Counseling Education

Three Good Reasons to Think Twice Before Buying an Online Essay

Have you ever considered buying an essay? Did you do it when you were in school? Or do you know somebody who did? Did you know that most surveyed students know a person who has bought an essay, and that very few students would ever “rat” on a person for doing so? Students who severely dislike the students who purchase essays will still not report them, as there is a very nasty school culture that stops students from “tattling.”

 What is buying an online essay? 

There are stores online that will allow you to buy an essay. You usually have to Google search it and then look through the results to find the right sort of thing. Once you find the site, you have to look for your discipline/qualification/course and see what essays the website store has in stock. You are usually given a preview of a little bit of the essay. You pay your money, they release the essay and it is yours. If they claim that you are the only one able to buy that particular essay, you should not take them at their word. 

How does it differ from paying an essay writing service? 

Essay writing services are “supposed” to create an essay for you, as per your instructions. Obviously, they may simply steal the essay and sell it to you. But, for all intents and purposes, the essay should be written for you. It should be original and the full rights should pass on to you when you purchase it. This means that they cannot use or sell the essay on. It also means that you can use the essay and make changes to it. If they sell you the full rights to the essay then you can also sell it on yourself if you like, and put your name to it too. 

1 - It could have been copied, be plagiarized or already submitted 

It could be a poor re-write or copy of another essay. The fact that these people are under no pressure to write your essay as per your instructions, they have plenty of time to look for other essays to pass off as their own. The essay you are buying is supposed to be original, but it could be a poor re-write or an outright copy of another essay. A college examiner is going to notice if this essay is similar to another that has been submitted, and too many similarities will land the student in hot water (trouble). 

It could have been plagiarized from an older essay. The older essay may be quite old and may have glaring errors that the unwitting student may not be able to spot. The errors may be so glaring that most other students did not purchase. If you miss the errors then you could end up submitting and old and incorrect essay. 

It could have been stolen from a recent student submission. This is a very dangerous fact. Students have been known to sell on their essay after is has been submitted. There is no way of knowing if your purchased essay has been submitted already, which is going to land you in trouble when the university/college picks up on it.

It could have been submitted already and there is no record on the Internet. The people selling it to you will show you plagiarism reports, but they are based upon what is online, and a pre-submitted essay will not show up on such reports. 

Of course there are exceptions. Professor Richard Gunderman from Indiana University in his article for The Atlantic magazine tells one funny story: 

“A colleague tells the following story. A student in an undergraduate course recently submitted a truly first-rate term paper. In form, it was extremely well crafted, exhibiting a level of writing far beyond the typical undergraduate. In substance, it did a superb job of analyzing the text and offered a number of trenchant insights. It was clearly A-level work. There was only one problem: It markedly exceeded the quality of any other assignment the student had submitted all semester… These services have names such asCollege-paper.organd Essayontime.com. Bestessays.com claims that "70% of Students use Essay Writing service at least once [sic]" and boasts that all its writers have M.A. and Ph.D. degrees", but the ethical side of the issue will be completely lie on students. 

2 - You cannot ask for a rewrite for a prewritten essay 

The service ends once you receive the essay. There is no other form of recourse, even if the essay is no good or incomplete. You have very little legal right to demand your money back unless you were not sent the essay.

 What is your recourse if the essay is not as advertised? The answer is--there is not one. If the essay is not as advertised then you cannot do anything about it. The error would have to be massive, such as if you were given a math essay paper when it was advertised as a French one. 

What is your recourse if the essay is incorrect? Again--there is not one. If the essay is not good enough to get a passing grade then there is little that you can do. If you used an essay writing service and they said in advance that it will get a passing grade, and then there is some room for maneuver. But, you do not get this sort of privilege with pre-written essays. 

3 - It is a form of cheating 

Some may call it research, but how close is cheating to research in this case? It is difficult to guess in some cases because some essays are nothing more than curated research. However, the fact that the student in question is not the one that physically wrote the essay is reason enough to say that it is cheating.

There is always the chance you may get caught. All educational institutions consider using an essay writing service to be cheating. This means that if you are caught then there will be grave consequences for your future. 

It is better to use an essay writing service, as there are more guarantees and there is more human interaction. There is also a little more that you can do after the fact, if the essay needs re-writing or is not good enough. 

Author: Korah Morrison, student at the University of California, Los Angeles, owner of Blogoloola blog and aspiring writer. Follow her on Google+.

 Image credit:  Adikos on Flickr