write an essay online

write an essay online

The Benefits and Challenges of Online Essay Writing

1. Introduction to Online Essay Writing

A number of websites have reshaped the essay writing landscape in recent years. They offer to connect students with freelance writers. A student orders an essay and makes a payment. The writer crafts the essay to the student’s requirements. Each essay is unique. However, these sites raise significant ethical and pedagogical issues. This article describes the benefits and challenges of online essay writing and discusses a number of these critical issues. The main message is that, while these companies are creating a harmful ghostwriting industry, they highlight a number of deficiencies associated with the assessment of traditional essays. This article considers how these sites work and discusses a number of problems and possible solutions related to how essays are assessed, the difference between essay writing and the needed outcomes, and the impact of technology on knowledge creation for the Knowledge Age.

2. Advantages of Writing Essays Online

Combatting the challenges associated with online essay writing is best performed by helping students to understand that they need to use their skills, and they must be attentive to specific ideas or rules of how to compose a paper. The first step in becoming a skilled and successful essay writer is not to rush through a paper but rather think carefully about the objectives of the assignment and the assignment rules and regulations, as set for particular courses. There are 3 stages in obtaining essay writing help: the pre-writing phase, the structure stage, and the research phase. Students should receive assistance from the instructor and be guided by the course outline concerning the requirements of the writing of a paper before a topic proposal is accepted. The audience, paper purpose, and the essay writing format are aspects that should be understood along with the instruction guidelines, including loafiness.

There are many advantages associated with writing essays online. It’s a lot easier to format the content, specialize as one likes, and ensure there’s a focus on the topic. Structure, volume limitations, and audience are some more considerations to have. Formatting essays on paper so that all task requirements and objectives are met is extremely challenging. Authors are responsible for overall content clarity and effectiveness in getting important ideas across. Professors who view unclear essay writing and the lack of important data as a bad sign for a student’s ability to execute a final assignment may assume students’ lack of professionalism or time devoted to assignment completion. Each course in college or university has its own particular demands and expectations of each individual.

3. Challenges and Solutions in Online Essay Writing

Native English speakers will not be the only ones benefiting from the ability to easily rework text. As such skills are refined, new English language learners may create essays in ways that they have previously found difficult. They write in English primarily daily, can work on their essays from their homes, and can gain immediate feedback and advice when they require it. Aside from the fact that they may also write in their home languages and get a critique in English, using a good writing tool eases essay writing for non-native English speakers. Also, online scoring of essays would offer a remedy to the delays that currently typify the Ontario Test of Academic English and the Test of Written English.

Online writing tools are especially complex because their writers need the ability to revise and alter text. E-rater, Criterion’s co-evaluator, is made better through the use of Natural Language Processing technology. Yet, e-rater itself is not accessible in the industry because it involves sophisticated software to examine in real-time what the writer in its prerating examination processes has written and what it may have changed. It is just as complicated to develop an online writing tool as it is complicated to build any training aid for essay evaluation, if not more so. Nevertheless, it is through taking advantage of present technology that people obtain efficiencies.

4. Best Practices for Effective Online Essay Writing

Give students frequent opportunities to share ideas, pitches, or paragraphs to make sure they are on track and feel comfortable submitting a complete essay. Direct students toward useful writing resources, such as the UWC’s E-Tutoring service, for challenging discussions and questions about their essay. Let them know it’s sometimes helpful to revise the introductory and conclusion paragraphs last, after the rest of the academic paper has been perfected. Remind them that all researchers occasionally face something called “writer’s block,” and that it’s far easier to fix a bad page (like a vacuum cleaner can fix a messy floor) than to start creating a finished one (like a blank artist’s canvas). Make room for students to revise any assignments after the feedback has been provided, at least once, for either a higher grade or your acknowledgment that their capabilities have improved. Provide negotiation opportunities and flexibility with scaffolded writing modules or the kind of assignments students can select. All of these practices—plus your consistent, encouraging feedback—will foster an online culture that values student-written ideas and thinking as part of your course.

Practice 3. Cultivate a supportive writing environment and minimize risk

Be clear with students why you are asking them to write drafts, when feedback will be available for what purpose, and how instructors will be using some of the drafts (“low-stakes”) to assess their progress for purposes of feedback and evaluation (both of learning and of teaching). Students can then understand why you may be asking for evidence of some of the writing process, such as the inclusion of “lesson learned” or “final reflections” or “metacognitive summary” sections, despite the generally universal loathing for the “learn, lesson, summary, conclusion” template. Encourage students to collaborate, such as in active peer response guidelines. Have them engage in low-stakes rhetorical analysis assignments, where some students read and comment on drafts or essay exemplars that do not exactly match the assignment they themselves are trying to write. Create peer review groups with diverse perspectives or ideas, so they have plenty to choose from when selecting a writing topic or considering other discursive possibilities. As always, provide examples or rubrics with explicit performance expectations or criteria.

Practice 2. Design and promote reflective writing activities

Explicitly tell students about the purpose of the writing assignment and the required number of words. Why are you asking them to write an essay, and what do you want to learn from their writing? Will they just be summarizing the readings, emphasizing factual accuracy, explaining and backing personal positions, or making a persuasive argument for a specific position? What sort of evidence or research is needed? If applicable, what sort of citations, sources, or formatting guidelines are expected? An initial survey or discussion question can provide useful (formative) assessment information, as well as allow students to see the diversity of writing topics their colleagues are working on, and anticipate the larger class discussion.

Practice 1. Begin with understanding and alignment

5. Conclusion: Embracing the Future of Essay Writing

Essay writing, as an activity, serves as a learning tool, and, in some courses, as a content assessment method. Instructors who teach with technology can access and use resources, such as programs and websites, to enhance process pedagogy. This chapter has described such resources within the context of essay writing, a writing task that inherently fosters reflective learning, collaborative learning, and community building, as interactive essay writing. To maximize the benefits of technology, both pedagogy and the tasks that emerge from it must be technology-driven, so that students can order their learning, perceive meaning behind written words, establish coherence through joint discourse, and develop the ability to write effectively. Facial expressions, hand gestures, and responses have been coupled with such tasks for centuries; yet, synchronous and asynchronous text communications, such as electronic essay writing, have demonstrated potential and effectiveness.

Essay writing is an essential activity that takes place both in face-to-face and online writing courses. As more instructors teach writing using online tools, it is important to understand the benefits and challenges that electronic essay grading technologies and resources offer in order to maximize their effectiveness. This chapter has described both, along with the professional experiences of the authors and several of their colleagues, when integrating electronic communication into the process of writing. Ultimately, the authors hope to inspire writing instructors to reflect on what essay writing is, in the context of learning technology, and design and facilitate electronic essay writing with confidence and enthusiasm.