EXCLUSIVE
HUNDREDS OF Manchester students have been buying specially-drafted essays online which are ready to hand in, Student Direct can exclusively reveal.
Students have been shelling out hundreds of pounds to get academics to write their coursework for them, in The University of Manchester's own 'cash for honours' scandal.
UKEssays.com said last week that they had sold 178 essays to students at the University in 2007. Dozens more websites offer exactly the same service.
Completed undergraduate, postgraduate and PhD essays of every length can be ordered from the websites.
The final essay is only "research" and must not be handed in. Yet in practice the authors have no means of checking that the work is not handed in as the students' own.
OxbridgeEssays.com, another leading essay retailer, last week refused to say how many University of Manchester students had bought completed coursework from them.
As the essays are individually written by academics, plagiarism detection software is unable to reveal who is cheating.
A UKEssays.com essay ordered by Student Direct was given a mark of 75 percent by a Manchester academic last week.
'Researchers' for the website draft essays that are of guaranteed Upper Second Class quality or, for twice the price, will write an essay that is worth of a First Class mark.
The 1,500 word fictional Politics essay we set the researcher landed in the Student Direct inbox just five days after we submitted our request.
Our independent marker, who has lectured at several UK universities, said the essay was very impressive – but he would be suspicious if an undergraduate handed it in.
"This is a good essay and worth a high First – 75 percent," he said.
"Given the limited range of references and the sometimes highly sophisticated prose, I would be suspicious when marking this essay.
"I wouldn't be surprised if the author of this essay is a PhD student or an academic - the prose suggests this.
"While anonymity is all well and good, and on balance is certainly better than the old system, it would be useful in this instance if academics were allowed, under the circumstances of suspicion, to see who wrote the essay and make a more informed judgment."
The University of Manchester uses the JISC Plagiarism Service 'Turnitin UK' to carry out electronic comparison of students' work against electronic sources, including other students' work.
Many of the websites selling essays use the software themselves to make sure the completed piece they send to students is plagiarism free.
In 2005-06, the latest year that figures were available for, a total of 91 students were disciplined for plagiarism by the University.
No student has ever been disciplined for handing in an essay they bought online, a source who is involved in plaigarism cases said.
But a spokesman for the University said that people do get caught for plaigarism.
"Plaigarism and any form of academic malpractice is taken very seriously and it has resulted in people being thrown out of the University," he said.
"Our software has caught students. We simply advise students not to buy essays from these websites."
Jeff Meddemmen, Academic Affairs Officer, said that it is a "disgrace" that students are prepared to buy their degrees in this way.
"The vast majority of people can do their coursework to a reasonable level without plaigarising," he said.
"It's deeply unfair that those with deeper pockets can buy themselves better grades.
"There's no suggestion that anyone at the University has ever been caught for using these websites and I've sat in on dozens of cases."
Jed Hallam, from UKEssays.com, said that they have no way of knowing if students hand in the work as their own.
"We are to students what Google is to Internet users," he said.
"We offer students the opportunity to check their work and to be able to see what it takes to reach a high grade.
"We hope that students do not submit the essays they buy from us as original work, but really there is no way to check."
The website, which has been in operation for five years, has an average of 6,500 customers each year. Last year their turnover was £1.8 million – but this year it is expected to hit £2.5 million.
A 2,500 word Upper Second Class essay costs £300, or a First Class piece can be bought for £600.
A 10,000 word dissertation is £1,200 for the basic 2:1 package, £2,400 for a thesis that will be awarded in excess of 70 percent.
This is a bogus story. Neither essay company asks where the student goes to uni in their online order form and has no way of knowing - the only clue they have is in the payment details when the essay buyer gives the address that the credit card is registered at which may be a home address or may be a term time address. Given that Greater Manchester has several universities, these companies are lying if they claim to know how many of their cheating buyers actually go to the Uni of Manchester.
Mr Arthur Lewis,
I work for UKEssays.com, and I would like to confirm that both this story and the statistics are correct. The statistics given in the article have been derived from our annual customer satisfaction survey, and while not every customer replied, many did (which in its self indicates that the figures are most probably much higher than those quoted). The survey was kept completely anonymous to ensure that we retain our customer confidentiality agreement, however a section of the survey was concerned with which institute the customer studied at (if any).
So in response, no we do not ask our customers which institute they study at when they purchase an essay, but we do when we conduct customer research, and the questionnaire was voluntary so we have in no way compromised our customers details.
Regards,
Jed Hallam
Thanks, UKEssays.com, for completely undermining the education system.