Can Professors Know if Students Use Edubirdie?
As more students turn to essay writing services like Edubirdie to complete their assignments, professors are becoming increasingly aware of this trend and looking for ways to identify papers that were written by these companies rather than the student. While it may not always be obvious at first glance, there are subtle signs that can tip off instructors that a paper was not entirely written by the student. With experience grading papers, attentive professors have learned to spot these red flags.
One of the biggest signs is an unusual writing style that does not match the student’s previous work. Most professors get to know their students’ writing abilities and styles over the course of a semester through various shorter assignments. A fully-completed paper suddenly written at a much higher level than normal work can raise suspicions. Papers from essay mills also tend to have a very generic, one-size-fits-all academic writing voice that lacks the individual student’s personality. Run-on sentences, awkward phrasing, and improper formatting are other signs of papers written by non-native English writers at overseas companies.
While students may assume that professors do not have time to thoroughly research every paper, new advanced plagiarism detection tools and services are making it much easier for instructors to identify papers written by commercial essay mills. Most learning management systems like Blackboard now integrate robust plagiarism scanners that can find even rewritten instances of plagiarism. These tools search paper content against databases of academic work as well as files accessible online. A paper containing passages matching content from Edubirdie example papers is a dead giveaway. Some universities are even subscribing to databases exclusively of known paper- mill content to strengthen detection.
Like law enforcement using undercover operations, some universities have also directly ordered papers anonymously from sites to analyze the content. By reviewing example papers provided by certain companies, academics can become familiar with their writing styles, patterns of errors, and common sources referenced to more easily identify student papers matching this format. Simply searching a few quoted phrases from a questionable paper within an essay mill database can be all that is needed for confirmation. Some proactive faculty may even check sites’ paper examples as part of their research to preemptively identify possible issues before they arise.
Instructors can also look for other suspicious signs like a student submitting a paper too close to the deadline, major revisions of a paper making large improvements within a short time span, or texts showing overly broad and vague research rather than focused on the specific assignment. Large batches of students submitting similar papers on the same topic from the same service is another clear indicator of contract cheating that many essay shops produce for entire classes at requests from just a few students looking to share work. Papers with an unusual number of high quality references or relied heavily on very recent sources also raise concerns that commercial databases may have been utilized rather than independent research.
Interviewing or conferencing with students about their papers is another way that knowledgeable professors attempt to catch contract cheating. Students relying on essay mill work will often struggle to comprehensively discuss key aspects of their papers if questioned. Generalized or fabricated responses when answering questions about methodology, sources, or their analysis can reveal a lack of genuine understanding of the content. Slip-ups like incorrectly citing a source in person that was listed properly in their paper is another dead giveaway. Professors experienced in academia have also learned the red flags of students employing tactics to avoid substantively engaging with their assignments.
Overall, while it may not always be absolute certain if a specific paper was generated by an essay writing service, astute faculty have an array of techniques and warning signs to reasonably ascertain the likelihood. Thecombination of analytical plagiarism software, first-hand review of company paper samples, and gut assessment of a student’s knowledge during conferences allows professors to connect the dots. While students assume they are anonymously getting one over on their instructors, experienced academics have the accumulated wisdom to see through most attempts at contract cheating. With enough care and effort, many professors can identify Edubirdie papers and other forms of outsourced academic work submitted to their classes.