People’s Daily Online WeChat WeChat official account reported on May 13 that "a group of 700 or 800 writers once used up the one-day limit of ten accounts and failed to pay the monthly salary."
Yang Le first came into contact with ghostwriting of papers in his senior year: those who seek ghostwriting are called "clients", those who write contemporary pens are called "writers’ teachers", those who pull business are called "customer service", and those who convey writing requirements are called "supervisors" … An order writer can earn several hundred to several thousand yuan, and the intermediary can double the profit from it, so the quality of papers will follow, and it is common for "clients" to be blacked out after paying money.
After three years in the business, Yang Le found that there is a complete "industrial chain" behind every paper transaction.
Tomorrow’s defense, the "store" is empty.
"I will reply tomorrow. How can I answer such a paper?"
Yi Qi, who graduated from junior college this year, found a graduation thesis writing service through Taobao. As a result, the structure of the thesis obtained was chaotic, and the duplicate checking rate was much higher than the defense requirements. Yi Qi asked for revision, but "customer service" blacked him out.
"Only a few days away from the defense, the paper hasn’t landed yet, and I thought of looking for a ghostwriter. There are many ghostwriting advertisements on the Internet. "
On April 13th, Yi Qi searched for "writing papers" in Taobao, and the page showed no relevant results. He also searched for "writing articles" and found a shop called "985 Shuobo Wenbi".
"Can you write a paper?" Yiqi left a message for the store.
The other party replied: "Entity company, go online, 100 writers, special person … If necessary, add WeChat or QQ."
Taobao consultation screenshot. Photo courtesy of respondents
Yiqi added the WeChat provided by the store, and the other party claimed to be the company’s customer service, and would put forward pricing according to Yiqi’s requirements on the number of words in the paper and the duplicate checking rate.
"Why not communicate on Taobao?" Yi Qi said that if you don’t trade in Taobao, you can’t believe it easily.
The customer service said, "I think you may not know the rules. We do this professionally, not to say that we are not trading in Taobao, but it is more convenient to contact WeChat. "
Then Yi Qi received a screenshot with more than a dozen WeChat groups related to the paper.
Yi Qi was skeptical and put forward the demand: a specialized paper of 10,000 words, with a repetition rate below 30%, and a first draft on the 15th.
"800 yuan, 15th to the first draft, package, add money to help do the defense PPT. Taobao transaction needs to be paid in one lump sum, and WeChat transfer can pay 400 deposit first, and then pay the final payment after the paper arrives. " The customer service gave the price.
Considering the risk of "running away from the money" and possibly modifying it, Yiqi chose to pay the deposit by WeChat.
After paying the money, the customer service pulled a group, including a "supervisor" and a "writer teacher". "The customer service is responsible for receiving and collecting money, the supervisor is responsible for coordinating customers and writers, and writers write and modify papers as required." According to Yi Qi’s memory, the other party has a clear division of labor.
On April 15th, Yi Qi received the first draft of the paper after paying the final payment. After the click, "the whole person is not good": "None of the requirements put forward have been met. The structure and typesetting of the article are in a mess, and the repetition rate is 40% to 50%. It is simply copied and pieced together, and it is impossible to read it. "
Yi Qi immediately raised a question in the group, and the writer said that it could be revised. "The check rate is so high, how to change it?" Yiqi found the previous customer service theory and asked for a refund, which was blacked out by the other party. The "supervisor" said in the group: "If you make trouble again, the manuscript will quit."
Screenshot of intermediary, writer chatting with customers. Photo courtesy of respondents
On the 17th, Yi Qi received the revised version, but it was still "a long story", so she had to change it herself. On the 18th, she took part in the defense.
Yiqi found Taobao customer service complaint and found that the store was gone. The customer service replied that the store was gone and could not complain. He remembers that during the communication, he asked the customer service for the link of their store through WeChat. The other party sent another store at that time, not the one that Yiqi first consulted.
"It’s the same group, but there are several Taobao shops and customer service WeChat. In this way, my first Taobao consultation record can’t be used to complain about another one. " Yi Qi suspects that the other party evades complaints and reports in this way.
"The paper still needs to be written by yourself." On April 18th, Yi Qi failed in the first defense. "Later, I did it myself, and the second defense passed."
From part-time job to full-time job
"International Economy and Trade, self-made topic, 8,000 words, 320 yuan." One day in April, a QQ group message popped up in Yang Le’s mobile phone.
In the paper writing group "Geili Group", Yang Le used to be a well-known "writer teacher". Even if he didn’t take orders for more than a year, the administrator occasionally asked him privately if he would take the job.
Papers to write group "single". Photo courtesy of respondents
"The first time I came into contact with writing papers was in my senior year. Some people sent papers to write part-time jobs in the student group." Yang Le contacted the advertiser and was drawn into the group of writing papers.
"People who have a’ studio’ in the group are actually intermediaries. They will give notes to each writer about the writing direction they are good at, and then send the requirements and prices of the order to the group. The writer contacts the intermediary to take orders according to his own situation. "
Introduction to the writing group of papers. Photo courtesy of respondents
Yang Le recalled that ghostwriting content generally includes course assignments, "small bills" for small papers and "big bills" for graduation papers, and the price depends on the number of words and the difficulty of operation. Take graduation thesis as an example. Generally, the fees paid to writers are 35-60 yuan/thousand words for undergraduate students, 150-200 yuan/thousand words for master students and 350 yuan/thousand words for doctor students. Orders for English and minority languages are more expensive.
"Generally, April to June and September to December are the peak seasons." Yang Le told reporters, "Near graduation and the end of the semester, the powerful writers in the group can earn tens of thousands of dollars a month."
During the period when Yang Le worked part-time as a ghostwriter, he could earn several thousand yuan a month. What impressed him the most was that "Geili Group" announced that the salary payment of some writers in that month might be delayed, because the one-day transfer quota of ten accounts was used up that day, and the salary had not been paid.
"If this is the case, the number of orders received in the month can be imagined."
As for the quality of papers, Yang Le said that most of the papers written by others are patchwork. "I know a writer. Once a client was dissatisfied with the first draft and asked him to revise it. He directly took the money and blacked it out. There are quite a few people who do this. Many writers have a limited level, and the intermediary will basically not verify the true and false academic qualifications. " He recalled that his degree in "Geili Group" was a master’s degree in returnees, but it was actually a domestic undergraduate degree.
Thesis ghostwriting is a part-time job for Yang Le, and some people have developed it into a full-time job.
"I have a classmate who took orders in the group at first, and later I met more customers and took orders directly.
Yang Le heard that the classmate didn’t find another job after graduation, and copied the model of "geili group" according to the gourd painting gourd ladle: he found three or four people as customer service, opened a shop on Taobao to take orders, and recruited writers among various student groups.
Intermediaries reap the benefits of fishermen.
"The biggest hidden rule in this line is that the intermediary presses the manuscript fee and takes advantage of the fisherman."
A client once told Yang Le that 320 yuan was paid to write a paper for him, and after that order was completed, the intermediary gave it to 160 yuan, Yang Le. "The price paid by the customer to the intermediary is generally 1.5 to 2 times that of the writer."
Under normal circumstances, the writer can’t contact the customer directly, and the requirements and amendments of the paper must be conveyed through the intermediary.
"This is to avoid private transactions between writers and customers." Yang Le introduced that if a writer violates the rules, the intermediary will publicize the illegal contents and punishment measures in the group, generally withholding the salary of the month, and immediately stop cooperation if it is serious.
The screenshot of the announcement of "Geili Group" provided by Yang Le shows: "Now a malicious writer is notified: QQ number # #, who left without modifying the customer after grabbing a large number of orders last year. This year, he changed his number and joined the group to repeat his old tricks. The despicable behavior disrupted the writer market and forwarded this information to major writing groups to avoid being deceived again."
Screenshot of the group announcement of the paper. Photo courtesy of respondents
In addition to avoiding private transactions of writers and maximizing the price difference, ensuring the number of writers is also one of the important conditions for intermediary profit.
Yang Le recalled that at most, he added more than a dozen papers to write for him, and the "Geili Group" was the only one left at present. The main reason is that this group is large in scale and has many orders.
"The number of writers in the group is generally kept at around seven or eight hundred, and there are more than a thousand people. The group owner and several administrators are intermediaries, others are writers, and administrators will regularly clean up people who don’t take orders for a long time. "
A group announcement of "Geili Group" shows that 20 yuan is rewarded for introducing undergraduate thesis writers into the group and 50 yuan is rewarded for introducing master thesis writers into the group. For writers who are more active and highly cooperative in the group, the intermediary will also develop them into regular employees.
"If you don’t want to write, you can come to work in the company." An administrator once sent an invitation to Yang Le: The company has offices in Liaoning and Shanghai, and the salary consists of basic salary and commission. The more orders, the higher the salary.
Expert: if the circumstances are serious, it is recommended to be sentenced.
"Avoid keywords, hide in e-commerce platforms, and induce transactions on social platforms." Netizens pointed out that this is the consistent routine of the current paper writing business.
On May 7, People’s Daily reporter searched some social and e-commerce platforms and found that with "writing papers" as the key word, relevant users could be found on WeChat and Zhihu; Searching for "paper generation" in Taobao, QQ and Weibo shows no results, but searching for "paper generation" can find related "goods" or users.
Screenshot of some platform search results
Taking Taobao as an example, a series of products appeared in the reporter’s search for "paper generation". Most of the product introductions include papers, blogs, articles, etc., and the names of shops are mostly "XXX Studio" and "XXX Cultural Society".
The reporter contacted a shop named "Sincere Senior School Students" through a product with a price tag of 200 yuan, and the text introduction was "Writing for High-end Masters and PhDs". He left a message saying that he wanted to consult an undergraduate thesis, and the other party replied "If you ask this, you will definitely do it, classmate". The reporter asked the reason, and the other party asked: "Do you think this is aboveboard? If you want to know more about it, you can chat on Q or WeChat or Taobao, otherwise it will be sealed. "
"Major e-commerce and social platforms should actively supervise illegal transactions, but it is not enough to rely on network shielding to cut off the industrial chain written by papers." Yin Bo, an associate professor at the Institute of Criminal Law Science of Beijing Normal University, pointed out.
In fact, the current supervision of writing papers in China is not random. In December 2015, China Association for Science and Technology and other seven departments jointly issued "Five Prohibitions for Publishing Academic Papers", resolutely resisting academic misconduct such as "third party" writing, voting and revising.
In July 2018, the Ministry of Education issued the "Notice on Strictly Investigating and Punishing the Sale and Writing of Dissertations in Colleges and Universities", demanding that the sale and writing of dissertations in colleges and universities be severely investigated.
In October 2019, 20 departments, including the Ministry of Science and Technology, jointly issued the Rules for the Investigation and Handling of Scientific Research Integrity Cases (Trial), which clearly defined the investigation process and handling measures of cases, and buying, selling and writing papers on behalf of others were included in the act of scientific research dishonesty.
Why is it still difficult to break the industrial chain of writing papers?
Jia Ting, the chief lawyer of Beijing Tingsheng Law Firm, believes that the reasons for the formation of the industrial chain are comprehensive: some institutions and industries only discuss papers in the assessment of talent training; The demand side of the paper is unwilling to study hard and thinks that money is everything, which leads to speculative psychology; Writers and intermediaries are mercenary and try their best to attract business.
Yinbo further pointed out that writing on behalf of a paper roughly includes three types of subjects: the demand side of the paper; Intermediaries providing services; The writer of the paper. Among them, intermediary agencies are the most harmful, and there is a gap in supervision, so it is more urgent to regulate them.
"At present, most of the constraints on writing papers rely on the self-discipline norms of universities and scientific research institutions and related administrative laws and regulations. These often belong to the internal norms of the academic community, and there is a lack of sufficient regulatory means for external operators, especially third-party intermediaries. " Inbo pointed out.
"Serious organization of buying and selling, writing papers on behalf of others can be considered as imprisonment." Both Yin Bo and Jia Ting believe that we can refer to the provisions of the Criminal Law on the crime of cheating in organizing exams, and include organizing and helping the sale of papers and writing on behalf of others into the criminal law norms, thus playing a deterrent role for all kinds of subjects involved. (At the request of the interviewee, Yi Qi and Yang Le are pseudonyms.)
(The original title is "Dear, do you need to write a paper?" 》）
