I've heard about this, and I know it goes on...but...maybe I've been too naive.

I'm desperate to earn some money and I know I can proofread and edit really well as I've been doing it for many years. So I decided to register with a site that said it dealt with academic proof-reading.

NO!!! There was no proof-reading. Instead, students were asking writers to do their Masters and PhDs for them (the admin says these are just templates - ha ha!). These were all laid out on the site, like on ebay. Some guy was offering just under £3k for an entire 100,000 word PhD. Kids were offering £500 for a Masters and even dictating what grade they wanted! Undergrads were offering between £15 and £30 for a 2,500 word essay. There was NO original writing contribution at all. Just the question. The writer had to provide the entire assignment.

If people can pay £3k for a PhD why are we putting ourselves through all this angst and soul-searching and last-minute panic and viva vivisections? What's this all about?

I'm truly sickened. As I said, I'd heard about it, and I've seen some suspect dissertations. But this was so in-your-face that I'm still reeling.:-s Isn't there a section in every PhD on ethics???

Blimey - I'm shocked they ony charge 3k for a PhD! I'd want at least 60k to write another one, and that's without overheads... My fees are 3 tiimes that!

Exactly! How cheap do they think these things come? Blood, sweat, tears, battles, and in my case £100,000 in lost earnings and fees.

If a PhD thesis has been written by someone else that should be picked up at the viva. A big part of the viva is to establish that the student wrote the thesis, and this is done through astute questioning by the examiners.

Far more common are the sort of rip-off "universities" that will provide PhDs for a fee. These carry no weight academically, and would not be regarded as good qualifications for academic job purposes.

I wouldn't worry about this unduly. Honestly good examiners should detect this.

I too am shocked. I mean, £500 for a Masters, but £3k for a PhD?! I could shit out a Masters in a weekend, but a PhD has to be vaguely coherent over 100,000 words - that takes a lot of effort! I think before anyone starts working on these jobs (what was the website again?) we band together and force higher rates for such work.

Shocking exploitation, just shocking.

I have heard of a couple of sites where, before the viva, you can contact whoever wrote your thesis and (for an additional fee of course), go through with that person why 'you' chose the stats test you did, why you chose that particular methodological approach etc etc.

I did write my own thesis and am worried about justifying such things :$

This is just as bad as 'buying' your cert. off the Internet. The only difference is with this is they are effectively paying someone for a cert. from a bona fide University.

Last year I marked a near perfect first year undergraduate essay. It stood out a mile in quality from the other assigments. I checked if it was plagiarised, then had to award a high first. I do wonder if the student actually wrote it though!

Well I actually knew about it first hand cause a guy I knew did that. It is just pathetic. But all the good marks they got from these paid projects will come and bite them if they dare work in academia or anywhere really cause they will have no clue what they are talking about.

Well if that shocked you then I don't know whether or not you should read this:
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/

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Great read. I've posted it around to educate people.

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Excellent, fascinating article, but the author does seem quite bitter about University Lecturers... This is not due to us, personally - we work in a system. I get frustrated about not being able to educate properly due to time constraints and formats that I think aren't effective. Plus a lot of the students he was talking about here have serious language problems and are not ready to take a degree. Plus some of the phrasing he was using as examples of his work would defo be chucked out by my sup. Not at undergrad level though.

Meant to say! I identified with a lot of what he said in terms of what students expect, much of the time I seem to be expected to do the thing he does, only without actually writing their work: constructing arguments, structuring, pointing students towards reseacrh material. Especially with the ones from a particular course I teach on, most of whom shouldn't be at uni - they're not ready or are just not that way inclined or interested.

I marked an undergrad essay a few years ago with 8 different fonts in it! She didn't do well! She then went on to totally slate me in the tutorial feedback :-s

And the funny thing is most of those sites get advertised on the advertisement column of this site, on the right hand side. I am guessing those columns get their advertising from recent google searches (i.e I searched recently flats to rent, furniture to buy, and also references to help me with my thesis corrections with typical keywords; and in random order suggestions for these products appear inside that column). But surely there should be some way for the moderators to control these ads.

I had done this job myself, I am not exactly proud, but I paid the bills. I used to charge far more around 1000 pounds for a coursework and more than 3000 pounds for a master's dissertation. I was getting more money than any " normal" job would pay and I was never out of work. Honestly, I could ask any amount of money because these students were desperate. From my experience they were not lazy, these students were incompetent. The whole situation is sad, and is really shocking that it extends to PhD level. At the end of the day, you don't need a PhD written from someone else.