buy a custom essay writing service

buy a custom essay writing service

The Ethics and Implications of Using Custom Essay Writing Services in Academia

1. Introduction to Custom Essay Writing Services

Custom essay writing services (also known as bespoke or ‘contract’ essay writing services) can be defined as businesses providing ‘tailored’ writing assistance to a client or student in the form of an essay, research paper, or research report. To contrast this to provided examples, a custom essay can be a bespoke or tailored work in its entirety, an essay plan or part dissertation writing, which gives the student a starting point for, and thus a potential basis for meaning the completed work moves into ‘contract’ and academic misconduct. Purchasing work from ‘contract’ essay writing services, including commissioning, submitting, and attempting to benefit academically from the completed work. Individuals and students irrespective of academic level are displayed or presented as ‘clients’, suggesting the fact that this is a commercial transaction where a service is provided to the person ordering the essay or research paper, referred to as the ‘client’ of the business. For a student to use a custom essay writing service they must first identify a business or company that provides the writing service. This business is then contracted to provide bespoke research and is known as the contractor.

The use of ‘contract’ or custom essay writing services is debated on several levels in educational and academic literature. There are first the actions of individuals and companies that commission and profit from this form of business transaction, the custom essay writing service businesses or contractors, as well as the persons using these services. Secondly, there is a question concerning the actions of the authors, editors, writers, or researchers preparing the essays and the ethical or professional stance they take or the implications that this has, specifically whether the businesses are fraudulent or ethical. Academic literature tackles issues of academic integrity or honesty and many examples are of direct relevance to discussions surrounding the use of custom essay writing services.

2. Ethical Considerations in Using Custom Essay Writing Services

An issue that regularly surfaces in the debate about custom essay writing services focuses on the ethics of using them. Given that students are tasked with the responsibility of producing their own work, receiving any external assistance can be seen as academically unfair. Using custom essay writing services is a murky ethical area and often presents issues of integrity. When students purchase essays off the internet, they are in effect presenting a false representation of their own abilities. This presents a number of problems and, for a number of educators and industry experts, creates an ethical minefield.

One perspective suggests that students who engage in receiving custom papers are not necessarily lazy, but considerate. Such students are usually holding down a part-time job to finance their education and understand the importance of submitting high-quality work that would help them succeed. Some others argue that custom research has minimal impact on the grade of a hardworking student, while other educators may argue that the students who use custom essay writing services are emblematic of an entitlement culture. These are the students who feel that they should have a better grade on something that they find difficult to do themselves. An ethical issue such as this could also be seen from different perspectives using various ethical frameworks. According to the deontological perspective, students have the duty to submit work that represents their abilities. Reviewing this issue using justice and utility approaches would suggest that there be consideration of both sides of the matter.

3. Impact of Custom Essay Writing Services on Academic Integrity

Integrity, fairness, honesty, and trust are essential elements in education. Goemans (2013) writes that using ghostwritten essays as a solution to cheating at university is not new and has become an increasingly popular choice with students. The ease of access, quick turnaround, and quality of work available also make such services extremely appealing for those most likely to be in need – those struggling with academic ability and those who are short of time. It is easy to suggest that essay writing services are not for cheating at all but are a form of academic aid which students have every right to use. Gert & Boghossian (2006) argue that compromising honesty, integrity, and fairness through actions motivated by a narrow time preference with negligible perceptible downsides decays the integrity of the system in the long run. The high number of students that use essay writing companies reveals a widespread perception that essay mills represent a calculated, principled, and acceptable method of academic deceit.

In considering the use of essay writing services, legitimate or not, it is important to consider not just the individual who pays for the paper but the newly polluted pool within which they are seeking qualification. It is common knowledge that employers in whatever sector are capable and do use advanced assessment mechanisms, such as interview techniques and psychometrics, and can spot the differences between the bright candidate whose very identity and thought processes are interwoven with the essence of their performance and those who have papered over the gaps in their expertise. But if one in three have used an essay writing service in the first case and one in two in the latter, the task is made all the more complex. Critics argue that the use of such a service could act as a safety net for a student who had fallen ill or those struggling to master more than one language (Editorial, 2020). The QAA reports a negotiation between institutions that the use of a paper by a student in time of need is less of an issue for the academic integrity of the sector than the criminal intent, or otherwise, of the supplier. Instituting proof of illness is often easier said than done and is heavy with ethics (Aronin, 2015) for a student to produce and an institution to acquire and would potentially run counter to the duty of care that institutions have towards those students. Furthermore, because they’re paying, there is no certainty that an unwell student requiring an extension would not also use such a service to keep their tracks untainted. Princesses have claimed they are unwell, and whether it is possible to continue working on the degree or whether it is necessary to withdraw until such time as they are capable of reviving their applications and studies is often a hard and, ultimately, unfair determination to make. At times they may appear healthy and are engaged with the degree until such time as they must ask for an extension or some other form of mitigation, making detection harder. For the same reason, simply having the proof of illness is not an independent justification for extending a deadline. So are these students to pay for an NHS doctor’s letter and claim an illness that they do not have? Are they then absolutely, as a result, pariahs of the academic sector?

4. Regulating and Addressing the Use of Custom Essay Writing Services

Given the lack of robust legislative frameworks and regulations specific to the academic essay writing industry, we propose a range of potential strategies and measures which could contribute to addressing the ethical, academic, and integrity challenges of using custom essay writing services.

While there are currently no legislative provisions specifically directed towards the academic essay writing sector, a wide range of measures could potentially cover aspects of the industry or contribute to minimizing the role it plays in facilitating academic dishonesty. Simply identifying and making the sector visible to the academic community is a crucial initial step towards addressing the problem. For example, with more information about available services, the sector’s visibility could be increased through disclosures in the syllabi or course guidebooks, which would clarify what is considered cheating at the outset. This also places potential solutions in the hands of students who may feel compelled to engage in unethical behavior because of stress, financial, or other personal pressures. Increasingly, higher education institutions are recognizing that they have a responsibility duty of care to their students, who enter into business relationships without the consumer protections provided to other purchasers of goods and services. To this end, a number of Australasian tertiary institutions have implemented initiatives designed to prevent, regulate, and mitigate the use of custom essay writing services by their students or have started the process of developing institutional policies.

Clearly, custom essay writing services also have responsibilities to monitor and regulate practices on their platforms. Large corporations, too, and employers like certification authorities, may need to be aware of such issues, particularly when they are engaging contractors to complete highly technical or specialist activities, and when breaches of academic integrity in the past may be cause for concern about future ethical behavior. Regulatory action is the responsibility of authorities including government, professional bodies, and agencies, all of which have expressed a potential role as enforcers of regulation in the absence of the individual or institutional leadership required for industry self-regulation. Allowing students to access the regulatory or legal system will require wide-ranging and possibly government-led regulatory change. A historical lack of enforcement activity may also act as a potent driver for regulatory intervention.

5. Conclusion and Recommendations for Future Action

In this essay, we considered the question of whether or not it is ethical to use a custom essay writing service in academia. We found that, while the issue is contentious, the use of custom essay writing services in academia is ethically dubious. This is for three main reasons: first, using a custom essay writing service is dishonest, whilst lying is generally considered to be wrong. Second, an ethical perspective places value on the process of learning, which is compromised by the use of custom essay writing services. Third, using custom essay writing services devalues students’ qualifications and disrupts fair access to educational opportunities. However, while there is broad consensus that using ghostwriting services is dishonest, some research has suggested that using custom written essays can have advantages, including that students can use these essays as educational tools and as models for their own writing. Meanwhile, promotional material from custom written essay companies suggests that some will help students to avoid plagiarism by providing properly referenced ghostwritten essays. Future research should seek to further explore the use of custom written essays, and collect the views of students who have used essays to gain an understanding of why they do so and what they expect to gain from doing so, in order to develop and provide resources which students actually want and need to help them to avoid essay mills and continue to learn to independently conduct good research, and develop their academic and argumentative writing skills themselves.

The essay illustrates both the case against the use of custom essay writing by students and the two main concerns this industry has raised: first, the business of ghostwriting themselves; and second, plagiarism detection. After considering all these aspects, and the various arguments and evidence presented, it is our position that using custom essay writing services in academia fails to meet ethical standards. It is dishonest, undermines the purpose of education, and creates an environment where success can be bought. We therefore propose the following recommendations for educational institutions, policymakers, and students. First, that they work together to address the ghostwriting industry as a business issue, and that essay mills are treated as any other cheating service. Second, that signposting and discussion of students’ values and the implications for society of essay mills is included within secondary and higher education syllabuses. Finally, we recommend that the ‘plagiarism debate’ is reframed from excessive concern to the one about what constitutes ‘academic writing integrity’ against the goals and values of academics, universities, and the wider community, and how to support students in such endeavors. Our final recommendation is for future work to examine and engage the views of the main stakeholders involved in this debate: the students.