Students who lack the time or skill but with plenty of bucks to burn are contributing to healthy. profits in a booming sector of the economy - essay writing services.

At a cost of about $15 per page, a Toronto based com- pany, ‘Custom Essay Services’, will furnish students any- where in the continent with original essays tailored to individual writing styles and course requirements. Prices vary slightly depending on the client’s level of study.

According to company man- ager Derrick Sim, the essays take a day or two to write, depending on the length and sophistication required, and bring in A minus or B plus grades on average.

The service, started at Ryer- son Polytechnical Institute by Ray- Kennedy, is now in it’s 13th year and is staffed with people Sim describes as “‘intel- lectual bohemians who work freelance.” Sim says a number of his employees are ex- professors, “some of them with eight degrees.”

The service also employs a number of foreign students who work under the table and are paid $5 per page.

Complete confidentiality is guaranteed, and the company boasts a 90 per cent return rate among its customerg.

A California based company, modestly called ‘Research Assistance Inc.’, is advertising its stock of over 16,000 research papers in student newspapers across Canada.

The company, also offering custom research, touts an “or- dering hotline” and accepts payment by Visa and Master- Card. :

When he telephoned the com- pany in Los Angeles, Mike Kukhta, president of McMas- ter Student Union in Hamilton Ontario, was told that students using the service receive a list of documented research infor- mation from which they are expected to write their term papers - rather than the com- pleted papers which the firm advertises.

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Thursday, January 22 1987

Ser eeiS Sree

Plagiarism big Business

Company officials told Kukhta that the agency advises its customers never to put any- thing into a paper that is not their own.

While essay writing com- panies may only be breaking income-tax and false advertis- ing laws, students caught using their services face stiffer penalties.

In Halifax, Dalhousie uni- versity’s Calendar advises stu- dents that “the presentation by an author of work of another author, in such a way as to give one’s reader reason to think that the other author’s work is one’s own” is consi- dered plagiarism and can be rewarded with loss of credit and suspension from the uni- versity.

“A number of his

employees are ex-professors, some of them with eight degrees”

Students assisting others in plagiarism or other “irregular procedures” can also be liable to penalty from the university.

Professor John Yogis, chair of a Senate Dicipline Commit- tee which deals with plagiar- ism, says the committee has dealt with about 25 allegations of academic penalties being imposed.

Dalhousie students seem more inclined to take advan- tage of the cheaper, off-the- racks services available at the library. Yogis says he hasn’t come across students submit- ting custom produced essays during the time he has served on the committee. -

There do not seem to be any companies in Halifax which specialize in custom papers for students, although there are a number of companies which have advertised in The Dal- housie Gazette student news- paper offering assistance in grammar and English compo- sition. ;

By Toby Sanger & Aura DeWit

reprinted from The Dalhousie Gazette

These services, if their assis- tance is restricted to grammat- ical advice, are not contribut- ing to anything illegal. They may, in fact, be filling a role which universities are doing a bad job in providing - training students in writing essays.

When contacted by the Dal- housie newspaper, a person at one of the services was reluc- tant to be interviewed but said they didn’t know of any cus- tom essay writing services in Halifax. They estimated their business at 5 to 10 people seek- ing grammatical advice per month.

“T don’t know if the reason is that students haven’t been using these services or they

_ haven’t been reported,” Yogis

says, “the danger in many custom written papers is that they are often plagiarized themselves,” making it easier to detect.

Most cases of plagiarism are discovered by professors who

iar in the material submitted or consider it to be substan- tially different in style or qual- ity then the student’s regular work.

Yogis says his committee is seeing more allegations and thinks the the practice is in- creasing, although he admits he has little idea of how wide- spread the practice is.

“The agency ad- vises customers never to put any- thing into a paper which is not their

own

Sim says he’d never heard of anyone being charged of pla- giarism with one of his com- pany’s essays and claims a manufactured paper is almost impossible to detect.

“Tt’s all original, so unless you tell them, the profs have no other option but to believe you. There are a lot of lazy profs out there.”

Yogis says purchasing es- says reflects a “totally defeat- ist” attitude on the part of the students but he defends an evaluation system which re- quires submission of written work because there is little re- placement for it.

Sim blames the university system for the success of his

business. “They stick 400 stu- dents in a psychology class... it’s a large factory out there, grinding out students... there’s a chink in the system.”

Sim rationalizes the service in free enterprise terms, say- ing “some rich people have tutors, and if you can afford it, it’s a business choice.”