flawless, but it also reflected a depth of analysis and critical thinking that elevated the overall quality of my work..despite the complexity of my project, the writer managed to deliver the rewrite well before the stipulated deadline, allowing ample time for revisions or any late adjustments
Date of experience : March 26, 2024
Editing academic help
I recently ordered editing help with my papers with EssayMarket. And they left me with best feeling about them...They totally deserve five stars for their editing skills and how well they organize stuff, what's really cool about them is how carefully they work on editing. They're great at fixing the structure of an essay. They make sure everything makes sense and flows nicely. Their writer start by checking how everything's arranged in the essay. Their writer move things around to make it all fit together better. Then, he focus on grammar and language, fixing mistakes and making everything sound better! Essaymarket's editors are awesome at making things clear and easy to understand. They make sentences better without changing what I wanted to say. They're good at making the writing better.
Date of experience : December 05, 2023
The more comments we receive from customers like you, the better service we can provide. Your opinion helps us to deliver high-quality papers to our users.
2 orders failed with 3/10 scores
Not worth the risk, failed with 3/10, with both orders, wasted $700. I was offered a 10% discount on my next order when I submitted my rating! Shocking to think how little they think of a customer with already 2 existing failing essays they sold that they lure you with a small discount to waste more money, pretty shady! Most reviews here do not sound realistic.
Date of experience : August 04, 2023
Dear Mandy, Thank you for your review! We are sorry to hear about your bad experience. Please, contact us via email [email protected]. We will be glad to find an appropriate solution for your case. Best Regards, EssayMarket Team
Ah, Essaymarket, let me give you the lowdown! So, I stumbled on these guys when I was buried under a mountain of essays... like, seriously buried. First impressions? Pretty smooth sailing. Placed my order, and they were quick off the mark, no dilly-dallying there. Quality-wise, I was pleasantly surprised. They nailed the content and format—no messin' around. And the cherry on top? The support team was on it! Thank u Stella :* Quick responses and actually helpful, which is a win in my book. But hey, here's the real talk: pricing. It ain't exactly a steal, but quality comes at a price, right? So, if you're after top-notch work and don't mind spending a tad more, these folks got your back. Overall, they helped me dodge a few academic bullets, so props to Essaymarket for being a solid backup when the workload gets wild.
Date of experience : November 27, 2023
We are happy to receive reviews from customers like you! That’s what makes us strive for better quality.
Tight deadlines with part time job
Firstly I should say I am a student and I am working after classes so sometimes I really don't have much time for my projects or some homework or even preparation for my exams. That's why I was thinking of using Essaymarket service to release me a bit from all of these deadlines. What impressed me more was the freedom to choose my writer. So I needed help with a challenging research paper, and I had the opportunity to select a writer whose profile resonated with my needs, it was truly good... Also the big plus to Essaymarket's service is on time delivery that mets all my deadlines, which helps me a lot with my part time work and my tight deadlines at my university
Date of experience : November 01, 2023
We are happy you have left feedback about our service. Your opinion is a priceless contribution that makes our service better.
My favorite website
I don't usually write reviews, but I will make an exception today. Essay Market is my favorite website, where I can always count on a wide range of academic experts. Besides, they provide fast and efficient service. The worker rem is very productive and responsible. So you should try it and make at least one order.
Date of experience : September 30, 2022
Thank you for being a great customer!
My good experience
I had a good experience and would tell others to use Essay Market. Excellent service and user-friendly website! The interaction with manager is positive and simple! Also, the writer is friendly and punctual. He did my essay in 2 days. Ans I didn't notice any bad things in the text. I am pretty pleased and would suggest this site for future projects!
Date of experience : October 18, 2022
Thank you for your kind review! We hope to continue being one of your favorite online services!
At Essay Market
At Essay Market, the customer support is very excellent. Any questions or concerns are always promptly addressed, and they are prepared to go above and above to satisfy clients. I value their readiness to comply with any particular demands or formatting instructions I may have made. The prices at Essay Market are very reasonable and competitive. They provide affordable prices without sacrificing the caliber of the work they produce. This has played a big role in my choice to keep utilizing their services.
Date of experience : July 17, 2023
Thank you for your kind review! We believe in 100% customer satisfaction and when we see feedback like this we know we are going in the right direction.
Excellent writing service
Essaymarket is slaying its writing papers. I mentioned that their writers could seal with any paper. For example, I ordered a sociology essay, and the writer did it perfectly. After that, I bought a history term paper which also was well written at the highest level.
Date of experience : October 21, 2022
Your comment makes our team do the best for you. Thank you, David Gibson, for using our service.
Essay Market is a good essay writing…
Essay Market is a good essay writing service, but it has room for improvement. I've used them several times, and I'm generally satisfied with their work. However, there have been a few times when I've been disappointed with the quality of the writing, and the prices can be a bit high. One of the things I like most about Essay Market is that they have a large pool of writers to choose from. This means that you can usually find a writer who has experience with your specific topic and writing style. They also offer a wide range of services, including essays, research papers, dissertations, and even creative writing. Another thing I like about Essay Market is that they have a good customer support team. They're always responsive to emails and inquiries, and they're willing to work with you to resolve any problems you may have.
Date of experience : September 25, 2023
Thank you for the feedback! We love to hear from happy customers like you and love to hear that your experience with us has been a positive one!
Essay Market is the best platform for…
Essay Market is the best platform for students and writers to connect and exchange quality academic essays. The site is very user-friendly and easy to navigate, making it convenient for both buyers and sellers. The wide range of topics available ensures that there is something for everyone, and the quality of the essays is consistently high. The site also provides a secure payment system, ensuring that buyers and sellers can trust the transactions. Overall, Essay Market is a reliable and efficient platform that provides great value for both students and writers. I highly recommend it!
Date of experience : July 27, 2023
Your recommendation is very important to us. Thank you for being an honest customer!
Good savior
Forget about long nights with a lot of homework! Essay Market provides fast service and has intelligent writers. I order here when I don't want to write an essay or review alone. Sometimes I am so lazy. So I have good experience ordering here. The writers are knowledgeable in their field and know how to correctly write a paper. Moreover, they always try to be in touch with the client. I very much appreciate this. Also, the support team has plenty of pleasant managers. They can give good advice about the writer. All in all, I never had bad impressions of them. That way, Essay Market is my excellent assistant and savior.
Date of experience : October 20, 2022
I'm thrilled to give Essay Market a…
I'm thrilled to give Essay Market a perfect score of 5 stars for their superb academic writing services. My interaction with the site has been fantastic from beginning to end. You can locate the ideal writer to meet your needs thanks to the astonishing diversity of knowledgeable writers who cover a range of topics. The website is simple to use, and I had no trouble getting in touch with the writer I had selected. The essay I was given was a model of meticulous research and careful structuring. My expectations weren't just satisfied; they were beyond. The writing was unique, properly referenced, and exactly what I needed. The dedication to deadlines at Essay Market is what really sets them apart. Early delivery of my essay gave me plenty of time to review it.
Date of experience : August 14, 2023
Thank you for your kind review & being a loyal customer!
Dissertation with Essaymarket
I ordered my dissertation with Essaymarket service, firstly I want to tell, that their opportunity to choose the writer or expert you want for your paper you need, it's something that made me choose them for help. Firstly I can say it was a very pleasure to know you chose your writer and you can be sure everything should be alright..So I chose 10 days for deadlines and they managed to strictly follow deadlines that was very well but then they delivered my papers I noticed it was some grammatical errors in there, so I asked them to do some editing and they did it pretty fast Summarizing the results I liked the structure and depth of research but the errors weren't so pleasure
Date of experience : October 27, 2023
We are pleased that you are pleased! See you again soon!
I want to say big thanks to theirs service! Throughout the process, Essaymarket maintains transparent communication channels between me and the writer. Any concerns or queries are addressed promptly, fostering trust and confidence in the service. Unlike other intermrdiary service, essaymarket takes a personalized approach to each order... They consider the specific requirements and instructions provided by the client, ensuring that the final work is tailored to their needs, meeting deadlines is crucial in academic writing, and essatmarket understands this well. They prioritize timely delivery of the completed work, allowing students to submit their assignments without the stress of late submissions.. Lastly, the quality of the work delivered through essaymarket is consistently impressive, from thorough research to impeccable writing, the papers I've received hav exceeded my expectations every time
Date of experience : March 04, 2024
Nice experience
I had specified the use of the APA style, and they executed it with so great attention to detail. Every in text citation and reference in the bibliography adhered perfectly to the style guide The paper was enriched with a plethora of recent and reputable academic references, making the content academically sound and at the cutting edge of current research. So I can say their professionalism and courtesy made the entire experience even more pleasant and stress free
Date of experience : November 07, 2023
My experience
I recently ordered an essay from essaymarket.net and I'm very pleased with the quality of the essay. The essay was well-researched, well-written, and had a clear structure. It felt like the writer had put a lot of effort into it. The customer service was also very helpful. They answered all my questions quickly and were very understanding. The website was also very user-friendly and easy to navigate. All in all, I'm very satisfied with the service I received and would definitely recommend essaymarket.com to anyone who is looking for a reliable essay writing service.
Date of experience : March 22, 2023
Matthew Lawrence, thank you for spending your time and providing us with detailed feedback. Opinions like yours make us better day after day.
Using Essay Market's services was a…
Using Essay Market's services was a pleasure. The website was simple to use and navigate. I could select a writer who was an expert in my field, and the purchase process was clear and uncomplicated. Excellent communication was had with the author. They responded quickly and kept me informed as my essay developed. I valued the opportunity to offer suggestions and pose queries as the writing process progressed.
Date of experience : July 13, 2023
Paying Essay Markets for Freelance Writers
How would you like to get paid for your thoughts or stories about your lived experiences? From personal essays to issue-based ones, freelance essay markets might be a good fit for you.
Below you'll find a collection of paying writers' markets that accept essay pitches or submissions from freelance writers.
Paying Essay Markets
AGNI accepts stories, essays, and poems that are previously-unpublished. There are no word limits "though space is at a premium and length sometimes affects decisions." They do not publish romance, horror, mystery, or science fiction but are open to fiction borrowing elements of them. They don't publish academic essays or purely journalistic pieces, and they pay $20 per printed page for accepted prose and $40 per page for accepted poetry, up to a maximum of $300. Submissions are considered for both print and online publication. Free submissions may be made via mail.
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American Educator
American Educator is a professional journal published by the American Federation of Teachers. It covers "research and ideas from early childhood through higher education," such as essays explaining the significance of a research project and its findings. International affairs and labor issues of interest to AFT members may also be accepted. Articles run 1000-5000 words.
Arkansas Soul
Arkansas Soul seeks to publish and amplify talented writers of color with content focused on BIPOC issues. General submissions, feature stories, personal essays, news stories, profiles, and interviews are all accepted.
Stories for Reimagine Arkansas run 500-2000 words and pay $150-300. Personal essays, first-person accounts, and op-eds run 750-2000 words and pay $100-250. Reported news stories run 500-1000 words and pay $150-250. Features run 1000-2000 words and pay $150-250. Profiles and interviews have a flexible word count and pay $150-250.
Atlanta Parent
Atlanta Parent is a locally-owned print and digital magazine for Atlanta area parents. They accept personal essays of 400-500 words, practical articles of 400-600 words, short articles of 300-600 words, and longer feature articles of 800-1200 words. Payments vary with the writer's experience.
Briarpatch Magazine
Briarpatch Magazine publishing work of political importance on topics such as grassroots activism, electoral politics, economic justice, labour, gender equity, indigenous struggles, and more. They accept submissions from new and experienced freelance writers alike. Pay is $150 for profiles, short essays, reviews, blog posts, and "parting shots" under 1500 words. Pay is $250 for feature stories and photo essays generally running 1500-2000 words. And pay is $350 for research-based articles and investigative reporting typically running 2000-2500 words.
Broad Street Review
" Broad Street Review is an online arts and culture journal serving the greater Philadelphia area." They publish reviews, features, previews, profiles, and essays around theater, music, visual art, exhibitions, dance, books, film, television, and design. This includes pitches for personal essays tied to life in the Philadelphia area and those related to grassroots social and political efforts, the creative economy, and public spaces. Reviews run 500-850 words, essays 750-1000 words, and previews run 300-500 words. Fees are $50 for previews, profiles, and reviews up to $100 for some longer profiles and features. Payment covers first publication rights (exclusive for 30 days), then non-exclusive rights to maintain pieces in the publication's archive.
Cineaste is a quarterly publication covering the art and politics of the cinema. They accept feature articles, interviews, film reviews, book reviews, and columns. Payments are $18 for "short take" reviews, $36 for book or DVD reviews (in print only), $45 for film reviews, short articles, columns, sidebar interviews, and essays, and $90 for feature articles and feature interviews.
DAME is a women-led, independent, reader-funded magazine. It accepts essays and reported features from freelance writers with a focus on journalism that is both accessible and intersectional. Pay is $350-750 for reported stories.
High Country News
High Country News is a nonprofit news magazine covering the Western U.S. They pay $.50 - 1.50 per word, with a kill fee of 25%. They accept in-depth news and analyses from 800-2100 words, features of 2800+ words, and 750-800 word essays paying a flat rate of $400.
HowlRound accepts submissions to its journal from "contributors who are deeply invested in and committed to the theatre field." They accept pieces on theatre commoning, ideas that challenge the status quo, lesser-known or marginalized aesthetics, equity, inclusivity, and accessibility for under-represented theatre communities and practices, and theatre practice and process. They pay honorariums of $200 per essay.
Longreads accepts submissions of essays and curated reading lists from freelance contributors. Essays and columns run 2000-6000 words. Personal essays should be pitched on-spec, and they pay $500 per essay. Researched and reported essays, critical essays, and columns may be pitched. They also pay $500 per essay. Curated reading lists pay $350.
Military Families
Military Families is a monthly magazine for members of the military and their families. It's published by AmeriForce Media. They accept essays, interview-style profiles, advice, news reports, listicles, and more. Pay ranges from $75-200 depending on length, experience, commitment required, and whether the piece is for the print or digital editions.
Notre Dame Magazine
The Notre Dame Magazine is a quarterly publication of the University of Notre Dame. It covers alumni activities, institutional events, people, trends, and cultural issues. They accept both features and departments as well as essays in their "CrossCurrents" section. Payment is not detailed in their writer's guidelines but is said to be "comparable to fees paid by some national publications."
Runner's World
Runner's World magazine accept freelance submissions, with the best chance of acceptance in departments -- What it takes to..., Rave Run, and Life & Times. Writers should send spec pieces for consideration (not queries). Stories cover inspirational stories, first-person essays about running-related experiences, and details about awesome runs (locations, what you see, how long the run is, etc.).
Sasee accepts contributions from freelance writers including essays, humor, satire, personal experiences, and features on topics of interest to women. Articles are 500 - 1000 words. This is a paying publication, but payments vary.
The Gay & Lesbian Review
The Gay & Lesbian Review publishes essays, reviews, interviews, and poems. Feature articles should fall in the 2000-4000 word range, and reviews should be 600-1200 words. Payment for feature articles is $200 and payment for book reviews is $100. They also accept interviews, artist profiles, art memos, and International Spectrum column submissions.
The Malahat Review
The Malahat Review accepts poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction submissions from writers at all levels of their careers. Poets should submit 3-5 poems up to 10 pages maximum. They accept flash fiction up to 750 words as well as other short fiction up to 8000 words. Creative nonfiction can run up to 5000 words and cover any subject matter including personal essays, memoirs, travel writing, historical accounts, and biographies. Payment is $70CAD per published page.
The Sun Magazine
The Sun publishes essays, fiction, and poetry. Payment for all submission types are $200+.
The Washingtonian
The Washingtonian is a general interest magazine for residents of the DC area. They're open to freelance submissions for profiles, personal essays, true-crime, and narrative journalism.
Whole Life Times
Whole Life Times magazine covers topics such as natural health, alternative healing, conscious business, green living, sustainable and local food, social responsibility, the environment, personal growth, and spirituality. They pay $75-150 per 800-1000 word feature. They also have departments, a City of Angels front-of-book section, and personal essays section which are open to freelance contributors.
More About These Markets
Like all market lists on the All Freelance Writing blog, the list above pulls from the site's overall directory of writers' markets .
This is done automatically, meaning whenever a new market is added to the database, one is removed, or a listing is updated, this post will simultaneously update to reflect those changes.
Because of this, be sure to bookmark this page and check it again later if you're interested in changes to these essay writing markets.
If you find a dead link or outdated market information in the summaries here (based on currently-linked writers' guidelines), then you can click "report link" below that market in order to notify me. This lets you send an auto-generated email that will prioritize that market for review, and it also helps keep market listings here up-to-date.
Submit Your Essay Markets
Do you run a publication that pays for essay submissions from freelance writers? If so, you can submit your market for free.
Free market submissions will add your publication to the writers' market database as well as relevant specialized market lists like this one.
Note: For your market to also appear in these lists, they must include the appropriate category or contain keywords related to niches or content types. For example, descriptions mentioning essays pull into this post via a custom search, not by categories. Otherwise they will appear only in the market database and not these blog lists.
Submit your market.
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Buying College Essays Is Now Easier Than Ever. But Buyer Beware
Tovia Smith
Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market for essays that students can buy and turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it. Angela Hsieh/NPR hide caption
Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market for essays that students can buy and turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.
As the recent college admissions scandal is shedding light on how parents are cheating and bribing their children's way into college, schools are also focusing on how some students may be cheating their way through college. Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market that makes it easier than ever for students to buy essays written by others to turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.
It's not hard to understand the temptation for students. The pressure is enormous, the stakes are high and, for some, writing at a college level is a huge leap.
"We didn't really have a format to follow, so I was kind of lost on what to do," says one college freshman, who struggled recently with an English assignment. One night, when she was feeling particularly overwhelmed, she tweeted her frustration.
"It was like, 'Someone, please help me write my essay!' " she recalls. She ended her tweet with a crying emoji. Within a few minutes, she had a half-dozen offers of help.
"I can write it for you," they tweeted back. "Send us the prompt!"
The student, who asked that her name not be used for fear of repercussions at school, chose one that asked for $10 per page, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
"For me, it was just that the work was piling up," she explains. "As soon as I finish some big assignment, I get assigned more things, more homework for math, more homework for English. Some papers have to be six or 10 pages long. ... And even though I do my best to manage, the deadlines come closer and closer, and it's just ... the pressure."
In the cat-and-mouse game of academic cheating, students these days know that if they plagiarize, they're likely to get caught by computer programs that automatically compare essays against a massive database of other writings. So now, buying an original essay can seem like a good workaround.
"Technically, I don't think it's cheating," the student says. "Because you're paying someone to write an essay, which they don't plagiarize, and they write everything on their own."
Her logic, of course, ignores the question of whether she's plagiarizing. When pressed, she begins to stammer.
"That's just a difficult question to answer," she says. "I don't know how to feel about that. It's kind of like a gray area. It's maybe on the edge, kind of?"
Besides she adds, she probably won't use all of it.
Other students justify essay buying as the only way to keep up. They figure that everyone is doing it one way or another — whether they're purchasing help online or getting it from family or friends.
"Oh yeah, collaboration at its finest," cracks Boston University freshman Grace Saathoff. While she says she would never do it herself, she's not really fazed by others doing it. She agrees with her friends that it has pretty much become socially acceptable.
"I have a friend who writes essays and sells them," says Danielle Delafuente, another Boston University freshman. "And my other friend buys them. He's just like, 'I can't handle it. I have five papers at once. I need her to do two of them, and I'll do the other three.' It's a time management thing."
The war on contract cheating
"It breaks my heart that this is where we're at," sighs Ashley Finley, senior adviser to the president for the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She says campuses are abuzz about how to curb the rise in what they call contract cheating. Obviously, students buying essays is not new, but Finley says that what used to be mostly limited to small-scale side hustles has mushroomed on the internet to become a global industry of so-called essay mills. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but research suggests that up to 16 percent of students have paid someone to do their work and that the number is rising.
"Definitely, this is really getting more and more serious," Finley says. "It's part of the brave new world for sure."
The essay mills market aggressively online, with slickly produced videos inviting students to "Get instant help with your assignment" and imploring them: "Don't lag behind," "Join the majority" and "Don't worry, be happy."
"They're very crafty," says Tricia Bertram Gallant, director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California in San Diego and a board member of the International Center for Academic Integrity.
The companies are equally brazen offline — leafleting on campuses, posting flyers in toilet stalls and flying banners over Florida beaches during spring break. Companies have also been known to bait students with emails that look like they're from official college help centers. And they pay social media influencers to sing the praises of their services, and they post testimonials from people they say are happy customers.
"I hired a service to write my paper and I got a 90 on it!" gloats one. "Save your time, and have extra time to party!" advises another.
"It's very much a seduction," says Bertram Gallant. "So you can maybe see why students could get drawn into the contract cheating world."
YouTube has been cracking down on essay mills; it says it has pulled thousands of videos that violate its policies against promoting dishonest behavior.
But new videos constantly pop up, and their hard sell flies in the face of their small-print warnings that their essays should be used only as a guide, not a final product.
Several essay mills declined or didn't respond to requests to be interviewed by NPR. But one answered questions by email and offered up one of its writers to explain her role in the company, called EduBirdie.
"Yes, just like the little birdie that's there to help you in your education," explains April Short, a former grade school teacher from Australia who's now based in Philadelphia. She has been writing for a year and a half for the company, which bills itself as a "professional essay writing service for students who can't even."
Some students just want some "foundational research" to get started or a little "polish" to finish up, Short says. But the idea that many others may be taking a paper written completely by her and turning it in as their own doesn't keep her up at night.
"These kids are so time poor," she says, and they're "missing out on opportunities of travel and internships because they're studying and writing papers." Relieving students of some of that burden, she figures, allows them to become more "well-rounded."
"I don't necessarily think that being able to create an essay is going to be a defining factor in a very long career, so it's not something that bothers me," says Short. Indeed, she thinks students who hire writers are demonstrating resourcefulness and creativity. "I actually applaud students that look for options to get the job done and get it done well," she says.
"This just shows you the extent of our ability to rationalize all kinds of bad things we do," sighs Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. The rise in contract cheating is especially worrisome, he says, because when it comes to dishonest behavior, more begets more. As he puts it, it's not just about "a few bad apples."
Felicity Huffman And 12 Other Parents To Plead Guilty In College Cheating Scandal
"Instead, what we have is a lot ... of blemished apples, and we take our cues for our behavior from the social world around us," he says. "We know officially what is right and what's wrong. But really what's driving our behavior is what we see others around us doing" or, Ariely adds, what we perceive them to be doing. So even the proliferation of advertising for essays mills can have a pernicious effect, he says, by fueling the perception that "everyone's doing it."
A few nations have recently proposed or passed laws outlawing essay mills, and more than a dozen U.S. states have laws on the books against them. But prosecuting essay mills, which are often based overseas in Pakistan, Kenya and Ukraine, for example, is complicated. And most educators are loath to criminalize students' behavior.
"Yes, they're serious mistakes. They're egregious mistakes," says Cath Ellis, an associate dean and integrity officer at the University of New South Wales, where students were among the hundreds alleged to have bought essays in a massive scandal in Australia in 2014.
"But we're educational institutions," she adds. "We've got to give students the opportunity to learn from these mistakes. That's our responsibility. And that's better in our hands than in the hands of the police and the courts."
Staying one step ahead
In the war on contract cheating, some schools see new technology as their best weapon and their best shot to stay one step ahead of unscrupulous students. The company that makes the Turnitin plagiarism detection software has just upped its game with a new program called Authorship Investigate.
The software first inspects a document's metadata, like when it was created, by whom it was created and how many times it was reopened and re-edited. Turnitin's vice president for product management, Bill Loller, says sometimes it's as simple as looking at the document's name. Essay mills typically name their documents something like "Order Number 123," and students have been known to actually submit it that way. "You would be amazed at how frequently that happens," says Loller.
Using cutting-edge linguistic forensics, the software also evaluates the level of writing and its style.
"Think of it as a writing fingerprint," Loller says. The software looks at hundreds of telltale characteristics of an essay, like whether the author double spaces after a period or writes with Oxford commas or semicolons. It all gets instantly compared against a student's other work, and, Loller says, suspicions can be confirmed — or alleviated — in minutes.
"At the end of the day, you get to a really good determination on whether the student wrote what they submitted or not," he says, "and you get it really quickly."
Coventry University in the U.K. has been testing out a beta version of the software, and Irene Glendinning, the school's academic manager for student experience, agrees that the software has the potential to give schools a leg up on cheating students. After the software is officially adopted, "we'll see a spike in the number of cases we find, and we'll have a very hard few years," she says. "But then the message will get through to students that we've got the tools now to find these things out." Then, Glendinning hopes, students might consider contract cheating to be as risky as plagiarizing.
In the meantime, schools are trying to spread the word that buying essays is risky in other ways as well.
Professor Ariely says that when he posed as a student and ordered papers from several companies, much of it was "gibberish" and about a third of it was actually plagiarized.
Even worse, when he complained to the company and demanded his money back, they resorted to blackmail. Still believing him to be a student, the company threatened to tell his school he was cheating. Others say companies have also attempted to shake down students for more money, threatening to rat them out if they didn't pay up.
The lesson, Ariely says, is "buyer beware."
But ultimately, experts say, many desperate students may not be deterred by the risks — whether from shady businesses or from new technology.
Bertram Gallant, of UC San Diego, says the right way to dissuade students from buying essays is to remind them why it's wrong.
"If we engage in a technological arms race with the students, we won't win," she says. "What are we going to do when Google glasses start to look like regular glasses and a student wears them into an exam? Are we going to tell them they can't wear their glasses because we're afraid they might be sending the exam out to someone else who is sending them back the answers?"
The solution, Bertram Gallant says, has to be about "creating a culture where integrity and ethics matter" and where education is valued more than grades. Only then will students believe that cheating on essays is only cheating themselves.
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