Monday, April 28, 2014

I question questionable writing practices


A lot of us who write, including myself, would like to earn extra money writing for others in legitimate activities such as editing, proofreading, writing projects and similar things. Just for grins, I took a look on Craig's List to find out what writing services others were offering. What I saw turned my stomach.

In addition to the legitimate activities, I also saw some very questionable services offered such as:

·         "do online coursework (perfect for online college students who also have to work and do not have time for their studies)."

·          "Our expert and experienced writers will provide you with custom-made research papers and case studies. The content is creative and original and can pass all plagiarism tests easily."

·         "Now you can enjoy all the parties and mingle with your friends and we will write all your papers."

These are only examples. The questionable ads exceeded the more legitimate-sounding ones by a ratio of several times to one.

I'd like to think the writing field is composed of well-educated people who follow a strict ethical code. Everyone knows that is not always true. Personally, I don't see how some of these professional "writers" manage to sleep at night.

5 comments:

  1. Wow. That is interesting. I can think of how this could turn into a funny story. maybe a professor would post an ad like that, purposely trying to catch his students in the act of conspiring to cheat. :-)
    Deb@ http://debioneille.blogspot.com

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  2. A lot of professors use plagiarism software to catch cheaters.

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  3. I hope so. It's disheartening to know this kind of stuff goes on, even though I'm certain it does.

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  4. so much cheating goes on it's not even funny and i must admit, i don't consider people who engage in such activities professionals.

    my youngest is learning how to do research and write a research paper in history, english class won't be teaching this (i found this quite interesting). history teacher will be very strict with plagiarism. my pour daughter has not developed the skill of paraphrasing, so both me and one of my college girls had to step in and try to help her.
    with this experience in mind, no wonder so many are trying to sell these kinds of shady services.

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