Based on Li Chen’s own observations, the British higher education system differs from the Chinese one in a good deal of aspects, one of which is the means of assessment of students’ academic achievement. While most college students in China have been “filtered” through a systematic testing combination of placement, progress, and achievement tests, usually in the form of formal examinations; the majority of the British college students are only concerned about essays, research papers and dissertations, through which they demonstrate to their professors their knowledge and understanding of the breadth and depth of their subject area, especially their ability to critically evaluate the assignment questions.
Therefore, for a regular Chinese student who had never been required to research, organise and present his or her ideas on a specific topic in the form of an essay, he or she might well expect a certain level of anxiety, especially when the medium of presentation is restricted to a foreign language. So a concept and service — custom writing — comes under many international students’ radars. Students who are unfamiliar or unwilling to do research on their own might be tempted to buy research paper or buy essay from certain organisation or website who claims to offer hassle-free (plagiarism-free), custom-written essays or research papers. Those custom writing service providers often recruit a strong team of professional writers in a myriad of disciplines, classify their custom writing services according to level (high school, college, graduate, doctorate etc.), length (number of words), and urgency (time left till meeting the deadline), and boast money back guarantee, live chat service and/or free plagiarism check.
Li Chen, for one, is not completely against such service, because he always has a strong interest in discerning the nuances between a good piece of writing and a not so good one. If the custom writing service is used intelligently, one can easily get himself a research assistant (or a second or third voice on the same topic) for a reasonable price. Such service also opens a window of opportunity for competent writers to generate additional money stream to support his or her own research.
Nevertheless, Li Chen has also been alerted by a few occasions when a student’s essay has been detected by anti-plagiarism softwares, such as TURNITIN.com, as plagiarism or high resemblance with other submitted essays, which may result in failing the student’s course. Some of them confessed that they had used a custom writing service, but such service was definitely cheating, offering only pre-written, poor quality essays as new ones, which had eventually resulted in the tragic loss of the student’s money, degree and honour.
Hence, as with most other services, whether custom writing can be a good or bad thing is largely determined by the user. Life is a journey with you in the driving seat, custom writing is yet another attraction alongside the road, fall for it, ignore it, it’s your call.
April 6th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Is Custom Writing Service legal?
April 10th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Yes, it is