ELT World News

What is a custom essay?

Convention suggests we should start at the beginning. A custom essay or custom thesis is a paper written by a ghostwriter, i.e. a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other content, but who does not receive any credit for it. The essay is considered to be custom because it is written to the student’s exact essay question. Such an essay should be distinguished from the pre-written essay obtained from an essay bank, an earlier form of this ‘art’. These types of essays and thesis examples are past essays donated by students, either in exchange for part of the sale proceeds or in exchange for access to other pre-written essays. They will be essays written in answer to a particular topic and therefore not custom to the student’s particular essay question. Alternatively, getting another student to write your paper for you is one of the oldest cheats in the book. This could be in exchange for cash, other ‘favours’or, if the student is weak, as a result of threats.

Where did custom essays come from and how do such services work?

These days a customer orders their essay usually through an essay company’s website. The Company sends out the order to their team of writers and those writers who are in a position to complete the project will put themselves forward to do the work. The Company usually seeks payment from the customer at this point. When the customer pays, the Company picks the writer they think is best suited to the project and tells them to start. This customised essay is delivered on the day the customer has agreed on.

Is it cheating to use a custom essay service?

This is the big question. Arguably, to use the service alone is not cheating. Take, for example, a lecturer who sets a nice easy essay question: ‘Who was George W. Bush?’ Most students will use Google to search for initial information on this topic and they will find some ten million answers to their question. The process of reading through these answers is not cheating. On the other hand, if the student takes one of the answers and hands it in, passing it off as their own work, then without doubt, they are being deceitful. In fact, there are many more clever ways they could use their material to cheat, rewording a website they found, rearranging the words, citing the source but relying too heavily on the bits and pieces, and so on. They could also use the material as a guide and inscribe their own, original answer to the question. Likewise, a student who orders a custom essay or decides to buy thesis papers can use the essay as a guide and can write their own original answer to the question that has been set for them. They can even do their own research. So, where do you draw the line?

How can students profit from a custom essay?

Universities are often cited in the press as saying that when a student orders a custom essay, they are being lazy because all the work has been done for them. However, the earlier example of using Google shows that there are times during the research process when the student will come across what they think is the right answer. However, this does not mean they have to duplicate the answer word for word, neither does it mean that what they have found is the only answer and they are supposed to stop researching. If a student takes a custom essay and uses the sources to read up on a subject, and to help them generate more sources and a superior understanding, then the custom essay is just a stepping-stone to something greater. It is an example - a template, if you like - for students to see how the question could be dealt with - but after doing their own research, the student could well think that there are far better ways of dealing with the query.

When is using a custom essay service really cheating?

A problem that is often discussed is that not all students who use custom essay services will use the service openly or honestly. Some hand in the essay without doing any work themselves. When custom essays are analysed in this context, they really are helping students to cheat and therefore reduce the value of a university education. Honest students, who do their own research and writing, are angry to know that their counterparts have completed the same degree, gained a better mark than them without having lifted a finger for themselves.

So, why are custom essays still legal?

Custom essays are legal, just as the model answers that teachers hand out are officially permitted. Question and Answer books are also above-board and sometimes, the questions in those are very, very close to the questions set for essays and for exams. The idea of these resources is that they are used as guides - they are not to be copied verbatim without any other research being done. There are many things that are open to misuse that are still legal. All these things have a use, as do custom essays. However, because the custom essay industry arose from a shady background, people have not been educated properly in their use and therefore they do use them to deceive. This problem is further hastened by the fact that a huge number of essay companies are happy to let their customers just hand in the work and don’t offer any guidance on how it should be used. Additionally, because the work is customised, it’s difficult for teachers to detect that the student is cheating.

To use or not to use?

The answer is a matter for your own judgment - if you plan on using a custom thesis or essay service to cheat, then it is likely you’ll be caught. The fact that the essay is 100% original is no safeguard for your lecturer’s sharp eye and if you’ve not done your research, you could be caught out when asked difficult questions about the content or the sources you’ve read. If you’re planning on using the custom essay properly, it’s a fantastic piece of research to use as a starting point for your own work. Don’t forget, however, that there are many dishonest websites out there - make sure you know where they’re based and ensure they are 100% legitimate, or you’ll end up paying a lot for something you could have found on Google for free.

Should custom essay companies be banned?

Universities would certainly like to solve the problem by banning custom essay companies. However, the likely effect of this is that the service would just go underground. There are other ways that the problem could be dealt with. For example, if custom essay companies agreed to submit all of their papers to the universities to scan, then students could not hand in the work as they would be quickly detected.