buy custom essay introduction

buy custom essay introduction

The Ethics and Implications of Buying Custom Essays: An Academic Perspective

1. Introduction to the Phenomenon of Buying Custom Essays

In 2014, The Voice of Young Science conducted a survey on the prevalence of essay buying in the UK and found that 80% of respondents were aware of others in their institution who had bought an essay. In research commissioned by the Quality Assurance Agency, an estimated 17,000 instances of contract cheating were recorded over the period 2006-2013. In Canada, the USEQ surveys of cases of dishonest academic behaviour at the University of Alberta in 2011, 2012, and 2013 showed that 9.5-10.6% of participants had paid someone for writing an academic essay on their behalf. Despite the existence of these figures, there has been little critical exploration of the practice of buying custom essays from academic perspectives.

Beyond statistical summaries of prevalence rates or demonstrations of the operational challenge of embedding values of academic integrity and ethical scholarship, there are questions to be addressed about the ethical, academic, and justice-based concerns of custom essay buying, as well as the implications of legislative interventions designed to combat the practice. When faced with inquiries about unethical essay writing, it is reasonable that academic integrity research institutions demonstrate ethically considered guidance to inform the actions of its community now. Without such interventions, there is a risk that emergent norms and values may favor custom essay writing practices or uncritically problematize the practice with dire unintended consequences for students and learning. This paper responds to the scarcity of applied ethical treatment of the practice.

2. Ethical Considerations Surrounding the Practice

The practice of purchasing bespoke, custom-written essays, known as ‘essay mills’, has come under scrutiny in recent years to the extent that national reviews have been set up to develop strategies for dealing with this practice (especially under the UK’s Quality and Assurance Agency for Higher Education). This is indicative of its perceived unethicality in the academic world. There are many stakeholders in this practice: the universities (for obvious reasons), educators (for marking and teaching), and the students themselves. Although we have some insight into students’ views of this practice, little research has been conducted on staff’s thoughts. This section focuses on the ethical dimensions of students purchasing bespoke essays.

In a recent study, we researched the custom writing process. From one of the many interview themes, we will show that there are many complex ethical considerations for students when asked why they purchased a bespoke piece of coursework. These considerations might affect their degree due to academic misconduct proceedings under the universities’ regulations, their personal integrity, and future employability. Cheating should be avoided through more encompassing education and authentic assessment, and in the context of the study, educators must look at themselves and their practice. The full interview data were used to evaluate ethical considerations in a qualitative manner. Overall, thousands of words on ethical considerations associated with the custom writing/dissertation process were produced. Our thematic analysis suggests that spending (albeit often an exorbitant sum) on a made-to-order essay is more prompt than plagiarism in the context of guidance on academic accreditation for professional qualifications. This would be carried out by guidelines and guidance such as the BPS’s (2010) Guidelines for Ethical Practice in Psychological Research and Professional Training or BERA (2018) Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, which are comparable but do not specify the need for confidentiality further than saying that informants should not be identifiable.

3. Academic Integrity and Plagiarism: A Critical Analysis

It is worth noting some particularities of academic writing here. Most notably, the process of writing in these contexts – or even in its undertakings in more ‘official’ spaces, such as the submission of a manuscript for peer review – has long been oriented to ideas of original authorship. Yet, as Emily Monosson (2007, p. 177) reminds us, it is precisely in the ‘infrastructures of plagiarism detection’ that the emergence of the prospects of ‘open commentary and open source science’ confronts serious question. Some of these questions – many of them not entirely resolvable, or indeed not entirely separate from the moral and ethical texture of original authorship itself – are centered on the prospects and particularities of student cheating and individual academic dishonesty. Not only do we find the Internet in the middle of such debates, but the author – significantly enough – is repeatedly found as well.

So a custom-written essay handed in as an assessment task, rather than the site of public scholarly interests and pursuits, is reframed in the eyes of the prevailing academic ethos as something external. It becomes a breach of academic integrity that upholds both the value of written knowledge-making and the assumptions concerning authentic authorship. Weaponizing these values, however, naturalizes a range of assumptions flourishing within the knowledge economy, and in current modes of globalized capitalism. It ignores the fact that the ‘information age’ work and research markets have us redefining and migrating the dynamics of ownership in scholarly production – from intellectual property in the Global North to the digital and techno-led knowledge platforms that advocate the open-access of local knowledges in the elsewhere-resources from which RMIT academics and students may feel little investment. The prospects of a bigger, greater and globalized academic commons, worthy as they seem, are somewhat constrained given that academic authors unfamiliar to each other routinely face considerable difficulties in pursuit of the integrity of their scholarly communications.

4. Impact on Learning and Educational Outcomes

Finally, the impact purchasing an essay might have on the person’s learning and educational outcomes is something that has received considerable attention in the existing academic literature. One of the key benefits of undertaking academic study is that you will acquire some essential skills. Though such lists differ, some of the key skills identified by employers and educators include critical thinking, the ability to analyze and solve problems, evaluation, distinct communication skills, intercultural skills, and numeracy. Academically, the types of skills students will acquire will include some from the above list, as well as others which are perhaps less pertinent in a vocational context, such as an enthusiasm for and enjoyment of learning, the exercise of intellectual autonomy, time management, adaptability, and much more. The take-home message is that there is a lot more to an education, including a university education, than being taught ‘stuff’. Instead, much of the value of higher education comes from the development of cognitive skills and personal attributes, and the resultant transformation.

Chasing grades creates all the wrong behaviors and most of what a student could learn and should learn is lost if they take the shortcut of just paying for the grade. There are the students that come prepared to learn, they are maybe half the students present and these are the ones that really could benefit in the long run from the education system as a whole even if it does not seem that way. They would be the students that gain deep knowledge and understanding rather than an accumulation of facts. So these students of the two-thirds present that are seeking to learn deeply, some studies have suggested that up to 1 in 7 of these students cannot translate that understanding into ‘examinable’ material and may underperform in assessment. These students might have a special case for this as they may be disproportionately helped in the mainstream assessment with their inability to translate understanding into ‘examinable’ material is not picked up.

The last third are students that do not engage with the materials in a deep way. Sometimes this is for good reasons and they are either too busy spending time on other valid matters or they intend to just pass a unit and do not see the need to reproduce essays in assessment that come from their own deep understanding so will not invest that time. And yes, maybe some actually pay someone else to do it!

5. Conclusion: Recommendations for Promoting Academic Integrity

After examining the ethical implications of students and academic institutions purchasing custom essays, we propose the following recommendations to maintain academic integrity.

Buyers guidance: Instead of punishments and retributive mechanisms, efforts should be made to identify and discourage disengaged students from purchasing custom essays. Students found buying custom essays should be given guidance and support to direct them to appropriate advice and guidance services. If a student’s circumstance is found to be an exacerbating factor in their decision to buy, appropriate support measures should be provided to address this. Honest recommendations should be built upon scientific evidence and research ethics – this further highlights the importance of better regulation of the industry.

Success-oriented feedback and assessment: While no assessment fully mitigates the risk of online custom essay purchase, success-oriented assignments show a reduction in the incidence of cheating. This may include encouraging the development of original thought, engaging students in the production of their work, moving away from high marks and summative exams, and ensuring that assessment aligns with the way in which students learn. The introduction of more formative assignments in MUBS subjects might be beneficial for students, as cheating does decrease with increasing years at university while formative assessment is common in the first year of HE courses in the UK. However, while these strategies for success-oriented feedback and assessment have been proven to be beneficial, they rely on the ability of lecturers to practice these methods and the policy to introduce these methods at an institutional level. Likewise, there is resistance from institutions – particularly TAs – to move to formative strategies over summative ones.