Essay writing service Many students are "pit" but dare not speak up.
Reporters investigate the gray industry chain of ghostwriting
● During the opening season or graduation season, the essay writing groups lurking in various campus groups, e-commerce platforms, and social platforms become active, and words such as "professional writing" and "master and doctoral team" are not uncommon.
Especially from March to June every year, under the dual pressure of graduation and job hunting, the volume and price of thesis writing business are always "rising".
● It is one of the "fraudulent situations" expressly stipulated by the relevant departments for college students to hire someone to write the thesis on their behalf.
For those who commit fraud, those who have already obtained their degrees can have their degrees revoked; those who are still studying can be expelled from the school; in-service personnel should not only receive disciplinary sanctions, but also notify their units.
● In order to control the chaos of essay writing, experts believe that, firstly, we must strictly control the export of papers, such as anonymous review and defense of papers, so as to achieve “wide entry and strict exit”; second, we must strengthen education from the root causes The teaching level of colleges and universities, starting from the undergraduate level, systematically cultivates students' research ability, so that students have basic thesis writing ability
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
□ Chen Lijia, an intern of this newspaper
A "paper writing" service that costs several thousand yuan, and finally received a "first paper in life" written by a freshman. When the other party wanted to refund the money, the other party "disappeared".
Every school season or graduation season, the essay writing groups lurking in various campus groups, e-commerce platforms, and social platforms become active, and words such as "professional writing" and "master and doctoral team" are not uncommon.
Especially from March to June every year, under the double pressure of graduation and job hunting, the volume and price of thesis writing business are always "rising all boats".
A reporter from the "Rule of Law Daily" recently contacted a number of college students who had been "pitted" by the essay writing service. They were defrauded of hundreds of yuan, or thousands of yuan.
"It's basically impossible to get the money back, and the other party also threatened to find the school and expose it online." A student who was deceived told reporters that many students were deceived, and the other party saw that the students in the school did not dare to speak out.
It is understood that the "Interim Provisions on the Handling of Violations in Scientific and Technological Activities", which will be implemented on September 1, 2020, clearly stipulates that plagiarism, plagiarism, misappropriation, tampering with other people's scientific and technological achievements, infringement of others' intellectual property rights, and engaging in the sale and purchase of academic papers, writing and investment on behalf of others are all violations.
A number of experts interviewed by reporters pointed out that it is one of the "fraudulent situations" expressly stipulated by relevant departments that college students find someone to write their papers on their behalf.
For those who cheat, those who have already obtained their degrees can have their degrees revoked; those who are still studying can be expelled from their school status; in-service personnel should not only receive disciplinary sanctions, but also notify their employers.
"It's illegal in itself, and the scammers took advantage of this," said Xi Peizhi, deputy secretary-general of the Juvenile Law Research Association of the Shanghai Law Society.
What kind of gray industrial chain is hidden behind the non-compliance?
The reporter recently conducted in-depth investigations from the "customers" on the demand side to the "writers" and "intermediaries" on the supply side.
Under pressure to find a ghostwriter
Reverse entry scam for shortcuts
During the investigation, the reporter found that although several major e-commerce platforms and forums have put an end to related searches such as "thesis writing", the hidden business of "thesis writing" still exists, and the means of "thesis writing" institutions are becoming more and more popular. hidden.
Students and businesses will still use words such as "writing guidance" and "article writing" to avoid risks.
At the same time, enter another similar keyword in the Internet search box, such as "thesis writing", etc., topics and groups such as "we help you write thesis" and "thesis guidance" will appear. Nearly half of the posts in it are about finding articles Write, recruit writers, etc.
Among the types of essays written by ghostwriters, the proportions of essays in general education courses and extension courses in colleges tend to be higher.
However, there are also some students who "take the risk" because of their limited research ability, and spend a lot of money asking writers to write their graduation thesis on their behalf.
Students think that they have found a shortcut to writing essays, but they are actually stepping into a scam.
Li Ran (pseudonym) graduated from a university in Zhejiang with an undergraduate degree last year. Recalling the experience of asking someone to write her graduation thesis when she was approaching graduation, she is still annoyed.
"Because I couldn't get started with my graduation thesis, and the time for handing in the thesis was getting closer and closer, I came up with the idea of asking someone to write it on my behalf. At first, I found someone to write it on the e-commerce platform, but the other party was slow in submitting the manuscript. The last manuscript submitted has a very high repetition rate. I immediately found another team, and the other team claimed to be a professional master and doctoral team. As a result, the logic of the submitted articles was chaotic, and the repetition rate remained high." Li Ran said that she had a total of Put in a few thousand yuan, and in the end can only admit it.
In fact, a few thousand yuan is just the price of writing an undergraduate thesis.
Recently, when the reporter approached the ghostwriting team as a client, he found that the cost of writing a master's and doctoral graduation thesis would be as high as tens of thousands of yuan.
The reporter also got in touch with 5 students from a university in Beijing who had asked for ghostwriting. They came from science and engineering, humanities and social sciences, and art. The ghostwriters came from campus groups, e-commerce platforms, and second-hand trading platforms.
Their experiences of being deceived have the following common problems:
The repetition rate is too high.
The above interviewed students all said that in the initial stage of contact, writers or intermediaries would reassure customers by replying that "after writing the article, check it again and then hand it over to the client".
However, most of the papers finally obtained are copied and pasted, and the duplication check report given by the writer is either detected and issued on an informal free duplication check website, or is obtained by directly altering the real data with false P pictures.
Sit on the ground.
After submitting the manuscript, the client found that the quality of the article was not up to standard and asked for rectification. The writer said that if he wanted to revise the article, he would have to pay again, otherwise it would not be modified. When the channel is opened, customers often need to pay an additional fee as the "viewing fee" of the article.
False "packaging".
"University professor" and "professional master and doctoral team" are the "titles" commonly used by writers and intermediary teams, but the quality of the final article is quite different from what the other side advertises.
Lin Lang (pseudonym) is a sophomore student at a university in Beijing. Because his usual coursework is too heavy, in order to complete the course paper, he finds someone to write it on the Internet. As a result, the final paper is inaccurate and the layout is messy.
Later, he learned that the other party was a freshman who had just entered the freshman year, and the article he wrote for him was actually the other party's first college paper.
Threaten buyers.
After being deceived, the 5 students interviewed all went to question the writer or the agent’s customer service, but they all broke up in the end. The other party threatened to upload the article to the Internet, tell the school teacher, etc.
Finally, students who are looking for ghostwriting often choose to secretly suffer the loss.
The reporter asked the five students if they had thought about safeguarding their "rights", and they unanimously replied that they "don't dare" because looking for ghostwriting itself is a wrong choice, and the consequences will be more serious once exposed.
The number of writers is huge
Just for speed, no matter the professional
In the entire industry chain of essay writing, there is a huge base of writers, and this group produces written manuscripts according to the needs of customers to earn fees.
"The first contact with ghostwriting was because I wanted to earn some pocket money and living expenses. The entry threshold for this industry is not high, and it is a relatively simple sideline." Xiaojing, a writer who has been in the industry for 3 years, told reporters that because of the low threshold, she should write Everyone has a hand.
The reporter's investigation found that the work mode of writers mainly includes two types: the first type is the back-to-back tree type.
Behind this type of writers is an intermediary team. In the industry chain of essay writing, the intermediary itself cannot directly provide writing services for clients, but finds and arranges writers for clients to write for them. They not only have a large number of client resources, but also Also manages a large number of writers.
The reporter entered a writer group named "Group 5" after adding the contact information of the other party through the writer recruitment post published by Feishu Technology (Longyan) Co., Ltd. on the social platform.
In the early days of joining the group, the other party simply asked the reporter's education and major, and asked the reporter to provide his phone number and corresponding works.
After confirming the reporter's basic situation, the other party sent the reporter a detailed "Cooperation Rules for Part-time Writers", saying that "it is forbidden to accept private orders and privately add customers' WeChat", "reply customer messages online at all times", and "deliver papers strictly according to the agreed time." "Maintaining favorable ratings", etc.
According to the team's regulations, writers with higher praise can get more stable and high-quality customers, and enjoy the priority to dispatch orders to obtain higher settlement rewards.
The reporter's investigation found that "it is forbidden to contact customers privately", which is an iron law that almost all writers who require cooperation by intermediaries must abide by.
This type of model also includes the cooperation between the intermediary and the writer, which is often used by the intermediary who has been engaged in writing papers for a long time.
Due to the stricter requirements for paper review in recent years, for the sake of safety, they no longer establish a group of writers, but choose to send orders individually or in a circle of friends, and writers who are willing to accept orders will communicate with the intermediary individually.
The reporter contacted a "professional" intermediary teacher Mi who was in charge of the essay writing.
Mr. Mi asked after a brief understanding of the reporter's educational level: "Can I write a paper on a non-related subject?" According to him, the point is not how professional the paper is written, and whether it is relevant or not, but rather fast speed. Submit on time.
The second type is the one-man type.
Some writers decide to "go it alone" after working with intermediaries for a period of time, mostly because they hope to get higher income.
Xiaojing was in her third year when she first came into contact with essay writing, and she adopted the model of cooperation with an intermediary. Later, she added the client's contact information privately, only to find that the intermediary earned more than 50% of the price difference between the client and the writer. , "And the number of writers in the group continues to increase, the average price of each order has been falling, and the writers earn less and less, and the intermediary, as a middleman, has more than one writer group in hand, and the profits are huge."
Intermediary team has a clear division of labor
Earn the difference
These intermediary teams, who manage many writers, are often scattered on e-commerce platforms, social platforms and major campus groups on a large scale.
Usually, they will use some professional names to show their professionalism, such as "XX Education", "XX Technology Co., Ltd.", "XX Studio" and so on.
The reporter found in the writers group that the intermediary team for writing papers is composed of promotion staff, personnel specialists, dispatchers and reception staff.
The promotion staff promotes the ghostwriting team to the student groups in various colleges and universities and finds customers; the personnel specialist manages the writers; the dispatcher distributes the ghostwriting tasks in the writer group; and the reception staff is responsible for a series of maintenance customer relations and praise rate. Work.
For different groups, the team members will use different social accounts, and they are very cautious about the source of the identity of the recruiting writer.
The reporter's investigation found that some intermediaries have been exposed by a large number of complaints for deceiving students and writers, but they are still active in various e-commerce platforms and campus groups after the "makeover", and "business" is booming.
In addition, there are some intermediaries contracted to write and publish an entire "production line" of papers in academic journals, and the price of this model is often higher.
According to a customer service staff of 360.com, the company charges 7,500 yuan for writing and publishing an article, including 1,500 yuan for writing a 4,000-5,000-character paper, and 6,000 yuan for publishing.
"Editor Lin", who once worked in a paper writing agency, told reporters: "Nowadays, there are too few journals, especially core journals, and there are too many college staff who need to publish papers. Generally, it is not easy for authors to submit to magazines by themselves. I don't want to spend energy to write, so most of them will find an intermediary. For example, if you want to publish a paper in a journal and find an intermediary, the intermediary will charge the author a certain fee, plus you can earn extra money when you find a writer to write on your behalf. , which is far more than double the profit.”
Establish a scientific evaluation system
Take multiple measures to deal with chaos
For the chaos of ghostwriting papers, relevant state departments have been taking action.
According to the Measures for Handling Dissertation Falsification (hereinafter referred to as the “Measures”), which was implemented by the Ministry of Education in 2013, if a degree applicant’s dissertation is purchased or written by others, his or her degree application qualification can be cancelled, and 3 During the year, each degree-granting institution shall not accept its degree application.
If you are a student, your school can expel them.
The "Measures" also stipulate that if you write a dissertation for others or sell a dissertation, if it belongs to a student, you can be expelled from your student status; if it belongs to a school teacher or other staff, you can be expelled or terminated from the employment contract.
The "Interim Provisions on the Handling of Violations in Scientific and Technological Activities", which came into effect on September 1, 2020, clarified that plagiarism, plagiarism, misappropriation, tampering with other people's scientific and technological achievements, infringement of others' intellectual property rights, and engaging in the sale of academic papers, writing and investment, etc. Irregularities.
This has also become the main reason why many students dare not call the police after being deceived and suffer the consequences.
Lv Yanbin, director of the Legal Research Office of the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told reporters that the main reason for the repeated bans on paper ghostwriting is the problem of supply and demand.
On the demand side, the school lacks the systematic cultivation of students' basic research ability, and the students themselves lack a series of basic academic abilities required in the process of thesis writing. Therefore, their thesis level has not been systematically improved, resulting in many students unable to independently Complete a qualifying dissertation.
In addition, Lv Yanbin also pointed out that under the current journal-oriented academic evaluation environment, some colleges and universities require students and young teachers to publish papers in core journals as graduation or professional title requirements. Expanded the contradiction between supply and demand.
In order to publish articles more quickly to meet the requirements of colleges and universities, some students and scholars will choose to hire someone to help write them.
On the supply side, Xi Peizhi believes that there are a large number of ghostwriting teams in the market that frequently send advertisements to colleges and universities, which also provides a hotbed for this kind of paper ghostwriting chaos.
How to deal with this chaos?
Lv Yanbin believes that the first is to strictly control the export of papers, such as anonymous review and defense of papers, so as to achieve "wide entry and strict exit"; second, in terms of education, we must strengthen the teaching level of colleges and universities from the root, starting from the undergraduate level, It systematically cultivates students' research ability and equips students with basic thesis writing ability.
"I hope our country can introduce an administrative regulation. Schools should also strengthen their responsibilities and draw a red line for this kind of academic misconduct. At the same time, they should try their best to improve the indicators of 'thesis-only theory' and 'project-only theory' in colleges and universities, so that teachers can We can have more thoughts and energy to cultivate students' comprehensive quality." Xi Peizhi said.