I dont think PPH allow this type of work in theory, but in practice you are right it makes it way on the boards. The only thing you can do is click the Report this Job button and hope PPH take it down before they find a freelancer stupid enough to do it.
Sadly, there are plenty who offer to do the work on PPH.
I'm with you Robert.
It is a huge problem all over. There is no shortage in the demand and no shortage in the supply. I am not a writer by trade, but I understand your feelings about it. It just stinks for the honest person Oddly, I was just reading an article on this the other day. Sorry to say, it probably won't make you feel any better, but here it is.
November 12, 2010
The Shadow Scholar
The man who writes your students' papers tells his story
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/
Anyone who has worked hard for their qualifications will get hot under the collar about this kind of cheating. But while it's easy to point the finger at the perpetrators, it's also worth reflecting on the context in which this is happening.
Our educational system has become increasingly focussed on achieving standards, passing exams, grades, grades, grades. Learn facts and regurgitate them to order. Do we teach our children how to think for themselves? Do we encourage them to question prevailing beliefs, values, standards? Do we value originality? Do we teach children how to become unique human beings?
Of course not. The system is designed to turn out compliant sheep.
If you want to argue with that, look at mainstream reaction to the Occupy movement. Compare and contrast what happened to the young UK rioters over the summer with expenses-scandal MPs. (See my blog post http://www.lifemusings.co.uk/?p=424)
If any tutor cannot notice it when a poor student submits a decent (ghost-written) essay or thesis then the tutor is utterly incompetent. If the tutor says they don't have the time to do such checks, then the educational organisation they work for is simply a money-making scam machine.
The last Labour government pretty much decided that even the most non-academic youngsters needed to have a degree - even if it was only in Posh'n'Becks Studies. We've made qualifications the be-all and end-all. Intelligence, experience, wit: such things count for nothing if you don't have a piece of paper.
This is simply a case of reaping what you sow.
IMHO!
Agreed. To all of it.
There was an interesting article in the Atlantic about the Finnish education system. While it was comparing it to the US education system, it might have some parallels in the UK. It is not hard to see why so many people not only cannot form a sentence, but also feel no guilt when plagiarizing. I am sure the Finnish system is not perfect, but the seem to have a slightly better grip on early education.
http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/12/what-americans-keep-ignoring-about-finlands-school-success/250564/
Well the one good thing is that I truly think the whole economy is changing, and I'm glad to say that from my experience academic qualifications are being held in less high esteem.
I trained to be an actor for goodness sake. I have no formal qulaifications in anything I get paid to do nowadays.
To be honest I don't think anything I could have obtained on paper would have made me better at my various jobs anyway. I am in complete control of my own, ongoing education :)
Thanks for the link, Joseph - that's a fascinating article. Best news I've heard all year ;-)
Both my parents were teachers so I've heard a great deal about the problems in the UK education system. But amazing things are possible: one of the things my dad ended up doing was taking the 'trouble-making bottom-stream failures' for RE. Now that sounds like a recipe for disaster. But he mixed comparative religion, philosophy, quantum physics, cosmology and metaphysics. And made it practical too - like doing a scale model of the solar system on the school playing field using footballs, tennis balls, etc. They loved it. Nobody had ever given them material to spark their imaginations and actively encouraged them to think and speculate. My dad said that some of these 'no-hopers' had brilliant insights and ideas. Just shows what is possible with even the apparently least-promising children.
I do a lot of academic research copy-editing and proofing. It's easy to tell when the client is trying to cheat, so those are best avoided! Usually the fully-written piece is provided to you so that you can tell it's not just a cheating exercise, although the finer points of plagiarism have never been pointed out to them. Usually it's a teaching exercise.
One thing I've noticed, quite sadly, is that the quality of academic supervision on MAs and PhDs now seems to be seriously lacking. No one can write an academic dissertation without some mentoring, particularly in the Methodology section. I've seen MAs and PhDs that should never have arrived at that stage of total confusion and incoherence, but should have been sorted out by the Prof. I teach MA students, and know how much help some of them need.
But the academic system today works like a sausage machine. It's not only the students who may appear to be letting the system down. In 9 out of 10 situations, it's the system that's let the student down. Some students actually shouldn't be doing a research degree. But the fees generated by overseas students are keeping the universities funded.
I agree with Sofia. The education system is an industry in itself. Whilst I wouldn't condone cheating as it's a question of personal integrity, I've worked with many people without qualifications who are equally capable of doing the job. Most jobs require a great deal of environmental knowledge (i'm not talking about recycling!), good relationship building, doing what you are told, behaving in a certain way and following procedures. Educational qualifications are mostly just part of the game. As are CVs in my opinion. I studied software engineering at post-graduate level and it was utterly irrelevant and useless when I actually started working within the industry. People who cheat with educational qualifications will either do very well because they know what they want and know how to take a shortcut or never get anywhere because they are just too lazy. Unfortunately, idealism has little place in our world.
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