Why Students Get Disappointed with Academic Research Process

The main purpose of this forum, I believe, is to expose scams in the online academic writing world. I hope, however, that this doesn't preclude the discussion of other vulnerabilities in the industry besides outright scams.

It might be helpful to look at these hazards from the perspective of how students expose themselves to disappointments (in general). This is not to pass the blame on to the students, but to underscore their role in their own letdown:

1. Picking a wrong service provider. This is by far the main cause of disappointments for thousands of students. This is a never-ending subject. Forum members have debated it here for years. Let me state that any student who knows of EssayScam should be out of this danger.

2. Giving incorrect paper details and requirements when ordering. This includes picking the wrong referencing style/format, misrepresenting the academic level (perhaps to lower the price), specifying the wrong paper type etc.

3. Leaving out crucial information. I once had a student wait until just before I sent her the paper to mention that it was mandatory to use 2 specific books.

4. Procrastinating until the last minute to place an order. This one causes disappointments if enhanced by the first point. Competent and experienced writers can produce 25 pages of top-quality work even within a 24hr period. But waiting until the last minute then selecting a writer with limited experience working under pressure is bound to lead to letdowns.

5. Unrealistic expectations. This leads to disappointments in most situations in life anyway. In this business, you should consider yourself lucky (or at least ahead) if you even get what you pay for. Many don't.

6. Believing every marketing message out there. Students should realize that academic writing, although unique in its own way, is still a business much like most others. It is unwise to take some of the claims literally or as absolute truths. The car in front is NOT ALWAYS a Toyota. Red Bull DOES NOT give you wings. Uber might not have the safest rides on the road (and was actually sued for claiming so). These 3 examples demonstrate exaggerations that toe the line on what is allowed in advertising. Virtually all marketing messages are meant to convert prospects into paying customers. They should therefore not be taken at face value, especially in an industry such as this. Some of the claims by essay writing websites go beyond permitted puffery. The scammers inject intentionally misleading information. Some of this material is even passed on as statistical data and third-party content. I have expounded more on this point in another thread.

Since the quote function here limits quotes to 45 words, I'm just going to bold and italicize the statements to which I'm responding that I'm "quoting":


In my experience, these don't really occur very often. More often, (again, just in my own experience), when customers provide incorrect details, it's more often by shortening the length of the assignment to reduce costs. If a project is assigned as "10-15 pages," that means the professor is expecting the amount of depth and detail allowed by a project of that length and not only the depth and detail allowed by a project half that length. I don't know why professors do this, but when they provide detailed descriptions and rubric of what's expected in the project in conjunction with the instructions to submit a project of between 5 and 8 pages, it's often the upper limit that's required just to do everything demanded for the project. That makes my job harder, but usually won't affect your outcome, especially if you order the full 8 pages; but if the assignment is for 8 pages and you tell me "4 pages," that's basically asking for a bad outcome even if I write you the best project possible in those 4 pages.


That happens a lot. A few weeks ago, I mentioned one instance where the client emailed me on the due date (and as I was actually in the process of sending her completed project) to tell me that the topic choice -- the specific disease selected for a Nursing project -- required the professor's approval. Another crucial piece of information that this particular client (and others have sometimes) left out was that she had already submitted previous projects to the same professor before she decided to use my services. If she'd have let me know that, I'd have asked to see her writing first, so that I could provide something roughly similar in writing level. Depending on how you choose to use our work (which is entirely your business), this omission could, potentially, cause you a lot of problems on your end and there's absolutely nothing we can do to help you when you send us a frantic email a week after we deliver a perfect project with "Urgent Help Needed!!" in the email subject field because your professor wants to see you to discuss the tremendous difference between your last two projects. If you just clue me in initially, I can help you avoid that problem in the first place.

Another piece of crucial information that customers often fail to share is that the topic they give me is only one topic on a long list of possible topics or (even worse) a totally original topic thought up by the customer rather than an assigned topic. Sometimes, this doesn't matter; but other times, it matters a lot. If you're hiring a writer, you should always leave any permissible choices to whomever is actually writing the project. There's no advantage to picking the topic if you're not going to be doing the writing, simply because your writer might be able to do a much better job for you on one of the other topics on the list. Similarly, when it's a totally original topic, you should let your writer help you come up with a topic, partly because we're very experienced at shaping topic proposals to the availability of high-quality sources. If you just propose a topic that "sounds interesting" to you, it might make it more difficult for your writer to satisfy the professor's expectations. As a general rule, you should present your writer with everything in the assignment but nothing more than whatever's actually in the assignment, and certainly, nothing less. Whenever possible, just let your writer make any and all decisions that your professor intends to allow you to make as the student.


Agreed. The customers who get burned the worst are those who don't even start looking for help until they need a big project due in a few days. At best, if you already have a good trustworthy writer, waiting until the last minute always increases the price of a project substantially. At worst, if you don't already have a good trustworthy writer, you're taking a big risk instead of at least limiting your risk by trying out any new writer with a shorter project, first.


I'd only agree with this to the extent you don't already know how good your writer is. Once you've previously received good work from a writer, your expectation of receiving exactly what you pay for in the form of work of similar quality on future projects is probably not unrealistic at all. If you're just going by what any writing service represents on its website, always try to test out that service with a smaller project to limit your risk, precisely because many of them absolutely do not provide work that is even remotely consistent with the representations and promises on their websites.

My responses on the other issues are similar to that of @FreelanceWriter so I won't reiterate. However, I do have comments on:


I've experienced some clients do this exact thing to get a lower price. I've had a few request a project at the undergrad level when it was really Masters or PhD. Thankfully, that doesn't happen often, but it does happen. Then they are upset when I tell them it will cost more to have me revise the order. In the long run, trying to save a few bucks ends up costing more. It's best to give everything upfront and be honest about what they need. If the price exceeds their budget, they can always get fewer pages/words and work on the rest themselves. Sometimes getting the ball rolling helps them complete the rest.

Then, of course, there are those who omit what they call "minor" details on purpose hoping that will be enough to get a free revision. I don't fall for it. I am careful to follow all instructions from what is expected in the paper to the citation style, academic level, etc. I do make mistakes sometimes and correct those quickly at no cost. But for those trying to get some free work after they've received feedback, those tactics don't work on me. ;)

There are 2 different sets of students that use academic writing services. These are the ENL and ESL students. The native speakers are disappointed in a writing service for one reason and the ESL students are disappointed for a different reason. I believe it is important to differentiate between the two when it comes to the reasons for their disappointments.

For the ENL students, they are disappointed because the writer that they hire is incompetent when it comes to dealing with the assigned task. These students are hoodwinked by the company because their tendency is to trust the publicity the company assigns to the writer ( ex. We are assigning you our first class writer who has completed over 500 papers on this topic ) only to find out later on that the writer is not experienced in writing about the topic.

ESL students tend to get disappointed because of language frustrations. They fail to understand the instructions that the professor provided for the paper so they cannot understand the completed paper that the competent writer delivers the paper. They are jittery because they are unsure of what the paper says about the assignment and in the process, they become uncertain regarding the way the writer approached the paper development and completion.

From my experience, the reasons above are the most common causes of disappointed students when it comes to the academic research process.

I'll add another: turning in a model essay for credit and then dealing with accusations of cheating because the most recent essay a student turned in obviously couldn't possibly have been written by the same person who wrote the previous essays submitted by that student to the same professor. If a customer chooses to submit a model essay for academic credit, that's totally out of our control; but to submit it to a professor who has already read other essays written by the student is just dopey unless the student happens to be a great writer. One such client recently contacted me with a frantic request for help in an email with "EMERGENCY" in the subject field. He'd asked me to do my "best" and shoot for an A, which is exactly what I did. Apparently, he submitted it for credit and it was plainly obvious to his professor that he couldn't have written it, based on his previous projects in the same class. What clients choose to do with my projects after they receive them from me is entirely their business, but submitting work written by a professional writer to the same professor who knows you as a C-level writer isn't a smart thing to do. If you do something that silly, there's really nothing we can do to help you after the fact. At least tell your writer to give you something more realistic for your writing ability if that's how you plan to use the product. A good writer can tone down his writing to almost any level if that's what you want.

I notice this to be quite true as well. I've encountered a few ESL clients who struggle quite a lot when it comes to understanding fully the text provided to them. Honestly, I found it quite frustrating to have to deal with numerous clamor from these clients because they've consistently thought the work wasn't what was being asked for by the professor regardless of the outcome. While these things happen, writers constantly try to ensure that they have the upper-hand just to not run out of work.

Based on what I have experienced, the students, regardless of their English abilities, find themselves disappointed for one reason alone, they do not get the service they paid for. Just as in any situation, the students expect to get their monies worth when it comes to their order. They pay not only for service, but for the quality of work. The quality must be commensurate to the price paid. Understand that the students come to the writing service or the writer because they are desperate to get a good grade. So when they get a mediocre paper, of course they will be disappointed and angry. I am not saying that the reasons presented in the thread are false. What I am saying is that there is a bottom-line reason for the disappointment and it has to do with unfulfilled expectations and disappointment when it comes to their grade.