Advice Over Disagreement Regarding Grade of Essay Sought

I am a freelance writer and I am facing a disagreement with a company I work for about the grade of work submitted. I think it's of the standard ordered (and in keeping with previous pieces of that standard from which I have had no issues with) however they are requesting further changes which I don't think are justified. I think it's a case of they want to keep the client happy rather than the researcher!

I wondered if anyone else has had a similar situation and if so what happened?

Also if there are any academic writers out there that fancy independently grading a piece of work please let me know I'd be really grateful.

Hi,

You don't mention which company that you work for, but if you'd like to email it over to me, I can have it graded by a team of PhD quality controllers...? It would put your mind at rest, at least.

Send it over to pr{at}uk essays minus the brackets.

Best,
PeterParker

many thanks, i have emailed it over to you.

hmm it would seem my relief was a little short-sighted given that on further investigation it doesn't really matter which company i'm working for since it's a multitude of companies with the same people. ah well worth a try, i can only live in hope for a fair assessment and thankfully i'm an optimist.

Hold on, the OP did not make it clear if it is the client who is requesting for the improvements in the paper or if the company is the one requesting for the changes.

Those are two different scenarios that have two different outcomes. If the student is the one requesting for the changes, and there has yet to be evidence presented to support this hypothesis, then the writer should go ahead and deliver the requested changes. After all, the client is always right.

However, if it is the company that is requesting the changes then it is more than likely that the company is merely looking for a reason or reasons to hit the writer with unreasonable fines.

The company might be paying out too much to this writer, as far as their accounting department is concerned, so they need to lower his salary as best as they can for the month.

As far as I am concerned, the writer should only make justifiable changes based on the client request.

If it is company requested, then he should fight hard to not have to make changes for which he can be fined so he can collect his salary in full for this order.

Hmmm, I'd be leery of the "free" offer to grade it. At any rate, as @WriteReview said, you didn't specify who is requesting changes and what those changes are. Regardless of where the request comes from, the changes must be reasonable or they should be considered additional work. If the request is from the company, why? What made them think the customer will want the changes? If you've completed similar projects without issue, then there is no reason for the company to think this one is different.

If it's a matter of a possible error or two in the paper (it happens; we're human), then fix it quickly. If it's a request from the customer, the customer still has to explain why he/she is requesting the changes. If it is not an intentional error on your end, then they all need to get off the $$ and pay for your time.

As for the "grade," the company is not one to determine a grade. The only exception would be if the paper was so horrible that it was obvious it wouldn't pass. Either way, no one can (or should) guarantee a grade for anyone. What you should do: provide your best work every time; don't skimp; follow all instructions the customer provides; check and recheck. To say you will get an A is the same as saying I can read your professor's mind. It's unrealistic and dishonest to promise a grade. What I see as A work, someone else might see a B work. It all comes down to individual perceptions, ideals, and (yes, I'm being serious) the mood the grader is in at that given moment.

I'm sorry, but this is absolutely ridiculous. A writer (or essay company) is totally responsible for correctly satisfying whatever specifications and instructions are provided for the order at the time it's ordered, no more and no less. Obviously, if the writer makes a mistake following those specs and/or instructions, the client is due a free revision ASAP. Just as obviously, the writer isn't responsible for revising a project for any of the utterly ridiculous reasons that anybody who's been in this business for more than 5 minutes knows some clients might think is a justified revision request, and neither writers nor any essay companies provide free revisions in those situations.

If you were actually to adopt the mantra that "the client is always right," you'd be doing free revisions for clients who received exactly what they ordered and then say "Hi. My professor says he would like me to write about a different topic than the one I ordered from you because it's too close to my friend's topic, so I'd like you to just write me something on another topic instead" or "OK, so the next part of this assignment is to incorporate two readings from my class into the essay that I ordered, so I'm sending the readings and please revise it for me for next Monday" or "I'm sorry, but it looks like I sent you the wrong prompt for my essay...sorry about that, but this is the right one, so please change the essay for me by Friday" and other such nonsense. I'm not making those examples up, either, because I've actually encountered variations of all of them.

I'm a freelance writer and mostly work with clients I manage myself. When these instances occur, I try to keep my eye on what's fair to everyone. And in the end, what is fair can only be determined by studying the facts of the matter, as opposed to the emotions.

To this end, I don't accept comments such as "this is not of a high standard." Words like "quality" and "standard" are interpreted in very many ways -- they are rarely useful when it comes to conflicts such as this one.

Instead, I ask for specifics. What indicates that the quality of this work is not high enough? A lack of sophisticated vocabulary? An absence of analysis in a situation that calls for analysis? A lack of a cohesive structure for the paper?

That's where I would begin: by asking the company to supply some specifics, as opposed to generalities. Then I would try to approach the work you did with those comments in mind and see what there is to be seen.

I hope that's helpful!

I wouldn't suggest entertaining even this conversation because it suggests that a discussion of the client's totally subjective opinion about any of that stuff after the fact is appropriate. Instead, I just make sure to ask what quality, language, and analytical level is expected in advance and I provide exactly what they request in all of those respects. Legitimate writers will always fix any outright (objective) mistakes or omissions ASAP and without argument or lengthy discussion; but subjective opinions of this type are a totally different matter. (Of course, none of that necessarily applies if clients are trying to save money by taking the risk of dealing with unproven, inexperienced, or unqualified writers whose work may very well turn out to be fairly considered deficient for myriad reasons.)

Furthermore, while there certainly are some exceptions, remember that in most cases, clients (especially undergraduates) order these projects from us, in the first place, precisely because they can't do them on their own; so they're just not qualified to make subjective criticisms of the work produced by any highly-experienced writer with advanced degrees and thousands of similar projects already under his or her belt. In any case, the appropriate time to discuss expectations about all of that stuff is always during the ordering process and never after the fact.

Actually, the company can also request that the writer revise the essay based on their need to resell the paper. It is common knowledge that writing companies, although they indicate a an intellectual transfer of rights to the client upon submission of the paper, try to put one over the writer by asking for a full, free revision, or the writing of a totally new paper, based on a new grade assessment, for free. They want the writer to do the work twice and only get paid once. I have seen it happen before, I have experienced it as well in the past. I have a feeling that the writer was right to fight the company on this order. If the writer had a grade problem with clients before, then it should have previously come up. No complaints means the writer was doing his job properly. So this is all on the company and their desire to fleece money out of unsuspecting writers.

While my clients own the copyright to any work that I provide, I have never encountered the TOS of a single essay company (including the one company for which you have repeatedly vouched since joining this forum) that do not expressly retain copyright and expressly prohibit any submission of their work to any academic institution for credit. In fact, any complaint by a customer about an unsatisfactory "grade" would immediately and very obviously violate several such TOS provisions.