Why Seeking Essay Relief Online is a Bad Idea
Custom-written essay sites are popping up everywhere, and free essays are around every corner, but the risks of these services far outweigh the benefits.
College writing is intimidating; that’s no secret. When students cave to the pressure associated with college essay writing, they tend to seek out essay relief by hunting down free or custom essays online. While this seems to be a great idea at first, the potential consequences attached to turning in a plagiarized or custom essay are pretty extreme.
Custom Essays and Free Essays are Obvious
Suggesting students avoid custom and free essays should be a given, but it’s surprisingly common, according to Dr. Susan Rashid Horn, Professor of English at Clayton State University in southeast Atlanta. “It’s quite obvious when an essay isn’t written by the student turning it in. We can tell if it’s not their writing.” Professors know when an essay is plagiarized or custom-written, as they know their students’ writing styles.
Even at larger schools, with hundreds of students to a single class, professors and TAs actually read through those papers. If a student turns in a paper with a vocabulary way above (or below) their own, it stands out like a sore thumb. Oftentimes, professors will have students complete an in-class writing assignment to gauge their writing styles, and when a paper is turned in that’s obviously different, it’s quite clear.
This is all not to mention Turn It In.com, which exists to catch plagiarism. When professors ask for an electronic copy of a written assignment, it is almost guaranteed those electronic submissions are going straight to Turn It In, where the site runs the paper through a plagiarism search. It seems like custom essays would be immune to these searches, but that’s not always the case.
Custom Essays Aren’t Always Custom
Most custom essays websites offer the promise that “Every essay is 100% original.” But students shouldn’t be so sure. Once a student has ordered an essay, they’re not necessarily buying the actual rights to that essay. The websites can and do sometimes resell the more common essays, such as Shakespeare essays and English 101 essays – the ones that are assigned on a regular basis.
On top of this, students often sell once-customized essays back to other free essay websites; so if someone buys what they think is a custom essay, there’s no guarantee that if their professor submits it to Turn It In, it won’t show up as plagiarized.
Read on
How to write my essay in 12 hours
I will pay someone to write my essay
Are academic essay writing services legal?
Buying Custom Written Essays Gets Expensive
College students are notoriously poor. Custom essays are pretty expensive. Depending on the website, custom essays range from about 10 dollars to 20 dollars a page, for basic essays. Prices skyrocket for thesis and dissertation customization.
The simple question must be: why spend so much money on an essay if a student can write it herself? These expenses are basically lazy fees, as usually the students who are using them procrastinate so long, they have “no time to write” the essay, they only think about " pay to do my essay for me".
One of the supposed testimonials on AllFreeEssays.com (which also, conveniently, offers custom essays) says: “I didn't have time to start researching from scratch. Your custom paper helped me save time and get an 'A' on my paper. I recommend you guys all the time." For those college students who have lots of money to waste and no intention to really get anything useful out of school, these essays are perfect.
Students Face Serious Consequences if Caught
Academic dishonesty policies are pretty similar across the board. Not only will students receive zeros for the plagiarized or purchased essay, but often will be dropped from the class and brought up on “academic dishonesty” charges before the college’s or university’s judicial board. This is all at the professor’s discretion, of course, but they will likely follow that type of instance through to its full extent.
Cheating is cheating. Custom and free essay websites make a point of assuring students that what they are doing is completely legal and ethical. Yes, those custom-written essays are legal, per se, but ethical? It’s cheating, either way. So determining whether cheating is ethical is the question. And on top of it all, the student is not only cheating the class and professor, but also cheating herself. College is not here as an obstacle that students are forced into; it is here for them to learn and grow, despite the cliché.
Save the money and start the assignment earlier. Don’t get into that predicament to begin with, and cheating won’t even be necessary at all. An essay is a representation of your work, your reasoning. Don’t let someone else reason and think for you. May I ask someone to do my essay for me? How do you think?