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Earn money with academic writing

Students are constantly looking for help with their studies, we've already talked about how you can earn money tutoring. In this post we will talk about how you can earn money through freelance academic writing.  




How does academic writing work?
I am a freelance writer with Academic Knowledge for their law students department. There is a mixture of different writing tasks that are available including essays, skeleton arguments, revision notes, and problem questions. They require you to have at least a 2:1 undergraduate degree in the subject you wish to write for, if you choose to undertake postgraduate studies, you will be able to take on higher level briefs (which are paid more).  There are other academic writing companies, however, what drew me to apply to academic knowledge was that they are a large, well established company. This means that there is a good steady supply of briefs which is essential to the flexibility of freelance work. 

Is it not plagiarism?
It might feel at first that you are simply doing other people's work for them (and therefore allowing cheating). However, that is not what the work you produce is for. The work you submit is intended to be used as guidance by the client to help them to produce their own work whilst being able to achieve the grade they are aiming for. Ultimately the license of the work remains with you, the writer and as such the client should not hand it in as their own work. 

How much could I earn?
How much you earn per brief depends on both the word length and the duration you have to complete the brief. As an example a 1000 word essay with 10 days to complete would pay approx £50. The plus with academic writing is that it pays well, provided you are able to turn out work quickly (i.e you get paid the same no matter how long you spend on it). The downside is, due to the work being freelance, there is limited consistency in income. However, academic knowledge do have a guide on their site to help you guesstimate how much you could earn depending on how much work you do. 
As a freelance writer you are responsible for declaring your own income for tax purposes. Though remember the government have now introduced a £1000 allowance for online earnings that you don't have to declare, but if you plan on earning more than that per tax year (and you easily could) it is important to declare you earnings even if you don't have to pay any tax.

How do I start academic writing?
I choose to work through academic knowledge, and would highly recommend them. Their application process is super simple, you just need to fill out some basic details and upload copies of your transcript/degree certificate. They will then, if you are successful phone you to have a brief chat with you and explain how the practice brief works. You are then given a list of questions to choose from for which you complete a short brief (approximately 1750 words) which you will be paid for (about £75). To see if they are currently hiring for your subject click here


This article is not sponsored or endorsed by academic knowledge. 


I’m taking part in the Money Making Madness Linky hosted by Charlotte Burns from Lotty Earns, Emma Bradley from Mum’s Savvy Savings, Emma Drew from EmmaDrew.Info and Lynn from Mrs Mummy Penny.

3 comments

  1. Writing is a beautiful art which represent how beautiful your mind is and let other to know more about you.

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  2. This is so useful, thank you! I have not heard of these. I just had a look and they do have an opening for my subject so am going to give it a shot. Thank you!

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  3. This is interesting! I've looked into freelance writing before but the sites I looked at seemed so competitive. I like the idea of using your specialism and doing something more niche :)

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