Mell Math is one of the most troublesome subjects for many students. Any teacher stands for the notion that every student must do homework by themselves completely, this is the entire meaning of homework. However, the world is not perfect, and many students still want to pay someone to do math homework.
Supply and demand
If there is a demand, there must be a supply as well. One can find a lone copywriter offering solving math problems, or a whole site devoted to writing homework. This market could not manage to stay out of academic attention, so:
- The first mention of homework services in media was in 2006;
- 20,000 students used homework writing services in Great Britain according to 2017 data;
- 31,000,000 students used homework writing services in the whole world according to 2018 data.
Of course, these statistics cover the entire range of disciplines, not focusing on mathematics as a specific one. There are no mathematics-specific statistics collected by anyone. A further foray into the world of contract cheating was conducted in the 2010s. Of particular note are the two Australian surveys. One of these surveys subdivided the respondent students into several groups and collected data on each; it turned out that the group that demanded paid workforce for their homework was international students. The other survey produced very similar data, confirming the popularity of paid homework writing services among international students. Notions were voiced that the reason for this is the difficulty encountered by students that have to learn in a language they don’t have a complete grasp of.
Writing other people’s homework is often seen as an antisocial activity by many teachers and educators, so, naturally, attempts to stop these activities were made. The cheaper kind of paid homework, the standard answers to standard problems, are easily detectable by plagiarism checking software, but there are also writers who produce original content. Particularly for math, detection of contract cheating becomes even more problematic because math homework typically contain very few texst and it’s impossible to subject them to writing style analysis or similar techniques. Therefore, a crackdown on homework writing services is still impossible, not only due to technical reasons but also to some legal ones, such as:
- It takes action by the state to ban homework writing services, schools alone can’t do it;
- Not all subjects and disciplines can be effectively screened;
- Punishments for caught students generally aren’t the problem, detecting contract cheating is.
Perspectives of homework writing
All this means that this business will not be shut down by anyone in the foreseeable future. There are no methods that can quickly and effectively end the demand for homework writing services. Very few countries are so concerned about it that they take legal action. Even if legal action is taken, it still does nothing to help find contract cheating, it is hard to find.
However, the attention to work quality is rising, and one of the reasons for that is the typically low quality of many homework writers that many teachers view as a telltale sign of contract cheating. Most writing services are now undertaking measures to raise the bar regarding quality.
Types of homework writing services
The market for homework writing is not uniform and bland. Sites offering these services have differing profiles, each service has its unique characteristics. There are cheap services, urgent services, specialist services, etc.
A cheap service attracts both struggling writers and financially limited clients. An urgent service offers quick writing; usually, a client who wants their homework done pronto, in a matter of hours, chooses these kinds of services. Speed costs money, of course, and these services tend to be more expensive than the cheap ones.