The "means" to an end could even include cheating in an exam hall (the end being potential fail/pass in the course, the means being cheating.

paying to get an essay written for you, thereby rendering the competition unfair, thereby breaking all possible conceptualisations of research ethics, and still entering a PhD not regretting it for a moment leaves me speechless.

Anything under the sun can be a means to an end, if that is the attitude. Exam hall cheating, paying others to get work done and forging forward with your CV permanently bearing the good results of this act, plagiarism, where does it stop?

I am struggling to fathom how it can be an 'acceptable' thing to do for any academic, the scale of it is hardly the point, getting caught is hardly the point, not learning for oneself is hardly the point.

It is the ethics, ethics, ethics of it all.

I absolutely agree with Bug here, and am ever more angry at those who choose to do this.

There are no circumstances where this can be acceptable. If you have personal problems, your Uni will allow extra time/those circumstances to be factored in. If you are struggling with the course, why have you not approached a member of staff for assistance? If you just haven't bothered to do the work you deserve to do badly. I took out a loan to do my Masters, and still worked 30 hours per week. I came out with a distinction, even though I changed disciplines, because I worked. And I am far from the only person to do that

And finally to Cwilson79. If you are in receipt of funding, and do not regret your actions (which are likely to have removed funding from a genuine student) then you are selfish, grasping, (most likely a simpleton) and have some essential part of your soul missing.

Sleepyhead has hit the nail cleanly on the head.

There are many free services available either at your Uni or on the net which should be the first port of call.  Why pay for something you can get for free for the effort of a bit of research?

These are post graduate courses; we earn the right to wear the initials. 

This is quite an amusing thread. I have had friends at undergrad level who used to pay for articles and most of them were such a pile of crap that they tended to get very poor marks. Paying for essays is a real lottery and I suppose the buyer ultimately gets what they deserve in most cases.

Walminskipeas, I'm sure you're quite right about paying for essays being a lottery, I'm glad to hear it doesn't pay off in many cases, and I hope those observations are enough to put people off (OP especially). Still, one can hardly fail to be disturbed by the fact that Cwilson79 has frankly admitted that paid-for work enabled him/her to gain a Master's qualification he/she would otherwise not have got, and ultimately take a (funded?) PhD place that would otherwise have gone to somebody else.

I wonder what it's like going into Uni every day knowing that the goodwill, trust and respect of everyone around you - supervisor, peers, undergraduates - is built on a lie? Presumably that's not how Cwilson79 chooses to see it, but you can bet that's how the other people in that equation would see it.

One thing you can say for Cwilson79 is that they're quite a brave individual - not only are they prepared to put themselves in the firing line for the righteous indignation of users of this forum, but they've done so under a very transparent-looking username. I certainly feel sorry for any current PhD students called C Wilson and born in 1979 who DIDN'T cheat on their MA - I've a feeling they might start getting some funny looks off people this week.

Oh, the other thing I love about Cwilson79's rhetoric is the 'I don't condone it - I understand it' stuff. Erm... we all UNDERSTAND it, mate! There's no mystery as to why someone who wants a qualification but isn't able or willing to do the work required might decide to cheat instead. I knew before I even started my MA that I was going to let myself down on the examined (rather than essay-assessed) module, because I've never been great in exams. I suppose I could have started looking for someone I could pay to sit the exam for me, but funnily enough, instead of doing that, I just did my best and made damn sure my other marks were high enough to pull my average comfortably over the Distinction threshold. It's called 'working'.

Oh yeah, I would add that the VAST majority of people / websites offering such services are rip-offs. It's a complete lottery. I was lucky to find a good one, but a lot of people aren't.

I've done a bit of scouting round this morning and the terms and conditions of such web sites is amusing. 

I was particularly interested in my "guaranteed first class" essay which, under the terms and conditions, if I didn't get a first, they would rewrite it for me until I did. Cost would be £800+.

Somehow I just couldn't see my supervisor agreeing to multiple submissions until I got that first

;-)

I'm sure you're all fascinated, but I feel I should top and tail this thread by letting you know how the story ended. I got the work through and I'm damn happy with it. Ran it through software and it came out fine. I know it's cheating, but put it this way:

If I didn't do it, I'd have failed my course.

I did it, I've got a really good paper and I won't fail my course.

Yes, I feel bad now, but in the overall situation, I'm pretty happy with how that's turned out.

Joy.

You never did say why you felt this was the only option left to you...

As such, terrible as it sounds, you deserve to fail your course.

======= Date Modified 26 May 2009 18:09:59 =======
I wish good luck to BOTH MLord and CWilson79 on their future careers. Glad that both of you are happy with your respective choices.

;-)

As such, now I find this thread extremely interesting....

But hang on ladies and gentlemen! One could suggest that outsourcing intellectual labour, cheating and taking credit for what others have done are the quintessential skills for a bright future career in academia.

I still remember my old PhD supervisor lame explanation why he got first authorship on a published paper I had written, submitted and rewritten on my own. He said thats the nature of the beast, and that this was all part of university life. Likewise I have observed some of the cretins that have made reader or senior lecturer have paid others to write their papers, teach their lectures and generally offload their obligations . These other people are known as post-docs.
All that this thread shows is that the rot has spread to the lower levels. It was always there if you knew where to look.

I trust in the future, there will an internet service that will bully and intimidate your fellow students on your behalf so they pose even less of a risk to your future prospects.

the whole point of writing essays etc during your course is so that you do the research and find out the answers YOURSELF. if you don't do this work, this means you are not learning anything as you progress through the course. i only hope that the kind of people who do this sort of thing get tripped up further along the line, eg. they are sat in an exam and a question comes up related to the essay that they couldn't be bothered to write. it astounds me that people can do this, not only because you are cheating the system, but also because you are cheating yourself. i couldn't live with the fact that i had handed in someone else's work and claimed it as my own, and i would be in constant fear of someone finding me out (whether that be a lecturer, friend on the same course, or parents etc). i would be too ashamed. i would rather hand in an essay i knew was absolutely terrible but that i had written myself, rather than cheat and hand in another person's work. i worked damn hard for my 2:1 at undergrad and even harder for my distinction at masters, and the thought that in the future i might lose out on my dream job to someone who cheated their way to it makes me sick to the stomach. i understand people can get desperate sometimes when under pressure, but i don't believe that they can ever justify cheating, and as other people have mentioned there are always other options available to you. i can only hope that the people who pay for their work to be done by someone else get found out and thrown off their course, for it will be no less than they deserve.