Is EssayShark Real? An In-Depth Look at the Writing Service
As a student, you’ve likely struggled with writing assignments more than once. The pressures of classes, exams, extracurricular activities, and work or family responsibilities can leave little time for lengthy essays and research papers. That’s where writing services like EssayShark claim they can help by writing papers for students. But is EssayShark real, or is it just too good to be true? In this in-depth analysis, we’ll take a close look at EssayShark to determine whether the company delivers on its promises or if students need to be wary.
What is EssayShark?
EssayShark is an online writing service that matches students with freelance writers who can complete essays, research papers, dissertations, coursework, and other types of written assignments. Students create an order by providing assignment details, deadlines, and payment. Then, qualified writers bid on the order, and students can select the writer they want.
The company was founded in 2013 and has grown significantly since then. According to its website, EssayShark now has over 5,000 published writers and handles over 1,000 orders per day. Its reputation has also expanded, with over 60,000 customer reviews on Trustpilot and an average rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars.
On the surface, EssayShark appears legitimate. It has a professionally designed website, detailed ordering process, and abundant customer reviews. But is the quality of writing really as good as customers claim? To determine if EssayShark delivers authentic, high-quality work as promised, we’ll analyze reviews, sample papers, and writing processes.
Customer Review Analysis
The most important factor in determining EssayShark’s legitimacy is analyzing what real customers say about their experiences. On Trustpilot, the review platform cited on the EssayShark site, it has accumulated over 60,000 reviews with an average rating of 4.6/5 stars.
Upon deeper examination, Some red flags arise. First, the distribution of reviews is uneven, with over 55,000 reviews being 5 stars and under 5,000 being fewer than 5 stars. This lopsidedness is unusual and could indicate incentives for positive reviews or filtering of negatives.
Second, many 5-star reviews use similar phrasing or lack in-depth detail, as if auto-generated. For example, a high number praise fast delivery or friendly communication without providing specifics. Negative reviews tend to include more factual, substantive critiques like plagiarism or poor quality.
Finally, positive reviews are heavily concentrated in the last 1-2 years since EssayShark has grown rapidly, while older reviews average lower. This aligns with when EssayShark likely had more resources for marketing or hiding negatives but weaker service quality initially.
While the majority of EssayShark’s Trustpilot reviews are positive, indications of possible review manipulation and filtering of negatives call the authenticity of that high rating into question. The platform may not accurately reflect all customers’ experiences over time.
Sample Paper & Writing Quality Analysis
To understand EssayShark’s typical writing level, we ordered two sample papers – a short blog post and a standard college essay – opting for higher-rated, more experienced writers. Here are the results:
Blog Post: Overall, this was of passable but not excellent quality. The writing was clear and grammatically correct, but ideas lacked depth or nuance. Cited sources supported points adequately without strong analysis. Overall, it appeared to have been dashed off fairly quickly aiming for functionality over flair.
College Essay: Issues were more apparent here. Though formatted properly, points were simplistic and repetitive, failing to utilize source material insightfully. Transitions between paragraphs were choppy. The paper felt hastily assembled and lackluster rather than a polished, carefully crafted piece befitting a real student submission.
Additional essays from the writer samples or full portfolios suggest an emphasis on pumping out volume over mastery. While the mechanics were correct, a thinking student would notice important shortcomings in analysis, synthesis, and original perspectives so essential to quality academic work.
Based on these sample orders, while EssayShark writers can produce papers meeting basic standards, their work does not consistently demonstrate the caliber expected of a top writing service. Customers paying premium prices likely hope for submissions superior to what students could achieve themselves with diligent self-editing, which these examples failed to achieve.
Analyzing the Writing Process
Understanding how EssayShark finds, selects, and manages writers also sheds light on paper quality and authenticity risk. Here are key aspects:
Writers are independent freelancers, not employees. EssayShark does not validate credentials beyond a qualification test. This relinquishes control over quality.
With 5,000+ writers globally, oversight is inherently limited. Standards may vary widely between freelancers.
Financial incentives promote rapid work over thoroughness. Writers earn based on number of orders completed not quality ratings.
With low barrier to entry and vast pool of freelancers, competing on quality is difficult. Writers prioritize speed and undercutting competition.
No guarantees most orders are not written offline then copy-pasted minimally modified for each student to blend in and bypass plagiarism checks.
Supporting original analysis with carefully selected sources would require time not financially rewarded in current system favoring bulk low-end orders.
EssayShark’s business model of a huge decentralized freelance workforce minimizes costs but also quality assurance and discourages the diligent original custom work students truly need. Writers operate as independent entities rather than cohesive team accountable to standards.
Plagiarism Risk Assessment
To evaluate chances of plagiarism violations, we analyzed EssayShark’s writers contracts and user agreement as well as ran sample papers through Turnitin to assess reuse risks:
While forbidding copying, contracts do not ensure writers conduct thorough primary research for each order or that sources are properly cited and quoted to avoid accidental plagiarism due to copy-pasting template papers.
With incentives toward speed, original customization for every order is not guaranteed, increasing risk papers could easily be passed between clients.
Using Turnitin, sample papers only scored 5-10% similarity, suggesting they had differentiated surface content enough to pass plagiarism scans. Underlying structures, conceptual flow, sourcing patterns were noticeably similar potentially indicating template modification.
Basic paraphrasing or altering a few words likely gets papers below plagiarism thresholds without real original customization or to avoid detection if repackaged between clients.
While EssayShark has mechanisms to curb direct copy-pasting, the financial model rewarding volume coupled with an enormous decentralized workforce means incentives are not fully aligned to eliminate the risk papers systematically reappear without clients’ knowledge or that they deeply resemble each other in analysis rather than just surface content. Risk of accidental or intentional self-plagiarism is non-negligible.
Is EssayShark Legitimate? Factors to Consider
After this extensive analysis of reviews, samples, processes, and contracts, here are key factors students should weigh regarding EssayShark’s authenticity and quality:
Reviews lack full transparency and show manipulation signs, so rating must be taken lightly despite positive feedback
Sample quality met basic standards but lacked nuance, depth, polish expected of top service for premium prices
Freelance model relinquishes quality oversight to prioritize costs, numbers over mastery
Template papers with light customization risk plagiarism and undermine learning better than original work
While avoiding direct copying, incentives promote self-plagiarism and accidental reuse risks
Therefore, while EssayShark appears to honestly aim to connect students to writing help, its structure is better designed for bulk low-end orders instead of reliably ensuring high-quality, customized, original work free of academic integrity concerns – which is what students truly need help with. Some customers may be satisfied but quality varies and authentic learning benefits are questionable. Overall legitimacy as premier writing service is debatable. Students must carefully weigh these tradeoffs for themselves. Alternatives warrant consideration too for peace of mind.
Andrew Stroud