An essay writing service offers professional writers who will complete various types of academic writing projects for a fee. You tell them the subject and other requirements for your assignment, and they will ghostwrite a paper that you can submit in your name as if you had written it. While this may sound appealing at face value, there are important drawbacks to consider.
Examples of Essay Writing Services
From essay writing assignments to college admission essays, term papers, dissertations, and more, companies that offer essay writing services will write, rewrite, proofread, or edit various types of academic assignments. A few prominent examples include:
Essay Thinker
Essay Thinker gives you so many options that you could practically hire them to go to school for you if you had enough money. For about $13 a page, they will ghostwrite essays and other writing assignments. You can specify word count, academic level, and urgency (which can increase cost). They also provide assistance with other types of academic projects, including math, physics, economics, and statistics problems.
Grab My Essay
Grab My Essay offers the same services as Essay Thinker, except they take it a step further and also offer to ghostwrite resumes, CVs, multiple choice questions, movie reviews, lab reports, case studies, general school coursework, and PowerPoint presentations. They also cost a couple dollars more per page than Essay Thinker.
Top Essay Writing
Top Essay Writing is virtually identical to Grab My Essay in terms of services offered. They try to differentiate themselves by offering a lower price than Grab My Essay and a 100 percent money-back guarantee.
Pros and Cons of Essay Writing Services
While there are some appealing aspects of using this type of service, the drawbacks are risky and likely outweigh any potential benefits.
Pros
In certain situations, an individual could feel see some upsides of hiring this type of service. Examples include:
- You don't have to spend time writing the paper.
- You may get a better grade than you would have gotten if you did it on your own.
- If you're behind in your work, it may mean passing a class instead of failing if it isn't possible to complete the assignment yourself on time.
Cons
Are any of the 'pros' really good enough reasons to do something unethical and fraudulent? This is where the cons come in.
- If you use one of these services to write your college admissions essay (which is an advertised service for some of these companies), you are essentially defrauding the school. You could find yourself expelled or in legal jeopardy if the school finds out.
- Many colleges and other schools have clear policies prohibiting any use of an essay service. If you're caught, you might get kicked out of school for academic dishonesty. You may even be prosecuted if you used fraudulent academic work to obtain scholarships or government-subsidized financial aid.
- You may buy yourself a good grade, but you won't get the things you actually went to school to obtain: education, competence, and valuable skills. The knowledge and experience you would have gotten from sweating through the assignment yourself will not be there when you need it in the real world. HuffPost agrees, pointing out that hiring an essay writing service will serve to under-prepare you for your career.
- The Atlantic points out that taking this kind of shortcut can lead to other negative behaviors and consequences. If you start the path of paying someone else to do your schoolwork for you, to what logical conclusion does that pattern of behavior lead? Why not hire someone to do all of your assignments? When you leave school and begin searching for jobs, will you pad your resume with false accomplishments? After all, presenting a grade point average (GPA) to an employer that was partially bought rather than being earned is similar to lying on a resume.
Don't Cheat Yourself
It may be possible, perhaps, to use an essay service in a restrained way that saves you time while you're still careful to do the core of the essay's research. However, doing so is still likely a violation of school policy and relying on such a service is a slippery slope. It can easily become an addictive quick fix. Before you know it, you've not only cheated your way through school, but you've cheated yourself out of priceless academic and personal growth.
