Kathleen D.

I worked for Academia Research for about a year back in 2008 and had a positive experience at that time. I wanted to return to work for them and tried to reapply but was told that my email was already in their system, and so the page would not allow me to move forward with the application process. There was a help/support box provided and I asked for help to be able to use my email address and after 3 days no one answered my request. Therefore, I had to create a new email account just to apply again. They assigned me a test essay and gave me instructions in their requirements for completing it. I followed all instructions thoroughly. My essay was rejected and, among other things, I was told that I "lacked academic writing skills". I am a Masters degreed professional who has been writing a long time and, wanting to see if I had indeed "lost something" over the years, I took my essay to a college professor in English and to a pastor with a doctorate in theology (since the essay topic was on the nature of God). Both were unable to find anything true about Academia-Research's assessment and indicated their shock as well as their suspicions. I, therefore, began a correspondence with persons in the QA department, and at no time did they furnish any evidence to back up their statements of my "lack of skills" and I did repeatedly ask for that. They seem to find mistakes where there are none and have no accountability to anyone when they do this. I further noted that the English in their email replies to me had many mistakes, especially misuse of vocabulary, omitted prepositions, and incorrect verb tenses that indicated that, at least in the QA department, English is definitely not the first language of those employees, calling into question how could people whose English language skills need considerable work possibly assess the English writing skills of native English speaking (and writing) writers. Furthermore, in two of my emails, Russian words were still in the email, indicating the use of an online translator from Russian to English. It also raised the possibility that some or all of this company has some basis in Russia, even though they have a listed American address. There are some other red flags such as that they are are clearly using a template website, as one example that indicates that they are not quite as legitimate as they claim. Please beware of this company. They lack integrity in their assessment procedures, in their repeatedly fining writers and not offering them detailed explanations of what elicited the fines, and in their claiming to be a U.S. based company, but correspondence with their employees reveals that is not completely true. It has become clear to me that they lack integrity on all levels..