[JoeFromSidney]

When I was working on my own PhD I attended a conference and met a guy who ghost-wrote dissertations for a living. This was back in the 1960s. He was quite proud of the fact that he could write a dissertation that would pass muster in a PhD program. Of course he worked only in the soft sciences and the humanities, not in anything rigorous. However, I had to wonder how his clients got past the examining committee, if they weren't intimately familiar with everything that went into the dissertation. I still remember the grilling I received when I had to defend my dissertation. My committee left no stone unturned, and asked about a lot of peripheral issues that they figured I should know about. Fortunately I did.

As someone once put it, at the time you defend your dissertation (at least in science/math/engineering), you should be the world's greatest expert on your dissertation topic. If you don't know it cold, you don't deserve the degree. (Of course, that lasts only a year or so. Once your work gets into the literature, others build on it, and you have to run to keep up.)

[PeterPrinciple]

Of course he worked only in the soft sciences and the humanities, not in anything rigorous. However, I had to wonder how his clients got past the examining committee, if they weren’t intimately familiar with everything that went into the dissertation.

---

You assume the soft science professors on the committee read the dissertation.........................

[Bulaff]

This makes me so sad. I have learned the most about the field that I want to specialize in from various papers/projects before dissertation writing. These students are missing many learning opportunities by not doing these assignments. I mourn for the future of our society if this will be viewed as an acceptable practice.

P.S. Is this about http://www.writemypapers.org/ or http://www.usessay.com/. Seems like testimonials are from the second source.