How Twitter Hooks Up Students With Ghostwriters

It used to be that if students wanted someone to write an essay for them, they had to track someone down themselves. But these days an overwhelmed or desperate student can unintentionally summon legions of eager essay ghostwriters by merely venting frustration on Twitter.

The magic words are not “open sesame” but some combination of “pay,” “write,” and “essay.” Take the Twitter user Olli Brackstone, who wrote, “I would literally pay someone to write my essay,” and received about two dozen responses — many within hours of posting the tweet — angling to do the job.

The Academic Writing Expert wrote, “Hmu Olli.” (“HMU” is internet shorthand for “hit me up,” which itself is slang for “contact me.”)

Academic Papers piped in: “Kindly follow us and DM for quality online writing services.” Academic Whiz closed out the pack with: “Kindly DM us for non-plagiarized quality paper; essay.” (“DM” means “send a direct message,” which is a type of private conversation on Twitter.)

An informal audit of many of those accounts reveals they have followers ranging from the single digits to the thousands. They offer “Plagiarism free” services and “24/7” availability. The pattern is replicated over and over again on Twitter, where people grousing about their course load may find themselves inundated with attention they didn’t ask for and a service they may not actually want.

Just ask this user, who mused that it would be great if someone would write an essay due in four hours, but then later regretted it: “I knowww I had to mute it I forgot all these people pop up at any tweet with the word ess*y in it.”

What the accounts offer, though, vary widely. One might ask a troubled student how long the paper needs to be and when it’s due.

Or they might just tweet a link to a website that offers writing services.

Some of those accounts even seem to be aware of the avalanche of responses that are triggered by someone appearing to offer money for a paid essay.

Neither the original poster nor YourEssayGuy returned a request for comment from The Chronicle. In fact, none of the 10 people who tweeted messages about paying someone to write an essay responded to requests for comment.

One of the more aggressive accounts is “AlexWr1ter,” who tweets often at people who post the words “paper,” “assignment,” or “essay.” The pitch is always the same: “Get it done on time starting at $5 per page. No plagiarism. Always. I am available 24/7. wr1ter.com/request. *Retweet to save a life!*” The avatar is an image of a bespectacled writer smoking a pipe in front of a typewriter — which, for what it’s worth, is a stock image available for purchase — that seems to suggest intellectual expertise.

More often than not, people ignore the account, but sometimes they chide it for the offer to ghostwrite. One user, who appears to be an instructor, tweeted, “I’m learning about so many inspirational people while grading research papers. Sometimes being a teacher is the best.” This is almost certainly a person who doesn’t need a ghostwriter, but the account chimed in with its usual pitch anyway.

She shot back: “Pretty sure that’s not saving lives, but taking away an opportunity to learn and grow. That’s a thanks, but no thanks.”

Even this reporter was able to solicit a response from the account with this tweet: “I periodically have a nightmare that I have to write an essay due the next day, but I have never started the assignment. Who would have thought I would still be worrying about papers after I left college?”

I took pains to avoid saying I was actively writing an essay, but the AlexWr1ter account was undeterred. That response, however, has since been deleted.

Later, in an emailed response from that account, Alex Turner said the post mentioned having a hard time with papers, and he thought the author might have needed some help.

“I believe that the more people I contact — the better,” he wrote.

He said the work on Twitter requires long hours, often without sleep, because he is trying to reach people who have little to no interest in speaking.

“For now, it is hard to be the only person who is not a bot or a scammer in this industry,” he wrote. “I came here offering my extensive knowledge to teach people how to write perfect papers, but none of that matters in the age of globalization.”

He also pushed back against people who had raised complaints, saying that they are “not valid” and that his critics are trying to make themselves feel better by denigrating him.

Casey Fiesler, an assistant professor in the department of information science at the University of Colorado at Boulder, was also contacted by the account, and she was quick to challenge it.

She later told The Chronicle she found it amusing that the account promised “no plagiarism” as part of its pitch. It wasn’t, she said, “about being ethical; it’s about not being caught.” She added that if a paper costs only $5, she would hope it “would really suck.”

“But I honestly don’t know what methods we could use as professors to watch out for this,” she said. “Maybe we should start following our students on Twitter and undercut the competition.”

Chris Quintana is a breaking-news reporter. Follow him on Twitter @cquintanadc or email him at chris.quintana@chronicle.com.