Academic Writing Services - Is It Really Cheating?

Is Using Academic Writing Services Cheating?

If you need to hand in an essay, and you’re short on time or unsure of your talent, the internet has certainly made your life easier. A quick search will provide you with dozens of writing services, all happy to sell you a custom-written essay. In exchange for an often modest fee you can get a piece of work tailored to your exact requirements and frequently written by a professional writer. It’s easy, it saves time and it pretty much guarantees you a well-written essay that should earn a good grade. So what’s the problem?

The essence of primary academic writing help

Well, some people think it’s cheating. An academic essay, they argue, is supposed to be a test of your ability to put together an accurate, coherent piece of writing on the subject your studying; it’s not meant to be a test of your ability to use Google and PayPal. Is this an accurate criticism?

Frankly, yes. An essay really is a test; it’s testing you on what you’ve learned about the subject matter and on your ability to present it clearly. It stands to reason that it only works as a test if you write it yourself. If someone else writes it for you, what does it prove? That you can afford to buy an essay? It certainly doesn’t prove anything else.

Of course there are legitimate professional writing services that anyone can use when they need to produce an essay. It’s a well-known fact that people are just terrible at proof-reading their own work. That’s all down to the way our brains work. If you wrote a sentence you know what it’s supposed to say, so if it doesn’t say exactly what it’s meant to your brain just does you a favor and sorts it out for you. Your brain can effortlessly sort out missing or duplicated words, spelling errors and all those Freudian slips that will have the markers laughing as they uncap their red pen. That’s why using a professional proof reader is a great idea. They don’t know what your essay is supposed to say until they’ve read it, so any mistakes will be obvious to them.

Academic Writing Services Offer a Wide Range of Services

Other editing services can be valuable, too. You’ve done your research and found references for all your claims and factual statements, but you don’t know how to assemble them into a proper bibliography. An editor can do that for you, adding a professional polish to your work. They’ll also clean up grammar, punctuation and any other little issues. Every book, scientific paper and PhD dissertation in the world goes through proofreading and editing, and it’s perfectly OK if your essay does too.

Buying an essay online is a bit different, though. If getting a good grade is more important to you than demonstrating your ability, and you feel that you can’t meet the standard or spare the time yourself, then it’s a good solution for you. But yes, it’s cheating.