custom assignments writing service uk

custom assignments writing service uk

Exploring the Ethics and Efficacy of Custom Assignment Writing Services in the UK

1. Introduction to Custom Assignment Writing Services

Proliferation of higher education as one of the most effective vaulting poles to both upward economic mobility and societal success provides an original motivation for this research. In Britain, the higher education market has witnessed several unsettling developments over recent years, including dramatic increases in tuition fees, reconfiguration of the student loan landscape, and marketized systems for measuring the quality of the teaching and research environment at universities. Alongside this situational instability, unique selling points have arisen that are supplementary to universities’ standard educational portfolios; namely, custom assignment writing services engaging professional writers. Estimates suggest that more than double the number of UK students now resort to these services, reaching into the tens of thousands, and many universities have identified academic misconduct related to contract cheating as one of their primary threats, as well as the proportion of students availing of these services increasing year on year. It is an estimate shared by providers of these services that the bulk of their customers are repeat clients.

An inevitable concern is the collateral damage that may be experienced if fine hyper-specialization is prioritized over the generalist education or the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. This concern names a very specific relationship to custom assignment writing and how these services operate: that their strenuous observance of individual universities’ academic integrity policies – where services remain confidential and offer not to resell or repurpose other clients’ essays – remain unable to obviate a broader cost insofar as they enable students to bypass academics’ academic integrity guidelines other than those designed by university administration. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt but that many students use custom assignment writing services with other motivations entirely. Broadly, students may choose to access such services out of ethical or principal commitments, rather than circumvent them.

2. Ethical Considerations in Using Custom Assignment Writing Services

In this research, a custom assignment writing service refers to a business operated by one or by multiple individuals to create short academic papers from scratch. Once an order is completed, the customer will own all the rights to the paper delivered. There are also some companies which can re-write and edit papers. We chose to focus on the UK as this is the location of the largest custom assignment writing industry. This also allowed the use of case studies from private companies from this region.

Generally, three skills are provided by the academic ghostwriting or custom assignment writing industry. These include the information and data retrieval, evaluation and analysis, and lastly, the knowledge of the subject in order to write it convincingly. Many academics acknowledge that academic ghostwriting is able to foster the required skills in achieving academic attainment goals. It is difficult to differentiate between the individuals who are capable of these skills and those who are not. Furthermore, not all individuals have access to the resources required to meet their attainment goals. In other words, custom assignment writing services can attain an academic mile in social justice.

It is obviously unethical to operate a custom assignment writing service and lie to your customers about the end purpose. Similarly, it is also unethical to use such a service, obtain a customized assignment, and submit it as one’s own work. Academic regulations prohibit such behavior under the concept of ‘plagiarism’. However, fundamental to the ethics behind this concept is the right of ownership of the words in a customized paper which belonged to the customer. It thus raises the question whether subjects which are truly unique could be classed as plagiarized. The ethical implications of customized services differ between the writer and the consumer of the services. A number of companies exist in the UK which offer custom business plans, business models, and marketing plans. It is inherently the right of an individual to seek potential venues to publicize and sell their own creation, experience, and know-how. It would be unreasonable against the conduct of fair trade for one of the writing companies to advertise these plans in the employer’s interests. Academic institutions clearly frown at custom assignment writing services. Those institutions which could possibly lose out on admission or funding may see the practice inherently unethical. In addition, the services may or may not breach the consumer legislation regarding independent performance of a service by another party. Custom written assignments would be regarded as quality assured. Academics who are in the know may be able to tell if a paper was custom written or not, but this fact has long been overlooked due to the grey areas that exist in the market. Given the media attention paid to the scam nature of the business, it seems that there are forces at play calling for the impact of this industry as a grey one. These are probably external to the academic community. The major criticism against the service is propelled by those who are critical not only of the ‘fraudulent’ nature of this industry but also the ‘fraudulent’ state of the educational system.

3. Evaluating the Efficacy of Custom Assignment Writing Services

Understanding the custom assignment writing industry and the ethical implications associated with it inevitably means going beyond the theoretical to the empirical. Earlier sections of this essay have dealt with the genealogy of plagiarism and how this relates to today’s understanding of contract cheating services. Extensive data within the contract cheating literature makes it clear that students do engage with assignment writing services and, along with other evidence of cheating in this arena, suggests that there might be wider issues of unethical practice within higher education. Professional work of this nature, however, overlooks the realities of a competitive 21st-century higher education system and the greater need (compared to the past) faced by students to perform well if they are to compete for limited career opportunities. The mitigating role of custom assignment writing services in assisting students to finish their degrees through slightly bald times but which, in the main, benefits their progress and learning, is also likely to come under-represented or silenced in these sorts of work. The problem, as a range of authors have attempted to demonstrate, is that discussing ethical dilemmas around plagiarism and cheating is overdetermined by the notion of these as per se wrong, which means that the possibility of discussing the complexities and nuances of this issue is often not entertained and quickly reverts to a disapproval of the moral infractions themselves.

From the perspective of students who buy work from assignment-writing services, the criteria of success are likely to be quite different from that of academic staff. What they are likely to be concerned about is the work they receive. A good service is likely to be judged on the caliber of the resulting work and whether or not this met the customer’s expectations. This tends to align with the conclusions from contract cheating research seen earlier, with a focus on students wanting to boost their marks and save time, and get away from the feelings of pressure due to unrealistic expectations or high workloads. Notably, in interview work found what students reported as being a good job also included flexibility in the approach to assignments, the ability to meet short turnaround times, and being excellent value for money. This should not be discounted, as suggests that the ability to take up a student’s own style is important and a marker of a high-quality service. There may also be more esoteric judgments around university standards and quality assurance which, for some customers, is important. In this case, getting a paper above 70% – as many of the assignment writing services offer as a minimum guarantee – is likely to meet the expectations of a consumer who assumes the sites are of a professional or commercial nature.

4. Regulatory Framework and Legal Implications in the UK

In the UK, no specific legislation or guidance note related to bespoke academic service or contracts has been identified. The ethical framework, however, as provided by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), is applicable for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. It discourages any conduct that helps, encourages, or enables plagiarism. The norms in Scotland are regulated by the Scottish Parliament and may vary. The common resources state that acquiring help for academics may be acceptable if the student actually uses it. An assessment of the same has not been conducted, and knowing help was acquired is not equivalent to cheating. From a service provider’s perspective, near the borderline, not fully or precisely helping students (in their bid to comply with the education provider’s not cheating policy) to avail a service that helps them gain knowledge or develop skills may absolve service providers from criminal or civil liabilities (in the case of the UK) arising due to plagiarism issues.

The single university regulation, UKVI, which provides regulatory and criminal guidelines for universities to enroll foreign students and degrees, is now administered by the facts agency. English law prohibits the provision and advertising of cheating services when dishonesty is involved with intent. It criminalizes cheating from source as well as benefit, and publishing the same, whether using money or otherwise. This is reinforced by stringent policies of the Open University (OU), ban in UK TV advertising, BBC Radio ads resistant, and refusal to allow even a 1-minute lighting poster on the BBC evening news. Refusal of a request to film and develop a short slot on UK education for a South Korean educational TV channel, now taken over by SK Broadband in an image and brand takeover, and declining an invitation from SK to attend the closing ceremony just a few weeks ago. The OU is active with South Korea in innovative research, knowledge transfer, and capacity building in many areas, from gravity waves to AI.

5. Conclusion and Future Perspectives

Over the preceding pages, we have explored custom assignment writing services in the UK and their services, customers, and workforce. We also broached ways in which they can and should be regulated, and most importantly, we questioned the ethics of these businesses. If the answer to the ethics question is more or less an unequivocal ‘no’ – and it seems likely to at least be a ‘no’ more often than not – the other factors discussed in the previous section should be of little concern. What type of regulation is most appropriate for an unethical business is a mostly laborious question of administration. At the very least, the ‘should’ question must be addressed first, either in or apart from discussions of what can and cannot actually be done.

Given our discussion in the previous section, there seem to be two possible conclusions: first, the consensus among professional essay writers appears to be that custom assignment writing services are qualitatively bad (as odd as that may sound). If this is to be taken at face value, it would seem that the industry is not merely (and unproblematically) mostly unconscionable but is filled with mediocrity to boot. Second, because it is possible that whatever protections are put in place against online essay mills, they will persist, albeit perhaps in a somewhat-altered form. This is not to say that nothing can be done; mooted legislations against students buying essays and/or the providers of those essays may well have an effect on purchasing behavior. Equally, though, there is little reason to support a ban on purchasing essays, and doing so may even run afoul of consumer protection laws. Further research in this area could explore that subject in greater detail.