Business selling college essays refutes claims of plagiarism
By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent
Monday, February 28, 2011
A COMPANY offering students help with college assignments has denied it promotes plagiarism despite warnings against the use of such services.
Michael Noble and Matthew Keogh set up Write My Assignments to put students in touch with high-grade graduates of their courses to help with essays or other projects.
By outlining the course, assignment brief and their average grades in the module, a student will be matched with a mentor who will provide an essay to match the brief.
Mr Noble stressed that the idea is for a student to use this as a reference rather than handing it in as their own work, something that would breach most colleges’ plagiarism rules.
The postgraduate student at University College Dublin’s Smurfit Business School said this is made clear in the company’s terms and conditions.
He said 10 students have already received assignments through the service since it started earlier this month and 14 more are pending, with mentors offered for work on more than 450 courses at 10 third-level colleges.
The charges vary from around €280 to €350 for a 3,000-word document, rising above €800 for 10,000 words. Students buying the assignment can pay by bank draft, cheque or credit card.
"Our prices are reflective of the hours entailed, with superior indepth research, original composition and final editing. If somebody does directly copy a document, I would agree that it’s plagiarism but that’s not what we’re about," he said.
"Students can use our guidelines for further understanding and clarity of the subject through appropriate attribution and citation of Write My Assignments," he said.
Write my Assignments, which is based at a unit in a Wicklow business park, stress that they won’t reveal client information: "Discretion is of primary importance to Write My Assignments."
But Union of Students in Ireland (USI) education officer Colm Murphy said the use of services like this are not recommended as most colleges require that any assessment or essay is entirely the individual student’s work, including all researching of references.
"If there was a charge of plagiarism against you, which is the most serious academic offence, you could be expelled in some colleges. If somebody writes an assessment and you copy from it, it’s the same difference," he said.
"It’s essential when a person comes out with a degree that it is still worth something.
"These kind of services cheapen that and damage the reputation of the Irish education system," Mr Murphy added.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Monday, February 28, 2011
