Monday, 9 December 2013

Custom Writing Services: Market Overview

Market identification
Custom writing services market is a sector of the e-commerce industry. Custom writing services are fee-based.
Market size
The precise size of custom writing services market is unknown, though some rough estimate could be made. The number of competitors in the market approaches nearly 200. It is also known that around 30 percent of organizations in the industry have annual turnover amounting to $120,000 approximately, whereas other 70 percent have almost twice as low annual turnover. Total market size is estimated at $10,800,000 annually. The size of the market in relation to the economy is yet unknown.
Segmentation
Segmentation is the process of allocation of particular homogeneous sub-markets within a heterogeneous market. A market is a multitude of sub-markets that have similar motivations.
In the case with the market concerned, segmentation is interpreted as follows. Companies that operate within the market could be divided in accordance to specialization differences into such categories: (a) generally-oriented companies; (b) particularly-oriented companies. Generally-oriented companies are those that produce custom-written papers on a wide variety of topics. As a rule, such organizations hire writers representing different specialties or simply those able to perform on appropriate level in one or several fields. Companies ascribed to another organizational category usually operate within a narrower framework. In the market there are companies that offer custom-written papers exclusively on math, physics, sociology, the African-Americans, William Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, etc.
Other products and services offered by the industry representatives include proofreading and editing services, and pre-written papers.
It is noteworthy that there are companies in the market that offer both custom-written and pre-written papers. This, however, may have nothing to do with violation of ethics, but what about privacy of those students who previously ordered a custom-written paper, which might have been later re-sold to another student?
Growth speed
Growth rates of the market are varying over the time. Thus, in 2000 there were nearly 25-30 companies offering custom-written/pre-written essays, term papers, cases studies, and other types of research papers. Over the 5-year period the number of companies in the market grew up to nearly two hundreds.
The leap in growth rates of the market is noticed to take place in 2003-2004 when sudden change in pricing occurred. The number of companies in the market increased almost 30 percent and now estimates around 80 companies. This leap was probably caused by the tendency towards ecommerce solutions being new to hoards of entrepreneurs in a number of developing countries like India, Ukraine, Poland and other countries. Companies headquartered in these countries began offering similar services but with lower fees as compared to those located in the U.S., Canada, or Australia. More on pricing policies see in Pricing.
Today, market's growth speed is rather low as the market is full-fledged due to a variety of services offered by market participants.
Geographical distribution of services
It is worth mentioning that the researched market is a subdivision of ecommerce industry. This gives ground to conclude that either products or services produced by industry's parties are of intangible character rather than of tangible. This especially concerns custom writing services market, which offers its customers intangible products delivered to them mostly via email.
It should be clear that no matter where a company holds its general/backup office, it operates worldwide.
The only principle that regulates geographical distribution of custom-written papers is linguistic attachment. Among major countries using the service are: the United States of America, Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and some European and Asian countries.
Seasonal character of the market
Another aspect of the market is its seasonality. Seasonal character of the examined market is sharply defined. As services offered by the market participants are oriented at student needs throughout the academic year only, the season of active sales almost coincides with the academic year. The first half of September - usually passive - is compensated with several weeks in June.
Such seasonality of the market explains its instability of prices. It was noticed that prices for services increase throughout the year with peaks in December - January and April - May; and drop dramatically during the summer season.
Customers/Clients
Customers of online services such as custom writing services are usually students of high schools, colleges, and Universities, of 16 to 25 years old. As pricing in the market is relatively low, target group of the market covers the so-called middle class and higher. A research shows that in 2005 from 14 percent to 23 percent of students (considering seasonality correction) have in due time applied to custom writing services (IAS, 2005). In other words, one-seventh to one-fourth of students has bought at least one paper during 2004-2005 academic years. The same research provides data that gives ground to conclude about the growth of the market. It is declared that in 2003 peak rate of students who applied to the service at least once was 25 percent, whereas in 2005 it is estimated to reach 36 percent (IAS, 2005).
Customer loyalty
Customer loyalty is obviously a behavior demonstrated by frequent or systematic purchases of a company's product or service. Customer loyalty could be achieved through customer-friendly pricing policies, various discount programs, incentive plans etc. Customer loyalty is also an aspect of a company's customer retention or loyalty programs.
Customer retention programs are usually complex systems that include two or more elements listed above. As regards the market of custom writing services, the following was noticed in the course of the research held by the author: (a) more than 80 percent of the market uses basic techniques in acquiring customer loyalty such as permanently variable prices that depend on demand for the product or service throughout the year, bonus plans (such as bonus key that allows up to 4 percent reduction), and other techniques; and (b) nearly 10 percent of companies within the market use complex customer loyalty programs such as flexible discounts (sometimes up to 30 percent!) in a combination with weekly feedback bonuses, personal selection of a writer, order status check, 24/7 customer care, and other modes of customer attraction.
Factors that influence buyer's choice
Among factors that have impact on customers' choice in the market of custom writing services are price, quality of products and services (including exclusiveness, professionalism, and compliance with the requirements), and delivery time.
As to price and quality of a specific service, these two factors are the most important. It is vital for companies to balance between price and quality values since optimum correlation between these two categories benefits both a service provider and a customer. It is worth mentioning that there are companies that offer papers written by Ph.D.s for "as low as $8.95 per page". Quality of a paper is directly related to its price and vice versa.
In respect of the delivery time, many companies offer urgent order accomplishment within 12 (and sometimes even 8) hours. Some of them limit the volume of an order to certain number of pages, though there are some companies that accept urgent orders without volume limitation.
Pricing
Custom writing services market has been experiencing a decline in prices lately. As it was mentioned earlier in this research, there had been fall in prices in 2003-2004 caused by sudden increase in market's growth rates. By far, average fees are kept at the level of $15 per page for regular (5+ days) orders, $20 per page for urgent (24 to 48h) orders, and $30 a page for extremely urgent orders (within 24h).
There are companies offering custom-written papers half price as compared to average pricing. This fact may indicate that a company either hires instant workers from developing countries or is new to the market and provides such a low pricing policy in order to enter the full market and gain certain status.
Principles of operation
Principles of operation are the same throughout the industry. Intangible nature of products produced by competitors in the market implies single system of relationships between a company and a customer irrespective of an organization's capacities.
Companies that offer custom-written papers (essays, term papers, case studies, literature reviews, executive summaries, dissertations) operate through their websites. Websites are supplied with all necessary and optional features such as credit card processing system (necessary), online customer service (optional), and auto-responder to provide existing customers with automated thank yous and newsletters, and other features.
A customer places an order, which is then forwarded to a writer. This step is omitted in small companies where two or three people wear several hats, e.g. one person could perform as an administrator, a writer, and a customer service representative. If there ARE a couple of writers working for a company, one of them accomplishes an order, which is then delivered to the customer via email.
It is worth noting that major attention is paid to a company's website. It is common for a company producing custom-written papers to have as many webmasters as writers. Hard to believe? In your opinion, what is the correlation between webmasters/programmers and book reviewers working for Amazon.com?
Competitors and leaders
As mentioned above, the number of competitors in the market estimates nearly 200. Leadership in the market where companies offer custom-written papers of any kind is defined exclusively due to a company's website's ranking in various search engines. The most powerful search engines are Google, MSN, Yahoo!, Altavista, and Alltheweb. Moreover, websites are ranked in accordance to their content oriented at different key words. Thus, different websites could be leaders in the same search engine, though for different keywords or phrases.
Regulations
Being a subdivision of the ecommerce industry, custom writing services market is regulated by nothing but several codes like BBB Online that refer to web entrepreneurs. In general, ecommerce industry is poorly regulated.
Current trends within the industry and market success factors
Among current trends in the market particularly three aspects are worth mentioning: (a) constant fall in price; (b) constant increase in the number of competitors; and (c) diversification of services offered by companies.
Constant increase in the number of competitors is obviously caused by simplicity of operations and growing number of freelance writers who once decided to start out their own business.
Permanent fall in price is caused by growing number of competitors and similarity of services offered by companies in the market.
Finally, diversification of services is a logic consequence of the same increase in the number of competitors.
Pre written Papers
Dissertations Sol

Academic Writing Versus Popular Writing

Casual writing in the popular mainstream style is usually very different from the type required in academic settings. One is largely loose and informal, while the other is more conventional and strict. Whenever you write in either style, being mindful of these differences is necessary to keep the material consistent throughout its course.
Contractions. In academic writing, you need to spell out words; in informal writing, you're free to use common contractions.
Technical terms. In academic writing, the use of technical terms is expected, provided you offer up an accompanying running definition; in popular writing, the use of technical terms should be kept to a minimum, with an in-depth explanation every time.
Groupspeak. In academic writing, you should use "we" when explaining technical terms; during informal use, using specific names (as well as referring to yourself in the first person) are more acceptable.
Abstractions. In academic work, you're encouraged to emphasize abstractions, with no need for an in-depth explanation; in popular writing, any mention of high concepts should be accompanied with plenty of examples and simplified diagrams.
Passive voice. Using passive voice is actually advisable for academic writing in some cases (when trying to demonstrate that other scientists can accomplish the same results, for instance); in popular writing, passive verbs should be avoided like the plague.
Confidence. In academic writing, you are advised to state your points forcefully, in as succinct a manner as you can; for less-stringent writing, you should hold back on the self-assured statement, showing empathy for the readers' potential struggle with it.
Most of the best writing software around integrate a facility to check for adherence to formal writing standards. Make sure to take advantage of it when you're tasked to write in an academic capacity.
Pre written term paper
Dissertations Solution

When To Use Self-Referential Pronouns In Academic Writing

Because of their emphasis on objectivity, it's always good practice to avoid the use of the first-person pronouns, such as "I", "we", "me", "us", "my" and "our", in academic writing. However, there are cases where referencing in the first person actually makes sense and is allowed.
Do note that these rules might not be applicable to all courses in all universities. When in doubt, inquire with your professor.
  1. The primary use of the first-person pronoun in academic writing will be when you're talking about personal experience. How else are you supposed to tell a story that happened to you, other than to use a self-referencing pronoun.

  2. In the humanities, where a lot of your writing will involve personal analysis of various things, the first-person reference is often acceptable. After all, the reader is expecting to get your perspective on the topic. Provided your use of the first-person pronoun is backed by proper argument and support, you should be fine.

  3. In the sciences, using a first-person reference can be acceptable when done in the context of describing a project that you are working on, especially when positioning it within current research in the same field.

  4. In the social sciences, the first-person reference can be used within the same context as in the sciences.
These pronouns can be sometimes used incorrectly for those who are not aware of its meaning and uses. Be careful on how you are going to write your sentences with proper addresses of the subject in order to determine which persons you are referring to in your sentence. Although these pronouns are written with one, two or three letters in all, still, most writers tend to forget these pronouns' role in a sentence.
To avoid any future writing mistakes, make sure to identify how pronouns are classified into three different persons for reference. All have their own standing when it comes to formal or casual writing. Most of the time, you might end up inter-changing these pronouns in your writing. So make sure to check your writing back again and determine which audience and the kind of writing should you set your writing tone into different pronouns at.
If you're using an academic writing software, make sure you tweak it to support these rules (most programs allow you to modify the things they check). Having it flag your use of pronouns, when you have express permission to use them, can waste a lot of your time.
Education Essay

How to Summarize and Paraphrase For Academic Writing

Do you know how to summarize your writing and paraphrase your content? In academic writing, summarizing and paraphrasing are very essential skills. With majority of college writing essays geared towards proving a point, you will very likely need to depend on a lot of source material to effectively argue your case.
First, a bit of refresher:
  • Summarizing is all about reducing a material down to its most important points, often bringing it down to roughly a third or less of the original source.
  • Paraphrasing, on the other hand, is about restating a passage in your own words, often as an alternative to using a direct quotation.
In the case of your college essays, you will employ both techniques to integrate evidence from previous writing into your own work. If you're struggling to put together either type, the following advice might help.
Summarizing
  • Scan the text.
  • Locate and highlight the main points. A good first place to look for are the topic sentences on each paragraph.
  • Rewrite the material using the main points you found, setting aside evidence and examples.
Paraphrasing
  • Review the source text.
  • Rewrite it in your own words.
  • Use reporting verbs and phrases to show attribution.
  • Put unique and author-driven phrases in quotes.
Like other parts of your essays, summaries and paraphrases are best done with the help of a competent writing software. While the thoughts you will express in them aren't original, the words you will be using are and they'll be best served with a dose of polish from such a tool.
Education Papers

Best Practices for Teaching Academic Writing to ESL Students in the Mainstream

When it comes to building academic writing skills for ESL college students in the mainstream, teachers will be doing their college students a huge service when teachers are able to build literary connections to the writing skills and concepts they wish their students to learn.
Teachers cannot assume that their ESL students understand abstract concepts as well as their native English speaking peers due to the gap in their background knowledge.
Provide Engaging Beginnings
Engaging beginnings activate students' prior knowledge. They make use of what students already know before any new knowledge is presented to them.
Many academic writing assignments are based on academic texts. The extent to which ESL students will succeed with mainstream academic writing assignments will depend on how well they are able to apply their understanding after reading an academic texts. Many academic texts assume students have the cultural, social and textual knowledge to understand the "gist" of the text. Teachers can facilitate this process for ESL students by first eliciting what students already know about a topic. This helps builds confidence A good way to engage students with the academic text is to provide brainstorming and prediction exercises, which is also a good thing for diverse classes.
Choose Texts And Writing Tasks With A Multi-Cultural Theme/Topic
In every mainstream class, there is plenty of room to explore topics of diversity and multiculturalism.
Not every writing assignment needs to fall under the "academic" style of writing. In fact, there are many academic multicultural and life-story theme topics, that are important for addressing issues of diversity, language and identity where teachers can explore different modes of writing such as a literary essay that is also based on personal experience.
Teach Strategic Writing
ESL students sometimes struggle with applying their knowledge of a thesis to academic writing. Using the "power of three," teachers have a better chance of helping students understand how to write a thesis. In my classes, I teach my students "the rule of three" for strategic essay writing. A good thesis statement includes three "P's." It is a three-Pronged, Parallel, Preview of your essay. (Thinking in Threes, Brian Backman, 2005)
Example of strategic writing in action: "Television has a positive effect because it helps you learn; it gives you information from all over the world and it allows you to relax."
The reason why many students hate academic writing is because they don't feel they have something worth saying and writing and ESL students are no different. It's not that they don't have background knowledge to cope with academic ideas and concepts, they just have it in another language! As teachers and instructors, we need to bring the assignment closer to home!
Essay Papers

Your Guide to Academic Writing Jobs

Writing is a skill; a skill that combines a good blend of knowledge and style. A style that ensures that the reader understands completely well what the intention of the writer is. A writers' style comes out very clearly in the article that a writer writes to communicate effectively to all the readers. Unlike other kinds of writing, writing for academic purposes is something that does not require much of flamboyance in language. This of course does not eliminate the fact that, academic writers have a rather mellowed down style; it just means academic writers focus greatly on getting across essential points of their overall work. To be an academic writer, all you need to know is the art to communicate effectively what you ought to, in a manner that is objective, exhaustive and yet precise.
To learn the art of communicating effectively is what carves you into the best in this field. So hone a few of these skills and kick start a career with the best academic writing jobs. These will certainly be a good break for your ambitious career in writing academic articles in-house for your domain specialty.
Here are a few tips you could consider. Firstly have a strong base in the subject you want to deal with, next of course convey your message in the pithiest manner possible encompassing all keywords and dominant messages in a structured approach and write in order to educate efficiently.
With such essential skills you are sure to become a good academic article writer; you will definitely make the most of remarkable academic writing jobs that come your way. And what is really incredible about these is that; you can work in-house anywhere in UK and get paid to do what you like doing and in what your specialty lies.
Buy Essay

Academic Writing Help

Academic writing help thrives on the use of rationality. Resources, research, and reasoning are the guiding facets of academic writing help. It is thesis oriented and purpose driven. The facts, figures, and points of views call for a cogent and logical analysis. It is essential to realize that academic papers are different than other types of writing. For instance, as opposed to a letter to a friend or an informal article, academic papers are a formal type of writing. Although contractions are acceptable in informal or friendly writing, they are not used in formal, academic writing. Furthermore, with the exception of essays and term papers, a bibliography or reference page is usually required in academic writing.
Academia is replete with a wide variety of disciplines and within these subjects is a virtually limitless range of subtopics and theses. Nevertheless, regardless of your academic level and whether you are writing an essay, research paper, term paper, thesis, MBA thesis, or Ph.D. dissertation, students are expected to adhere to the specific conventions of writing.
To best support the thesis statement, the professionals who offer academic writing help understand the importance of using relevant, cited, and up-to-date facts and figures. In addition, their understanding of structure results in superb writing. An academic writer has to be research oriented and analytic in his or her approach. A student who hires services that provide academic writing help will be better prepared to leap over any hurdles that may be impeding successful writing.
Much depends on the presentation and organization of factual information and the flow of logical ideas that support the thesis statement. When done well, the reader is able to fulfill his or her zeal for curiosity and leaves with a new perspective of the topic. As such, it is necessary for an academic writer to delve deeply into the details of an idea to be able to establish and thoroughly support the overall viewpoint or thesis statement. Whether you need help researching, organizing your writing, editing, or simply want an honest assessment and suggestions or improvement, academic writing help is the answer.
By working with a professional academic writing, you can substantially increase both your grades and understanding of the subject matter. Learning how to write well is a skill that can be applied to a wide variety of fields. Regardless of the subject of your academic paper, a professional writer can help you create a superb academic document.
Academic Papers

Most Widely Used Academic Writing Styles

There are various writing styles being used worldwide. These writing styles are divided into two basic categories which are formal and informal writing styles. The academic writing is a bit similar to other styles of writing like professional or business writing. The academic writing falls in the category of formal as it is impersonal. It usually avoids conversational or casual style. It avoids informal vocabulary or contractions. The academic writing style is objective as it does not use the direct references for the feelings and people. It emphasizes on facts and ideas as well as the objects.
Being good in formal or objective writing is not enough to be a good academic writer. That is because you are required to write technically. For different disciplines you have to use a different approach and a different style. The same thing goes to the structure of the discipline as well. For different disciplines, you are required to use the proper and most relevant writing structure. For example, some disciplines require short and precise sentences, whereas some disciplines require the use of proper explanatory sentences which can be longer as compared to the other disciplines. Whenever you are going to complete any of you writing assignments, you have to take care of all the relevant factors.
Each of the academic writing styles has its own importance and these styles are equally being used by the students in the respective areas of writings. The effectiveness of a writing style varies from assignment to assignment. You cannot use the essay style for research paper or other assignments. Each of the style has its own features, layout and structure. If you want to write an effective assignment, you have to take very good care of all of the features, layout, structure, grammar etc.
There are some common and extremely important factors of academic writing styles you should know about.
1- In the beginning of any assignment, you are required to create an objective. You should use the third person to explain all of the relevant issues or matters. It means that you should not use "I". The use of third person shows that you are being objective.
2- You have to be very careful about using the right tenses. You have to be very clear that you are going to discuss something that has already happened in the past or is it about the present or future.
3- In order to write an impressive assignment, you should use appropriate language, not just for your purpose but for your audience as well. You should choose your words very carefully as the academic writing has to be complicated. It should not include any elements of formality.
4- A reader expects you to be clear and concise about what you are writing. Your words depict how clear and concise you are about the idea or the topic you are writing on. You have to make sure that every word you write poses a right impact on the reader.
5- As an academic writer, a reader expects you to use the language sensitively in order to make it effective.
6- You should not express your strong opinions too directly.
7- You should lean towards caution. You have to be well-aware that your ideas and words are contributing to a huger and wider debate surrounding the very topic you are writing on.
Academic Writing