The WMF Archives: Freelance Ethics: Homework for Cash

Monday, October 19, 2009

Freelance Ethics: Homework for Cash

1:33 PM

By Angela Atkinson

How far will you go to make a buck? Are there ethical boundaries you won't cross? Would you do a kid's homework?

Websites like Academia-Research.com advertise themselves as "a freelance writing service company that is dedicated to professional research and writing. We support customers in academia who require timely, high quality, customer-specific essays and other written documents."

Sometimes hungry freelancers may not always realize what they're getting themselves into, but here's the bottom line.

Those "customers in academia" are usually high school and college students who don't want to write their own papers. So, while the company insists that all of their "papers are produced for research purposes only; they are not to be submitted as your own work under any conditions," we all know what's really going on.

"The idea behind their website is to get other people to write papers for college students (for pay) although they do not offer contracts, writers can be 'fined' for making mistakes and this 'company' can refuse payment if they feel like it," says one former anonymous Academia-Research writer. "The very act of hiring others to write your papers for you is unethical and in most colleges, grounds for expulsion."

And, though you can make a whopping "$6 to 20" per page, is it really worth it? What if it were your son or daughter buying their homework? Would that change your opinion?

If that's not enough, many of these companies want more work than they're willing to pay for. They promise writers flexibility and unlimited earning potential. But, says Writer Beware's Victoria Strauss, "The flip side of this is that they typically allow purchasers to demand almost unlimited editing and revision."

So what does this mean for you?

"Anything you write may come back to you multiple times for changes and revision (and remember, your customer will be a student too lazy to write his or her own research paper, who very likely knows way less than you do about the subject of the essay)," Strauss says. "This is time for which you get no extra money, because you're usually being paid on a per-page or flat fee basis. Hour by hour, what looks like attractive pay can work out to a pittance."

Okay, so let's get this straight. Working for an essay mill gets you, at best, a little extra pocket cash (although there are rumors of non-payment--another reason to run the other way.) You essentially do someone's homework (grounds for being expelled) and then could be subjected to free rewrites out the ying yang. Plus, you get to carry around that little ache in your belly that might come with aiding and abetting a cheater.

Still not sure how you feel? Then you should know that even Google has a problem with it.

Google banned essay writing company advertisements back in 2007 when universities began to complain that these companies were affecting the integrity of the degrees earned by students who used the "service."

One last thing. In addition to the ethics and non-payment issues, there's the fact that you won't get credit for your work. You can't put it on your resume and you can't submit it as "writing samples" for future gigs. You won't get a byline. And, for all intents and purposes, while you're being meagerly compensated for the work, most industry folks won't consider you a professional if this is the only type of freelancing you do.

Let's discuss. Would you work for an essay mill? Have you worked for one? What are your thoughts on this subject?

Comment here or join the Writing Mommies & Friends group (open to ALL freelance writers) for a more in-depth discussion!

Labels: Angela Atkinson, essays, ethics, non-fiction, scams, writing scams

8 comments:

Charlie said...: There was a character in '50s novels who made his living doing similar work for graduate students. He had been injured in the Korean War, couldn't sleep, and had to fill his itme somehow, and supplement his disability. It was a wonderful series, with the guy getting into all sorts of shenanigans around the world--Evan Tanner, for anyone else old enough to recall it. I think the author was Lawrence Block, but under a pen name.

But I thought then, and I think now, that by providing such assistance at any level of schooling, you're actually depriving the customer of his education, and enabling the customer's ethical deterioration. Thus, it's about as unethical as it gets for a writer, IMO.; October 20, 2009 4:31 AM
Angela Atkinson said...: Charlie, I couldn't agree more with your feelings on the topic.; October 20, 2009 7:18 AM
Anonymous said...: Actually I'm not anonymous, I'm John Barnes, but didn't want to feed the spiders. Spiders looking to harvest email addresses are welcome to harvest topsecretweaponsresearch@pentagon.gov, call.thepolice.thisisascam@fbi.gov, and pleasecometomyhouseandconvertme@jesusforeverybody.net.

There's a large network of professors who occasionally enjoy writing fake term papers, which are then posted on various sites for free. The game is generally that the paper looks okay for the first page or two and then contains something that will get the student nuked. Those of us who play that game particularly relish getting such a paper turned in in a colleague's class; that counts major coup. (The ultimate coup is of course to discover that some extremely out of it colleague actually graded it; the grade is always the same, of course).

Look around and you can find the folks who play that particular hobby; I'd hate to spoil the fun by outing any of the associated sites, when the best part of it is watching the little weasel try to explain how he happened to turn in a paper on "Eugene Dada, Founder of Dadaism", "Aristotle's Removal of Analysis from His Posterior," or "Current Trends and Future Prospects in Linoleum Mining." Or -- another fun one -- how he handed in mashup of several wikipedia articles that contained a crude offer to the professor on page 5. Probably doesn't stop them but it weeds out the laziest and dumbest cheaters.; October 20, 2009 11:03 AM
Chelle Sandell said...: I went back to college late in life and some of the kids were talking about websites like that. I tried to warn them about professors who were aware of them but some of them laughed it off. Hopefully my kids will take the warning seriously.; October 20, 2009 11:46 AM
Angela Atkinson said...: John, thanks for bringing another perspective into the discussion! I hadn't even considered that idea. I didn't even realize professors did that sort of thing. I have to admit, I love it. :); October 20, 2009 3:09 PM
Angela Atkinson said...: Chelle, I'm with you there. I'm going to share John's story with my kids. Hopefully it will deter them from ever considering such a thing.; October 20, 2009 3:14 PM
arindomborah/issues said...: As far as ethics are concerned, the subject is dicey. Surely, i do ot want to help anyone cheat but maybe we need to ask the question that why are they cheating?

Friends, times have changed and with so much information on the net, I feel that people who want to submit their term papers through freelancers may not all be cheats! Maybe he thinks that what's the point of starting from the bottom stairs-when humanity has already reached the 100th floor.
What will be more valuable? Freeing people's minds of known truths and facts so that they can develop ideas more at a higher level? or being a partner in stopping or slowing down an individual from achieving what he could have done.
I guess as some one said " I beg to disagree with you but I will fight to my death to protect your right to have that opinion"-..that's not it but that's what I mean; October 21, 2009 7:41 AM
Anonymous said...: As a teacher who insists that students learn to think and do their work for themselves, this is precisely why I did not take on any work offered by the website.

cheerz,
Alaka; October 26, 2009 1:06 AM

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Freelance Ethics: Homework for Cash

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