Ghostwriter reveals how easy it is to cheat on university papers

IT’S easy to get away with cheating at university, according to a ghostwriter who took to completing other people’s essays to survive during the GFC.

Herald Sun Learn for Feb 3, 2015. VCE Study Boost English article by Andrew Doyle. Generic pic VCE student to accompany boost article

IT’S easy to get away with cheating at university, according to a professional writer who took to completing other people’s essays as a way of earning money during the GFC.

Beth Seaver has revealed in a blog post that the chances of getting caught are not that high.

Ms Seaver said she struggled to find work in Los Angeles after completing her MA in professional writing around the time the economy “fell off a cliff”.

“After a few weeks I realised just how competitive the job market actually is.

“Restaurants asked for headshots with my application. My master’s degree made every retail store give me the side eye. I was suddenly unqualified and over-qualified for everything,” she said.

What started out as an offer to help students with their homework soon turned into an abundance of requests from people wanting their assignments done for them.

So began four years of doing other people’s homework, at $75 a pop.

In her blog post5 Things I Learned Doing Other People’s College Essays For Money she reveals just how easy it is to get away with cheating.

“In the beginning, I would tell students that it would be a good idea to take the paper I wrote and put it in their own words,” she said.

“You’d think it would be a glaring issue for a student who’s had trouble the entire semester to turn in an ‘A’ paper that doesn’t sound like anything else they’ve written.

“You’d be wrong.

“I know a handful of adjunct professors, and as long as the paper is original (meaning chunks of the writing isn’t being recycled from other papers or online sources) they often don’t have the time or support of the administration to accuse someone of plagiarism.”

“They don’t get paid enough to weed out people buying papers,” she said.

As pressure mounts for people to continue to gain qualifications to achieve employment, more and more students have been looking to outsource their assignments.

Earlier this year Fairfax revealed 1000 students from 16 Australian universities had hired the Sydney-based MyMaster company to ghostwrite their assignments and sit online tests.

While Sydney university was planning to set up a taskforce to tackle ghostwriting, other universities were looking to ways to minimise risk, including in-class exams, ABC reported.

Beth had advertised her services locally and she said her clients came from all walks of life.

“It’s easy to assume that all students who buy papers are 20-somethings using mum and dad’s money so they can spend more time being hungover.

“Sure, there are plenty of those and those are the ones who were the most demanding and difficult to work with. Twenty pages by tomorrow? I’m not a wizard, kid,” she said.

And her biggest lesson? No, it wasn’t that she shouldn’t help students cheat.

It’s that she said she didn’t charge enough.

Originally published as Ghostwriter reveals how easy it is to cheat on university papers