Buying academic papers – a business among students

By Marija Jovanovska
 
„We write studies from the area of social, natural and technological sciences, adjusted to the ECTS criteria, suitable quotes, footnotes, numeration, academic style of writing…”
„We make – seminar papers, graduate papers, master thesis, essays in Macedonian and in English language, project assignments for high school students, power point presentations” these and similar adds can be found everywhere on Internet.

Today’s education system requires from students to make their own study papers that are designed to help them in deepening their knowledge in certain areas. But, also, what it seems to be a problem nowadays with this student’s obligation is preparing and writing of the papers that should be a result of their research work and personal intellectual capacities. Therefore, the easiest way to handle this „problem” is the business of buying academic papers.
The Internet is the source, where from one hand it gives all the necessary materials for making such paper or study, but from another, it gives the option for research of the possibility to buy a seminar paper, master thesis and in some cases even a PhD. In the adds you can read that the authors guarantee the originality of the paper, as well as its delivery. All you need is to search well for these kinds of groups on the social media and money to pay the service.
-Students are buying seminar papers because they don’t have time to make them themselves, because they are burden with a lot of studying, taking exams and other obligations. Also, the reason for this can be the student’s ignorance for making the seminar paper by themselves, so instead of using their own mental capacities, they decide to take a shortcut and to pay other people for the intellectual engagement, says an anonymous source.
Making a paper requires promptness. It requires consultation with proper literature, which in the most cases means spending a lot of time in a library, following the strictly given directions for making the paper and additionally, it requires to be careful with the authenticity of the paper (not plagiarism), to keep the creativity and the originality regarding the idea for the topic that is treated.
The process for a paper varies between 150 and 350 denars, depending on whether it’s writing a seminar paper or it is required to be a package – seminar paper and a presentation. And the answer for the question „Why someone is dealing with writing papers/studies”, according to our source of information, is the money.
A concerning fact is that not only seminar papers are on sale. But, also a master thesis. Their prizes varies from 10.000 to 30.000 denars. With such money someone can gain a title of MA.
-The title of my master thesis is „Operationalization of the soft power of the European Union in the context of its enlargement policy”. I spent 4-5 month only writing it, not counting the time of research, reading and gathering materials for my thesis. But, also not counting the time for corrections and changes of my Master thesis, says MA Nikola Petrovski, teaching assistant at the Law Faculty in Bitola.
According to him, preparing the master thesis by the candidate him or herself is learning the methodology because that is the basis of all science researches. Put the methodology aside, preparing and researching for the study is experience – starting from the research, systematization of the data, argumentation, analyzing the documents and materials, conclusion and most important – creating critical thinking. Foreknowledge of the subject and area of research is essential and during the research process it can only deepen and expand, emphasize Petrovski.
At the end, students should decide for themselves, whether they will choose to work hard and to write their own paper or will decide go invest money and to buy one, but the higher education institutions must find a way to handle this problem. The results can be visible in the scope of knowledge of the students.