If you’ve been busy doing schoolwork and trying to hit deadlines, there’s a very good chance you’ve seen essay writing services advertised online. These claim to take your topic of choice and write an entire essay on them, which you can turn in for top grades. However, are these services legit and legal, and is it a good idea to use them?
Also read: How to Download Entire Websites for Offline Use
Are Essay Writing Services Legit?
Most of the time, an essay writing service will do what it says it does. A company will hire academic writers, either in-house or freelance, and assign them tasks. The writers type up the full essay then hand it to you. The service lets you legally claim the essay as yours so you can just put your name on it.
Often, the service will put a huge emphasis on a no-plagiarism stance. This is because academic institutions often scan submitted pieces to see if they’ve been lifted from a website or book. The writers of the essay will handcraft it themselves so that the client doesn’t get caught cheating.
Are Essay Writing Services Legal?
The entire process is called “ghostwriting.” This is when a writer writes a piece, then allows someone else to claim all the ownership. Ghostwriting is very much a legal avenue of work; some celebrity biographies were ghostwritten by other authors.
As such, someone else writing an essay and releasing their ownership is also legal. There have been efforts by some to ban this practice, such as universities in the UK.
Should You Use Essay Writing Services?
They are legal and legit, so why not use them? While you may be tempted, there are downsides to using a service.
The Potential Problem of Plagiarism
For one, academic institutes will typically ask you to check a box or agree to a statement that says what you submit is your own work. This goes beyond ghostwriting, as the statement will ask you to confirm that you were the original writer of the piece.
What this means is that, if the institute works out that you used an essay writing service, it’s considered plagiarism. This is plagiarism in the fact that you’re claiming that a piece that you did not write is yours. It doesn’t matter if the original writer gave you ownership of it – you didn’t write it, full stop.
While your institute may not find any copy-paste plagiarism in your work, it may raise eyebrows if your essays suddenly have a different “voice” to them or cover something that wasn’t part of the original course.
When Pre-Written Essays Do Damage
Even if you don’t get caught, handing in a pre-written essay hinders more than helps. Sure, you met a deadline without doing work, but essays are meant to further your own education. By having someone else do it, you’re putting yourself back compared to your classmates who did the essay and learned the topic.
Even if you do use a pre-written essay, you may not like what you get. The Guardian did a study on the people who wrote, used, or read an essay written by a service. The people who used it either felt guilty or ended up getting bad grades; the tutors who had prewritten articles submitted to them could smell them out.
As such, it’s not a good idea to use an essay writing service. You don’t learn anything from it, you run the risk of being flagged and kicked out of your course, and – even if everything works out okay – it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get a good grade for it.
Not the Easy Way Out for Essays
While there are plenty of online courses that you can take for free, hiring an essay writing service to complete your work is not recommended. They’re bad for your education, they may not give you a good grade, and if you’re caught doing it, you’ll be in big trouble. Buckle up and get that essay done!
Have you been tempted by essay writing services? Let us know below.
