Most of us that surf the internet a lot have definitely come across sites that offer freelance writers an opportunity to write and get paid. One thinks what could be better than sitting at home, typing away at the computer and getting a handsome amount of cash within a month? No boss to boss you around 24/7, no stringent routine to follow. Just sit back and take orders at your will. Especially for those who like to blog or write in their journals, this is the best opportunity. Such would be a dream job which would not only expand one's knowledge on various topics but also hone one's writing skills, not to mention the money and that added edge in your CV. What's the harm in giving it a shot? Sadly, most of us have rather bumped into scam sites and not the genuine ones that offer real writing jobs and pay, thus, losing hope in online writing jobs altogether.
I, too, never thought online writing jobs were real. I registered on various such sites as a kid just for the heck of it. Never really getting a positive response, I realized they were all scams. Most of them asked me to pay a small fee for registration on their site and I wondered what kind of a job would it be where you have to pay rather than the other way around. Academia-research was one of those sites that I had signed up for. I saw their ad on some random writing site. They, however, replied to my application giving me an essay topic to write on to pass the test for their membership. Now, I am not promoting this site, I am merely sharing my experience. Doubting the authenticity of this site, I, nevertheless, took the test. What's the harm in writing another nice essay? To my surprise, shortly thereafter, they sent me a confirmation of my membership as a writer on their site.
Not trusting it still, I casually placed bids on a couple of orders and signed out without a backward glance. After a few days, I started to receive weird emails telling me to finish order #blabla within 5 hours, saying I was late. Haha, I have to say I was surprised. I still thought this was some trick to make me visit their scam site. I didn't pay any attention. I was caught off guard when I got a phone call that night from a really weird number. I googled the country code right after the call and it turned out that the caller was from Russia. I don't know how Academia Research claims to be based in USA when their customer service is in Russia. Oh well. Have to say that was slightly scary!
Anywho, I burnt the midnight oil and quite efficiently wrote a great research proposal on something related to "Education for Dyslexic Students". That is also when I learned about different writing styles such as APA, MLA, Harvard in addition to how to write bibliography according to these different formats. It's always a great feeling when you have successfully completed a task that once looked so hard and I felt ecstatic when my first assignment finished at 3 in the morning while everyone else was sleeping. The funny thing was this wasn't my assignment and I had sacrificed my sleep for someone who was probably snoring in their bed. I laughed to myself, "their loss"! I was happier about completing such a high level assignment on my own more than I was concerned about getting paid, which I doubted anyway. Within a week, I found $20 in my Paypal account though. Haha.
So, I wrote for them for a year. I wrote many assignments, learned different writing formats, researched and put together dissertations on topics ranging from Disaster Management Research Proposals to weird Ecological Studies. I learned a great deal. It felt glad to be employed somewhere while I was still going to school. Funniest moments were always when I would finally upload the assignment with a note to my client, "Dear customer, I have uploaded the assignment. If there are any changes you want in it, let me know. I have done bla bla bla and also covered the bla bla bla. Kind Regards." Even funnier was that, I, who had hardly finished A'levels then and had no clue about these technical subjects, was being assigned high level Masters dissertations and research proposals for clients who were undergraduate, graduate and probably post graduate students! Height of hilarity. It made me sure I would never take help from Masterpapers.com.
Okay, before this post gets too long, I will tell you a little about the company Academia-Research itself and how I got kicked out of their membership. In short, they terminated my account one random day when I had just submitted around 5 projects simultaneously and kind of botched up the bibliography in one while wrote little less than requested for another. I got a list of consecutive warnings in my email the next morning and an email immediately after them stating the termination of my account. Quite honestly, two of the warnings were not even related to my orders! Those were someone else's. I was not to contact them back, they stated, as I was in their block list now. So that was the end of me and Academia-Research.
I should also tell you why I was not SO let down when they did not pay me for those last 5 orders that I had successfully completed. As much as I liked writing such high level dissertations for my customers on so many different challenging topics, a part of me always pricked my conscience for being party to a cheating business. After all, the customers that ask you to write for them are students who pretend in front of their professors to have written the assignments on their own that in fact you have written for them in exchange for money. I don't regret the assignments I wrote, I regretted helping someone cheat. Most people disagree with me on this. But then again everyone has their own morals. At that time, I thought this was religiously wrong.
Anyway, Academia-Research, as their terms and conditions state, should have requested me to revise my assignments and fined me rather than terminated my account altogether. That is the only bitter experience I have had with this site unlike many other people who complain about their dishonesty in payment of orders. Now, a little about this site. To my knowledge and experience, Academia-research is definitely not one of those scam sites that ask you for money to register so you can bid on orders and get paid. It is totally free. Although, it is not quite trustworthy where payment for completed orders is concerned as I have heard from some writers and lastly it can terminate your account anytime while it hasn't paid for your completed orders. Also, there are a lot of English grammatical mistakes on the website, which makes me wonder if it is based in the USA as they claim or some non-English speaking country. I have also come to find that they are affiliated with Masterpapers.com though they don't want to reveal that to their writers. Masterpapers is where customers place their orders. They take a lot more money from the customers than they pay the writers but that should not be a problem because they still pay a heavy amount to their writers as compared to many other writing sites I've come across. That makes me think they really loot a customer for an assignment. And for what quality!
The other bitter experience I had with Academia Research was when I became a content writer for them. I will write another post for that. This was just a personal experience I wanted to share about my freelance writing experience online. If you have any similar experiences or any views whatsoever to share, comment below. Will be appreciated. :)
Adieu.
In our patriarchal society, it is considered a man’s sole prerogative, even fallaciously perceived as a decree of the Divine Law, to exercise unchecked economic and political tyranny over his female subordinates. Such belief systems have perpetuated gender disparities in all spheres of our society where the central relationship between man and woman essentially bases on the male’s exploitation of the female’s physical vulnerabilities. With the growth of globalization in recent decades, even though Pakistan has significantly transformed in political, social, economic and technological spheres, the appalling practice of violence against women has not deterred. As women have ventured out of their homes to acquire education, employment, and other needs, they are exposed to greater forms of oppression and brutality than just domestic violence, stalking, cyber bullying or emotional abuse. They have become prime subjects to human trafficking, workplace violence, sexual assaults, and most importantly, acid attacks and defacing. And for what crime?
