K
irk* anxiously found himself staring at the slip of paper with an e-mail that a friend of a friend had written out. The deal was that if you sent a phone number to that e-mail, someone would call back asking a “yes” or “no” question. He wasn’t waiting long before his cell started to ring. His caller display flashed a random Google Voice phone number — the number was hiding where the call was coming from. The first thing the voice on the other end asked was if Kirk was sure about his decision. Caught off guard, Kirk said yes but spoke hesitantly. For all he knew, this was a set-up, but he quickly realized that the voice on the other end just wanted to cut to the chase. A course syllabus, the essay criteria, a mark range, any required sources and, most importantly, how much time the job would take. A negotiated amount of payment was then wired to a bank account connected to the e-mail and the call was over. Kirk, a fourth-year Western Computer Science student at the time, had ventured into uncharted territory and had just hired a ghostwriter to write a paper for him. A week later, an untitled essay arrived in his inbox with a small note. It dared Kirk to verify for himself that the work wasn’t stolen from someone else. The e-mail ended with the phrase, “Find me again.” It was like a calling card equivalent to a variety store saying, “Thank you, come again.” Without exchanging a single name, a paper with sources, footnotes and a thesis was now Kirk’s — and he hadn’t written a thing. With a fistful of red Mackenzie Kings, Kirk had slipped into the world of the faceless scribes who could write about almost anything. Today, professors have anti-plagiarism software like Turnitin in their arsenal, making it relatively easy to ferret out cheaters. But that system fails to pick off students who hire a “ghost” — a custom essay-writer, for the uninitiated. Sam*, a retired ghost, claims that after three and a half years and 200 essays, he’s never been caught. Speaking to The Gazette under the condition of anonymity, the former Western student said he rarely dealt directly with anyone and probably walked right past his Western
clients in between classes. “I did the legwork, I did the research for it. So, no system ever gets tipped off,” he said. The scope of what a ghost could be hired to do ranged from something as simple as a creative writing piece or as dense as a research paper outlining the Syrian geopolitical crisis. Sam also takes pride in claiming that the majority of his clients were not slackers, and could easily do the work for themselves. “For [my clients], it’s a lack of time, more than anything. Most of [them] weren’t stupid. Some were, but a lot of them were just looking for breathing room,” he said. “They were looking for more time to focus on things they saw as more important.” Sam’s rates were primarily based on estimated research, essay length and how soon the client needed it to be done. An average term paper could cost from $100 to $250, but if the due date was soon or if the research was difficult, that price would climb. Sam also explained that not every negotiation was as quick as Kirk’s, and often required multiple consultations and negotiations. “It’s my reputation on the line, so there were no half-measures,” Sam said, adding that he could not “half-ass” it. “I had to use my whole ass because my clientele would grow through word of mouth. So if people were happy with their marks, they’d find me again and hopefully recommend me.” During his time at Western, Sam claimed that finding clients was hardly a challenge, despite his unorthodox marketing. Evidently it worked, since some syllabi that clients sent him came from other campuses too. Last week, the CBC released a survey of 54 universities that found more than 7,000 students were disciplined for some form of cheating in the 2011–12 academic year. But considering the relative ease with which a student could enlist a ghost, those numbers could be greatly understated. John Doerksen, vice-provost academic programs and students at Western, said that recruiting a ghost is academically fraudulent because the name on the title page isn’t who wrote it. As far as Doerksen knows, the issue is not rampant at Western. But, in his opinion,
students resorting to these services do so at a disservice to themselves — it doesn’t matter if they get caught. “What universities offer is learning and an increase in knowledge and ability. I think that any action that decreases that learning opportunity is categorically wrong, and essay mills that provide that service decrease the learning outcomes for students […] it’s shortsighted,” he said. Amanda*, a fourth-year Medical Science student, explained getting her essay written by a ghost was just one small aspect of her academic career. In her opinion, the increasing weight of pressures facing students today are painting more and more of them into smaller corners. “If it’s a prerequisite for something but it’s not important to you, you want to use less energy for it to focus on courses that are way more important and that you need,” Amanda said. “It’s nothing I’m proud of, but I just had to get it done. I had no time — I just want to graduate,” she said. “I just took care of one small aspect of my life — I still had lab reports, studying, exams and presentations to do,” Amanda said. Kirk, now graduated, said sometimes classes are added to a curriculum arbitrarily. In his view, for the courses where he hired a ghost, they were courses he would never need in his career and that he, in fact, felt cheated by the school. “I worked hard in everything else. I got all the credits that supposedly make me a computer scientist but then I have to take these random credits because I didn’t meet some arbitrary number? That to me is fraud — [the school] just wants more money […] I had to save my time,” he explained. However, Doerksen said that those reasons do not cut it. “Time management is one of those critical life skills. I imagine that many reasons could be brought forward […] but in many cases, students can go talk to their professors or their academic counsellors if there’s a basis for academic accommodation,” he explained. “We have on campus the writing support >> see GHOST pg.2