Page 317 - The Case Lab Book
P. 317
Costs
New leads collected by assignment company
Student specifies length, level and
degree grade
Company commissions
writer
Student submits
work as
own
Nearly 60,000 students at UK universities were accused of plagiarism over a four year period, reveals an
investigation by Channel 4 Dispatches.
Dr Thomas Lancaster, Britain’s leading expert on academic cheating says: “The vast majority of students of course
are completely honest but I’ve seen estimates of £200 million a year going through these [essay writing] sites.”
Channel 4 Dispatches has found that nearly 60,000 university students have been accused of plagiarism, in the last
four years. More than 40,000 disciplined, over 400 excluded and 12,000 had marks deducted. (1)
Mark Ridlolfo, a standards expert at Bournemouth University says: “There’s a whole gamut of offences that
students can commit and, they range from copying work without correctly acknowledging the source right the way
through to really serious offences such as using essay banks.”(1)
Dr Thomas Lancaster (1) estimated that, based on quoted UK Essay
figures, the industry was worth £200 million a year and of this 1.5% 0f all
invoices are in excess of £5,000 (2)
We're delighted to have procured a whopping £9 million in fees for researchers since 2009.
With 1 in 10 writers working with us full time, and 1.5% of our researcher’s invoices being over
£5000 a month (2).