● During the opening season or graduation season, the paper ghostwriting groups lurking in various campus groups, e-commerce platforms and social platforms become active, and the words "professional ghostwriting" and "master team" are not uncommon. Especially from March to June every year, under the dual pressure of graduation and job hunting, the business volume and price of writing papers are always rising.
● It is one of the "false situations" explicitly stipulated by the relevant departments for college students to find someone to write papers on their behalf. A counterfeiter who has obtained a degree may have his degree revoked; Those who are still studying can be expelled from school; In addition to accepting disciplinary action, the on-the-job personnel should also inform their units.
● In order to control the chaos of writing papers, experts believe that the first step is to strictly control the export of papers, such as anonymous evaluation and defense of papers, so as to achieve "lenient entry and strict exit"; Secondly, in education, we should strengthen the teaching level of colleges and universities from the root, and systematically cultivate students’ research ability from the undergraduate stage, so that students can have basic thesis writing ability.
□ Our reporter Zhao Li
□ Intern of this newspaper Chen Lijia
A "paper writing" service with a price of several thousand yuan finally received a "first paper in life" written by freshmen, but when they wanted to refund the money, the other party was "into thin air".
During the opening season or graduation season, paper ghostwriting groups lurking in various campus groups, e-commerce platforms and social platforms become active, and words such as "professional ghostwriting" and "master team" are not uncommon. Especially from March to June every year, under the dual pressure of graduation and job hunting, the business volume and price of writing papers are always rising.
Recently, the reporter of "Rule of Law Daily" contacted a number of college students who were "pitted" by the paper writing service. At least they were cheated by hundreds of yuan, and many were cheated by thousands of yuan, and they swallowed their own bitter fruit.
"It is basically impossible to get the money back, and the other party also threatened to find a school and network exposure." A deceived student told reporters that many students were deceived, and the other party just saw that the students at school did not dare to tell.
It is understood that the Interim Provisions on Handling Violations of Scientific and Technological Activities, which came into effect on September 1, 2020, clearly stipulates that plagiarism, plagiarism, embezzlement, tampering with other people’s scientific and technological achievements, infringement of other people’s intellectual property rights, trading in academic papers, and writing on behalf of others are all violations.
Many experts interviewed by reporters pointed out that it is one of the "false situations" that college students find someone to write papers on their behalf. A counterfeiter who has obtained a degree may have his degree revoked; Those who are still studying can be expelled from school; In addition to accepting disciplinary action, the on-the-job personnel should also inform their units.
"It is a non-compliant thing in itself, and the liar seized this and took advantage of it." Xi Peizhi, deputy secretary-general of the Juvenile Law Research Association of Shanghai Law Society, said.
What kind of gray industrial chain is hidden behind the non-compliance? Recently, the reporter conducted an in-depth investigation from the "customer" on the demand side to the "writer" and "intermediary" on the supply side.
Looking for ghostwriting under pressure
Take a shortcut and fall into a scam.
In the investigation, the reporter found that although several major e-commerce platforms and forums have put an end to related searches such as "paper writing", the hidden business of "paper writing" still exists, and the means of "paper writing" institutions are more and more hidden. Students and businesses will still use words such as "writing guidance" and "article writing" to avoid risks. At the same time, if you type another similar keyword in the online search box, such as "thesis writing", there will be topics and groups such as "we will help you write your thesis" and "thesis guidance", and nearly half of the posts in it are about finding articles to write and recruiting writers.
Among the types of articles written on behalf of others, the proportion of papers in general courses and extension courses in universities is often high. However, some students, because of their limited research ability, spend a lot of money to ask writers to write their graduation thesis. The students thought that they had found a shortcut to write papers, but they actually stepped into a scam.
Li Ran (a pseudonym) graduated from a university in Zhejiang last year, recalling the experience of getting someone to write her graduation thesis near graduation, she is still annoyed.
"Because there is no way to start the graduation thesis, and the time for handing in the thesis is getting closer and closer, the idea of finding someone to write it for me came into being. At the beginning, I found a person to write on the e-commerce platform, and as a result, the other party submitted the manuscript slowly, and the repetition rate of the manuscript finally submitted was extremely high. I immediately found another team, and the other party claimed to be a professional master team. As a result, the articles sent were logically confused and the repetition rate remained high. " Li Ran said that she had invested several thousand yuan before and after, and finally she could only accept the planting.
In fact, several thousand yuan is only the price of writing undergraduate graduation thesis. Recently, when the reporter approached the writing team as a customer, he found that if he wrote the master’s thesis, the cost would be as high as tens of thousands of yuan.
The reporter also contacted five students from a university in Beijing who had asked for ghostwriting. They came from science and engineering, humanities and social sciences and art disciplines, and ghostwriters came from campus groups, e-commerce platforms and second-hand trading platforms. Their experience of being deceived has the following common problems:
The repetition rate is too high. The above-mentioned interviewed students all said that at the beginning of the contact, the writer or intermediary would reassure the customer with the reply of "check the article again before submitting it to the customer". But in the end, most of the papers were copied and pasted, and the duplicate checking report given by the writer was either detected and issued on an informal free duplicate checking website, or was obtained by directly erasing the real data from a false P-picture.
Sit on the ground and start at a price. After submitting the manuscript, the customer found that the quality of the article was not up to standard and asked for rectification. The writer said that if he wanted to modify the article, he would have to pay again, otherwise he would not modify it. After the article is written, the customer finds that the encrypted file can’t be opened normally or needs other payment channels. At this time, the customer often needs to pay an extra fee as the "browsing fee" of the article.
False "packaging". "University professor" and "professional master team" are the titles commonly used by writers and intermediary teams, but the quality of the final articles is quite different from that advertised by the other party. Lin Lang (a pseudonym) is a sophomore in a university in Beijing. Because of his heavy schoolwork, he asked someone to write a course paper online, and the final paper was not satisfactory and the layout was messy. Later, he learned that the other party was a freshman, and the article he wrote for him was actually the other party’s first university paper.
Threaten buyers. After being cheated, the five students interviewed went to question the writers or the intermediary customer service, and in the end they all broke up in discord, either because they were blacked out by the other party, or when they found the shop, they found that it had already been "empty", and some even threatened to upload the article to the network and tell the school teacher. Finally, students looking for ghostwriters often choose to secretly eat boring losses.
The reporter asked the five students if they had ever thought about protecting their "rights and interests", and they all replied "no" because it was a wrong choice to find ghostwriting, and once it was exposed, the consequences would be more serious.
The writer base is very large.
Just for speed, regardless of major
In the whole industrial chain of paper writing, there is a huge base of writers, and this group produces written manuscripts according to the needs of customers to earn fees.
"The first contact with ghostwriting was because I wanted to earn some pocket money and living expenses. This line of entry is not high, which is a relatively simple sideline. " Xiao Jing, a writer who has been in the business for three years, told reporters that because it is a low threshold, everyone who is a writer has it.
The reporter’s investigation found that the writer’s working mode mainly includes two types: the first type is leaning against a big tree. Behind this kind of writers is the intermediary team. In the industrial chain of writing papers, the intermediary itself cannot directly provide ghostwriting services for customers, but finds and arranges writers for customers. They not only master a large number of customer resources, but also manage a large number of writers.
The reporter entered a group of writers named "No.5 Group" after adding the contact information of the other party through the recruitment post of writers posted on the social platform by Nibi Feishu Technology (Longyan) Co., Ltd. At the beginning of joining the group, the other party simply asked the reporter about his education and major, and asked the reporter to provide his phone number and corresponding works. After confirming the reporter’s basic situation, the other party sent the reporter a detailed Code of Practice for Part-time Cooperation of Writers, saying that it is forbidden to take private orders and add customer WeChat privately, reply to customer messages online at all times, submit the manuscript strictly according to the agreed time, and maintain the favorable rate. According to the regulations of the team, the higher the praise, the more stable and high-quality customers they can get, and they can enjoy the priority to send orders to get higher settlement rewards.
The reporter’s investigation found that "it is forbidden to contact customers privately", which is almost an iron law that all writers who require cooperation from intermediaries must abide by.
This kind of mode also includes the cooperation between intermediary and writer, which is common in intermediaries who have been engaged in writing papers for a long time. Due to the stricter requirements for paper review in recent years, for the sake of safety, they no longer set up a group of writers, but choose to send orders alone or in a circle of friends, and the writers who are willing to take orders will communicate with the intermediary alone.
The reporter contacted a "professional" intermediary teacher who is responsible for writing papers. After a brief understanding of the reporter’s educational level, Teacher Mi asked, "Can you write a paper on an unrelated subject?" According to its introduction, the key point is not how professional the paper is written, and whether it is relevant or not is not important, but to be fast and submit the manuscript on time.
The second category is the one-on-one type. Some writers decide to "go it alone" after working with the intermediary for a period of time, mostly because they hope to get higher income.
Xiao Jing was a junior when she first came into contact with the author of the thesis, and adopted the mode of cooperation with the intermediary. Later, she added the contact information of the customer privately, only to find that the intermediary earned more than 50% of the difference between the customer and the writer. "Moreover, the number of writers in the group is increasing, the average price of each order has been declining, and the writers earn less and less. As an intermediary, there is not only one group of writers in hand, and the profit is huge."
The intermediary team has a clear division of labor.
Earn the difference and gain income
These intermediary teams that manage many writers are often scattered in e-commerce platforms, social platforms and major campus groups on a large scale. Usually, they will use some professional names to show their professionalism, such as "XXX Education", "XXX Technology Co., Ltd." and "XXX Studio".
In the group of writers, the reporter found that the intermediary team for writing papers was composed of promoters, personnel commissioners, dispatchers and receptionists. Promoters promote ghostwriting teams to student groups in colleges and universities to find customers; Personnel Commissioner manages writers; The dispatcher distributes the task of writing on behalf of the writers; The receptionist is responsible for a series of work to maintain customer relationship and favorable rate. Treating different groups, team members will use different social accounts, and they are very cautious about the identity source of the applicants.
The reporter’s investigation found that some intermediaries were exposed by a large number of complaints for deceiving students and writers, but they were still active in various e-commerce platforms and campus groups after "changing their faces", and "business" flourished.
In addition, some intermediaries have contracted a whole "production line" for writing and publishing papers in academic journals, and the price of this model is often higher.
A customer service staff member of 360 Journal Network said that the price of an article in the company is 7,500 yuan, of which the price for writing a paper of 4,000 to 5,000 characters is 1,500 yuan, and the price for publishing is 6,000 yuan.
Editor Lin, who once worked in a paper agency, told the reporter: "Now, there are too few periodicals, especially core periodicals, and there are too many college staff who need to send papers. Generally, it is not easy for authors to vote for magazines themselves, and they don’t want to spend energy writing, so most of them will find an agency. For example, if you want to send a paper in a journal and find an intermediary, the intermediary will charge the author a certain fee, plus you can earn an extra difference when you find a writer to write, which is far more than double the profit. "
Establish a scientific evaluation system
Take measures to control chaos at the same time
For the chaos of writing papers, the relevant state departments have been taking action.
According to the Measures for Handling Dissertation Falsification (hereinafter referred to as the Measures) implemented by the Ministry of Education in 2013, if the dissertations of degree applicants are falsified, such as being purchased or written by others, their qualifications for degree application may be cancelled, and within three years, all degree-granting units may no longer accept their degree applications. If you are a student, your school can expel you from school. The "Measures" also stipulate that students who write or sell dissertations for others may be expelled from school; Those who belong to school teachers or other staff members may be dismissed or terminate the employment contract.
The Interim Provisions on Handling Violations of Scientific and Technological Activities, which came into effect on September 1, 2020, clearly stipulates that plagiarism, embezzlement, tampering with other people’s scientific and technological achievements, infringement of other people’s intellectual property rights, trading in academic papers, and writing on behalf of others are all illegal acts.
This has also become the main reason why many students dare not report to the police and swallow the bitter fruit after being deceived.
Lu Yanbin, director of the research office of the rule of law and national conditions of the Institute of Law of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told reporters that the main reason why the chaos in the paper has been repeatedly banned is the supply and demand problem. On the demand side, the school lacks systematic cultivation of students’ basic research ability, and students themselves lack a series of basic academic abilities needed in the process of thesis writing, so their thesis level has not been systematically improved, resulting in many students unable to complete a qualified thesis independently.
In addition, Lv Yanbin also pointed out that under the current periodical-oriented academic evaluation environment, some colleges and universities require students and young teachers to publish their papers in core periodicals as the requirements for graduation or evaluation of professional titles, which further expands the contradiction between supply and demand in the current situation that periodical space is in short supply. Some students and scholars choose to find someone to help them write for them in order to publish articles more quickly and meet the requirements of colleges and universities.
On the supply side, Xi Peizhi believes that a large number of ghostwriting teams that frequently send advertisements to college groups in the market also provide a hotbed for this kind of chaos in ghostwriting.
How to deal with this chaos? Lv Yanbin believes that the first step is to strictly control the export of papers, such as anonymous evaluation and defense of papers, so as to be "lenient and strict"; Secondly, in education, we should strengthen the teaching level of colleges and universities from the root, and systematically cultivate students’ research ability from the undergraduate stage, so that students can have basic thesis writing ability.
"I hope that China can introduce an administrative regulation. Schools should also earnestly strengthen their responsibilities, draw a red line for this kind of academic misconduct, and at the same time try their best to improve colleges and universities ‘ On literature ’ And ‘ Project-only theory ’ The indicators allow teachers to have more thoughts and energy to cultivate students’ comprehensive literacy. " Xi cultivation theory.
