This is so weird. I was reading a forum this day about site that did essay writings. The forum was complained that essay sites were scams and had unprofessional writers with lesser grammar and no knowledge of true English writing capabilities. I read so much of it that I believe in my heart that it has permanently afflicted my writing ability and compositional style.
Whew. It’s pretty damn hard to write incorrectly. But seriously, after reading so many posts by a site owner defending his business in broken English, after having to mentally extract the meaning from the words, it got to me. I mean, you could understand the meaning, but the words were just wrong. Even now, I feel a little tainted. Or at least, I feel suspicious of what I’m writing.
I feel like I need to write more to get my normal thoughts flowing again instead of thinking in “foreign English”. So, this whole experience made me realize just how identifiable native English is. Even more so, how identifiable your personal writing style is. I’m shocked to think that someone would actually turn to a writing service to create an essay or report for school work. Do people really think they’re fooling anyone?
Maybe I’m just a lucky person who likes writing, but I’m not really an academic. In high school, I had a term paper that was due before Christmas break. I turned it in on the second-to-last day of school. I almost failed. Seeing the poor quality of work being created by these writing services, for a brief moment, I thought, maybe I should sign up to freelance for one. Nah… If the topic doesn’t interest me, I’d never get anywhere with it. Plus, I don’t actually have the proper knowledge of the structure of an academic paper.
I have also heard of – and briefly considered joining – the freelance writing services for reviews/articles/blog posts/etc for the Internet. It doesn’t pay all that well, and it seems like you’re constantly producing vapid content, but it could be a small income. As long as you know how to repeat keywords, I guess. I’ve been getting better at spotting canned reviews and comments lately, so that industry is in need of improvement, too.
And that would possibly be my downfall. I would care too much. I would have to make every fake review or comment unique and look as authentic as possible, which would then just take too much time and cost me money. Sadly, it’s about volume. I’ve seen it over and over in many different professions. Even when I tried freelance remote computer assistance, the people that succeeded were the ones who could identify quick calls, multi-task multiple calls at once, and keep the churn going. Meanwhile, I accepted a job from “an elder” who insisted on telephone support instead of chat, and then spent an hour showing him how to do email. I didn’t make hardly anything from that call, but I’m sure I had a stronger impact. I quit shortly after.
Comments are closed.