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Buying College Essays Is Now Easier Than Ever. But Buyer Beware

Tovia Smith

Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market for essays that students can buy and turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it. Angela Hsieh/NPR hide caption

Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market for essays that students can buy and turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.

As the recent college admissions scandal is shedding light on how parents are cheating and bribing their children's way into college, schools are also focusing on how some students may be cheating their way through college. Concern is growing about a burgeoning online market that makes it easier than ever for students to buy essays written by others to turn in as their own work. And schools are trying new tools to catch it.

It's not hard to understand the temptation for students. The pressure is enormous, the stakes are high and, for some, writing at a college level is a huge leap.

"We didn't really have a format to follow, so I was kind of lost on what to do," says one college freshman, who struggled recently with an English assignment. One night, when she was feeling particularly overwhelmed, she tweeted her frustration.

"It was like, 'Someone, please help me write my essay!' " she recalls. She ended her tweet with a crying emoji. Within a few minutes, she had a half-dozen offers of help.

"I can write it for you," they tweeted back. "Send us the prompt!"

The student, who asked that her name not be used for fear of repercussions at school, chose one that asked for $10 per page, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

"For me, it was just that the work was piling up," she explains. "As soon as I finish some big assignment, I get assigned more things, more homework for math, more homework for English. Some papers have to be six or 10 pages long. ... And even though I do my best to manage, the deadlines come closer and closer, and it's just ... the pressure."

In the cat-and-mouse game of academic cheating, students these days know that if they plagiarize, they're likely to get caught by computer programs that automatically compare essays against a massive database of other writings. So now, buying an original essay can seem like a good workaround.

"Technically, I don't think it's cheating," the student says. "Because you're paying someone to write an essay, which they don't plagiarize, and they write everything on their own."

Her logic, of course, ignores the question of whether she's plagiarizing. When pressed, she begins to stammer.

"That's just a difficult question to answer," she says. "I don't know how to feel about that. It's kind of like a gray area. It's maybe on the edge, kind of?"

Besides she adds, she probably won't use all of it.

Other students justify essay buying as the only way to keep up. They figure that everyone is doing it one way or another — whether they're purchasing help online or getting it from family or friends.

"Oh yeah, collaboration at its finest," cracks Boston University freshman Grace Saathoff. While she says she would never do it herself, she's not really fazed by others doing it. She agrees with her friends that it has pretty much become socially acceptable.

"I have a friend who writes essays and sells them," says Danielle Delafuente, another Boston University freshman. "And my other friend buys them. He's just like, 'I can't handle it. I have five papers at once. I need her to do two of them, and I'll do the other three.' It's a time management thing."

The war on contract cheating

"It breaks my heart that this is where we're at," sighs Ashley Finley, senior adviser to the president for the Association of American Colleges and Universities. She says campuses are abuzz about how to curb the rise in what they call contract cheating. Obviously, students buying essays is not new, but Finley says that what used to be mostly limited to small-scale side hustles has mushroomed on the internet to become a global industry of so-called essay mills. Hard numbers are difficult to come by, but research suggests that up to 16 percent of students have paid someone to do their work and that the number is rising.

"Definitely, this is really getting more and more serious," Finley says. "It's part of the brave new world for sure."

The essay mills market aggressively online, with slickly produced videos inviting students to "Get instant help with your assignment" and imploring them: "Don't lag behind," "Join the majority" and "Don't worry, be happy."

"They're very crafty," says Tricia Bertram Gallant, director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California in San Diego and a board member of the International Center for Academic Integrity.

The companies are equally brazen offline — leafleting on campuses, posting flyers in toilet stalls and flying banners over Florida beaches during spring break. Companies have also been known to bait students with emails that look like they're from official college help centers. And they pay social media influencers to sing the praises of their services, and they post testimonials from people they say are happy customers.

"I hired a service to write my paper and I got a 90 on it!" gloats one. "Save your time, and have extra time to party!" advises another.

"It's very much a seduction," says Bertram Gallant. "So you can maybe see why students could get drawn into the contract cheating world."

YouTube has been cracking down on essay mills; it says it has pulled thousands of videos that violate its policies against promoting dishonest behavior.

But new videos constantly pop up, and their hard sell flies in the face of their small-print warnings that their essays should be used only as a guide, not a final product.

Several essay mills declined or didn't respond to requests to be interviewed by NPR. But one answered questions by email and offered up one of its writers to explain her role in the company, called EduBirdie.

"Yes, just like the little birdie that's there to help you in your education," explains April Short, a former grade school teacher from Australia who's now based in Philadelphia. She has been writing for a year and a half for the company, which bills itself as a "professional essay writing service for students who can't even."

Some students just want some "foundational research" to get started or a little "polish" to finish up, Short says. But the idea that many others may be taking a paper written completely by her and turning it in as their own doesn't keep her up at night.

"These kids are so time poor," she says, and they're "missing out on opportunities of travel and internships because they're studying and writing papers." Relieving students of some of that burden, she figures, allows them to become more "well-rounded."

"I don't necessarily think that being able to create an essay is going to be a defining factor in a very long career, so it's not something that bothers me," says Short. Indeed, she thinks students who hire writers are demonstrating resourcefulness and creativity. "I actually applaud students that look for options to get the job done and get it done well," she says.

"This just shows you the extent of our ability to rationalize all kinds of bad things we do," sighs Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University. The rise in contract cheating is especially worrisome, he says, because when it comes to dishonest behavior, more begets more. As he puts it, it's not just about "a few bad apples."

Felicity Huffman And 12 Other Parents To Plead Guilty In College Cheating Scandal

"Instead, what we have is a lot ... of blemished apples, and we take our cues for our behavior from the social world around us," he says. "We know officially what is right and what's wrong. But really what's driving our behavior is what we see others around us doing" or, Ariely adds, what we perceive them to be doing. So even the proliferation of advertising for essays mills can have a pernicious effect, he says, by fueling the perception that "everyone's doing it."

A few nations have recently proposed or passed laws outlawing essay mills, and more than a dozen U.S. states have laws on the books against them. But prosecuting essay mills, which are often based overseas in Pakistan, Kenya and Ukraine, for example, is complicated. And most educators are loath to criminalize students' behavior.

"Yes, they're serious mistakes. They're egregious mistakes," says Cath Ellis, an associate dean and integrity officer at the University of New South Wales, where students were among the hundreds alleged to have bought essays in a massive scandal in Australia in 2014.

"But we're educational institutions," she adds. "We've got to give students the opportunity to learn from these mistakes. That's our responsibility. And that's better in our hands than in the hands of the police and the courts."

Staying one step ahead

In the war on contract cheating, some schools see new technology as their best weapon and their best shot to stay one step ahead of unscrupulous students. The company that makes the Turnitin plagiarism detection software has just upped its game with a new program called Authorship Investigate.

The software first inspects a document's metadata, like when it was created, by whom it was created and how many times it was reopened and re-edited. Turnitin's vice president for product management, Bill Loller, says sometimes it's as simple as looking at the document's name. Essay mills typically name their documents something like "Order Number 123," and students have been known to actually submit it that way. "You would be amazed at how frequently that happens," says Loller.

Using cutting-edge linguistic forensics, the software also evaluates the level of writing and its style.

"Think of it as a writing fingerprint," Loller says. The software looks at hundreds of telltale characteristics of an essay, like whether the author double spaces after a period or writes with Oxford commas or semicolons. It all gets instantly compared against a student's other work, and, Loller says, suspicions can be confirmed — or alleviated — in minutes.

"At the end of the day, you get to a really good determination on whether the student wrote what they submitted or not," he says, "and you get it really quickly."

Coventry University in the U.K. has been testing out a beta version of the software, and Irene Glendinning, the school's academic manager for student experience, agrees that the software has the potential to give schools a leg up on cheating students. After the software is officially adopted, "we'll see a spike in the number of cases we find, and we'll have a very hard few years," she says. "But then the message will get through to students that we've got the tools now to find these things out." Then, Glendinning hopes, students might consider contract cheating to be as risky as plagiarizing.

In the meantime, schools are trying to spread the word that buying essays is risky in other ways as well.

Professor Ariely says that when he posed as a student and ordered papers from several companies, much of it was "gibberish" and about a third of it was actually plagiarized.

Even worse, when he complained to the company and demanded his money back, they resorted to blackmail. Still believing him to be a student, the company threatened to tell his school he was cheating. Others say companies have also attempted to shake down students for more money, threatening to rat them out if they didn't pay up.

The lesson, Ariely says, is "buyer beware."

But ultimately, experts say, many desperate students may not be deterred by the risks — whether from shady businesses or from new technology.

Bertram Gallant, of UC San Diego, says the right way to dissuade students from buying essays is to remind them why it's wrong.

"If we engage in a technological arms race with the students, we won't win," she says. "What are we going to do when Google glasses start to look like regular glasses and a student wears them into an exam? Are we going to tell them they can't wear their glasses because we're afraid they might be sending the exam out to someone else who is sending them back the answers?"

The solution, Bertram Gallant says, has to be about "creating a culture where integrity and ethics matter" and where education is valued more than grades. Only then will students believe that cheating on essays is only cheating themselves.

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A.I. Is Making It Easier Than Ever for Students to Cheat

Look out, educators. You’re about to confront a pernicious new challenge that is spreading, kudzu-like , into your student writing assignments: papers augmented with artificial intelligence.

The first online article generator debuted in 2005. Now, A.I.-generated text can now be found in novels , fake news articles and real news articles , marketing campaigns, and dozens of other written products. The tech is either free or cheap to use, which places it in the hands of anyone. And it’s probably already burrowing into America’s classrooms right now.

Using an A.I. program is not “plagiarism” in the traditional sense—there’s no previous work for the student to copy, and thus no original for teachers’ plagiarism detectors to catch. Instead, a student first feeds text from either a single or multiple sources into the program to begin the process. The program then generates content by using a set of parameters on a topic, which then can be personalized to the writer’s specifications. With a little bit of practice, a student can use AI to write his or her paper in a fraction of the time that it would normally take to write an essay.

I wanted to see what would happen if I fed an A.I. text generator like Sudowrite some sample texts for assignments. (Sudowrite is just one such program; I could name more, but I’d rather not make it even easier for students to cheat.) The results showed that teachers must be made aware of what is coming to their classrooms.

Say a student wanted to write an essay about U.S.-China policy and decided to use an A.I. program to speed along the process. I fed it the first few lines from a recent Pentagon report : “The PRC is increasingly clear in its ambitions and intentions. Beijing seeks to reshape the international order to better align with its authoritarian system and national interests, as a vital component of its strategy to achieve the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.’ ” The A.I. text generator provided these following sentences:

It is increasingly willing to disregard—or to actively undermine—existing international rules and norms when it feels its vital interests are at stake. The U.S. and its allies face a rapidly modernizing military, whose capabilities are growing rapidly, especially in the air and at sea. China has also made great strides in its development of cyber capabilities, and it is focused on the ability to degrade or disrupt critical U.S. military technology, as well as on targeting civilian infrastructure. In addition to being a challenge to the U.S. military and its allies, China’s activities in cyberspace have the potential to degrade U.S. political and economic institutions, and the global information infrastructure is at risk. 

If a high school student turned that in verbatim, their teacher would probably suspect that there was something amiss. But if this were turned in at the undergraduate or graduate level, and especially if the student were to edit the text, it would be much harder to detect.

Or let’s say they need to write a paper about climate change. Here’s what came up when I fed Sudowrite the first few lines from an article on climate change impacts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website:

Though we often think about human-induced climate change as something that will happen in the future, it is an ongoing process. Ecosystems and communities in the United States and around the world are being impacted today. 

It’s not particularly insightful, but it provides the A.I. program some basic building blocks. The artificial intelligence continued along this slightly edited line of reasoning:

The consensus view emerging from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other respected assessments is that the planet is warming because of the accumulation of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere caused by human activity. The level of scientific consensus that human activities are primarily responsible for climate change is like the consensus finding on smoking causing lung cancer.

The program had likely already been trained to know the term “climate change” was connected to the IPCC; by making certain inferences it could generate text which seemed like a reasonable extension of the idea.

What about ninth-grade English? Channeling my 14-year-old self, I wrote these lines:

“Romeo and Juliet” is a play that explores many different topics such as romance, betrayal, and tragedy. It has interesting characters that make it such a good story, even 400 years later. 

The computer spat back this take (which I’ve edited slightly):

Romeo, the main character, is a very passionate and immature young man who is torn between his love for Rosaline and his love for Juliet. He is also very rash and desperate to get Juliet and will do almost anything to win her. His desperation for Juliet is an interesting trait and is one that the younger kids can relate to, as well as older adults with first crushes. Romeo is an interesting character and is very different from how kids would imagine him to be. But he is also a great inspiration, showing that love is worth fighting for.

Again, the A.I. program had been previously trained to know that Romeo and Juliet contained certain characters, themes, and plot elements. But what stood out to me was that the text was crafted at an appropriate writing level for a high schooler, who would be reading about these star-crossed lovers for the first time. The awkward phrasing and the syntax errors baked into the program make it seem convincing.

I’ve struggled to find the right analogy to describe this phenomenon. Is using A.I. to write graded papers like athletes taking performance-enhancing drugs? As a society and as a sporting culture, we’ve decided certain drugs are forbidden, as they provide the user unfair advantages. Further, the cocktail of drugs flowing through these competitors and malicious sports programs could cause real physical and psychological harm to the athletes themselves. Would individuals using AI in writing be likewise considered in the same boat—a cheat to the system providing undue advantages, which also creates harm in the long run by impeding writing skills?

Or might using A.I. be more like using performance-enhancing gear in sports, which is both acceptable and encouraged? To use another sports analogy, even beginner tennis players today use high-performance carbon composite rackets instead of 1960s-era wooden racket technology. Swimmers wear nylon and elastane suits and caps to reduce drag. Bikers have stronger, lighter bicycles than their counterparts used a generation ago. Baseball bats evolved from wood to aluminum and developed better grips; baseball mitts have become more specialized over the decades.

Numerous educators assert that A.I. is more like the former. They consider using these programs violate academic integrity. Georgetown University professor Lise Howard told me, “I do think it’s unethical and an academic violation to use AI to write paragraphs, because academic work is all about original writing.” Written assignments have two purposes, argues Ani Ross Grubb, part-time faculty member in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College: “First is to test the learning, understanding, and critical thinking skills of students. Second is to provide scaffolding to develop those skills. Having AI write your assignments would go against those goals.”

Certainly, one can argue that this topic has already been covered in university academic integrity codes. Using A.I. might open students to serious charges. For instance, American University indicates, “All papers and materials submitted for a course must be the student’s original work unless the sources are cited” while the University of Maryland similarly notes that it is prohibited to use dishonesty to “gain an unfair advantage, and/or using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in any academic course or exercise.”

But some study aids are generally considered acceptable. When writing papers, it is perfectly fine to use grammar- and syntax-checking products standard on Microsoft Word and other document creating programs. Other A.I. programs like Grammarly help write better sentences and fix errors. Google Docs finishes sentences in drafts and emails.

So the border between using those kinds of assistive computer programs and full-on cheating remains fuzzy. Indeed, as Jade Wexler, associate professor of special education at the University of Maryland, noted, A.I. could be a valuable tool to help level the playing field for some students. “It goes back to teachers’ objectives and students’ needs,” she said. “There’s a fine balance making sure both of those are met.”

Thus there are two intertwined questions at work. First: Should institutions permit A.I.-enhanced writing? If the answer is no, then the second question is: How can professors detect it? After all, it’s unclear whether there’s a technical solution to keeping A.I. from worming into student papers. An educator’s up-to-date knowledge on relevant sources will be of limited utility since the verbiage has not been swiped from pre-existing texts.

Still, there may be ways to minimize these artificial enhancements. One is to codify at the institutional level what is acceptable and what is not; in July the Council of Europe took a few small steps, publishing new guidelines which begin to grapple with these new technologies creating fraud in education. Another would be to keep classes small and give individual attention to students. As Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman, associate professor of English at Northern Kentucky University, noted, “When a writing instructor is in a classroom situation where they are unable to provide individualized attention, the chance for students to phone it in—whether this is plagiarism, A.I., or just writing in a boring, uninvested way—goes up.” More in-class writing assignments—no screens allowed—could also help. Virginia Lee Strain, associate professor of English and director of the honors program at Loyola University Chicago, further argued, “AI is not a problem in the classroom when a student sits down with paper and pencil.”

But in many settings, more one-on-one time simply isn’t a realistic solution, especially at high schools or colleges with large classes. Educators juggle multiple classes and courses, and for them to get to know every student every semester isn’t going to happen.

A more aggressive stance would be for high schools and universities to explicitly declare using A.I. will be considered an academic violation—or at least update their honor codes to reflect what they believe is the right side of the line concerning academic integrity. That said, absent a mechanism to police students, it might paradoxically introduce students to a new way to generate papers faster.

Educators realize some large percentage of students will cheat or try to game the system to their advantage. But perhaps, as Hindman says, “if a professor is concerned that students are using plagiarism or AI to complete assignments, the assignments themselves are the problem, not the students or the AI.” If an educator is convinced that students are using these forbidden tools, he or she might consider using alternate means to generate grades such as assigning oral exams, group projects, and class presentations. Of course, as Hindman notes, “these types of high-impact learning practices are only feasible if you have a manageable number of students.”

AI is here to stay whether we like it or not. Provide unscrupulous students the ability to use these shortcuts without much capacity for the educator to detect them, combined with other crutches like outright plagiarism, and companies that sell papers, homework, and test answers, and it’s a recipe for—well, not disaster, but the further degradation of a type of assignment that has been around for centuries.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate , New America , and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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9 Proven Essay Hacks: Cheat Sheet and Tips to cheat on essays

In this comprehensive guide, we show you proven essay hacks to use as an essay cheat sheet and tips on how to cheat on essays. Earn the grades legally. If you effectively apply these 9 tips and tricks, you will significantly save your time in writing essays, and the efforts you put on your homework and earn high grades easily.

In many essays and assignments, students get stranded due to the lack of knowledge on how to navigate from one step to another in the writing process. Sometimes, there are easy ways to write essays, but they only work when you know the tips. Let us now discuss each in detail.

Easy navigation table

Proven Essay Hacks to legally Cheat on Essays

1. hire a professional essay writer.

This is one of the most convenient and easiest ways through which a student can cheat on essays, homework, and other assignments. The student hires a professional essay writer.

Professional essay writers can be accessed through professional writing websites. Grade Bees essay writing is one of the best ones. Several writing websites have experienced and competent writers who can handle different types of essays or any other assignment 24/7.

When you hire a professional essay writer, you can be assured that your paper will be of high quality and it will be delivered on time as your work.

However, there are some things you should consider before hiring a professional essay writer online. You should conduct a thorough research concerning the credibility of your selected writing services provider.

Make your Order

Give Instructions

Your writer completes the task

Download your File

The credibility can be gauged based on how long the website has provided witting services to students, the consistency of the website regarding the delivery of quality essays to students, and most importantly the support system within the site.

Once you are satisfied with the website offering professional writing services, you will be assigned a verified essay writer to complete your assignment.

The assigned professional write will deliver your essay, homework, or any other assignment according to the instructions you provided and the deadline you gave.

Of course, those services are not free. You will have to pay. The price may differ from one service provider to another.

2. Plagiarize wisely without getting caught

This is also an ingenious method of cheating on your essays, homework, and more.

While plagiarizing is academic dishonesty that is punishable by law, plagiarizing wisely without getting caught can help you cheat on essays if you believe it is morally right.

The first method of plagiarizing wisely is to add adverbs and adjectives into original sentences to make them sound and appear different or unique.

Also, you should note that plagiarism detecting tools look for overlapping text between your essay and other works from other writers.

If you add adverbs and adjectives, the similarity or overlapping text will disappear and you will be good.

You can also change the order of text within the original sentences. This is an easy method of plagiarizing because plagiarism detecting tools such as SafeAssign and Turnitin will be incapable of detecting any overlaps between your essay and the original work.

Changing the word order can also be achieved by Article Rewriting tools. Those tools are several on Google.

What they do is to take the original text and jumble it in such a way that it maintains meaning and coherence while becoming different from the original work.

Finally, you can utilize several quotes within your essay. However, this will depend on whether your instructor accepts them or not.

If you use quotes, be sure to quote (“…”) the original text and add an in-text citation at the end of the quote to avoid detection.

Check our our guide how to plagiarize wisely without getting caught especially when dealing with Turnitin or SafeAssign.

 3. Paraphrase your essay well

Paraphrasing is when a student takes the original text and mixes the words in such a way that they look original while retaining the same meaning with the original text.

You should note that even though you have paraphrased, you should correctly cite the source in the right format.

Below are some of the tips that can be used to help you paraphrase your work well:

• Use a Dissimilar first sentence
• Use relevant synonyms
• Change sentence structure
• Break long sentences

We can explain these points in detail below;

1. Use a Dissimilar first sentence

First, you should begin your essay, or the first sentence of your essay, at a dissimilar point from that of the original.

This means that you will not follow the structure of the source. You will have to find the structure through which you will rewrite the source’s text.

2. Use relevant synonyms

Secondly, you should use synonyms. This is a clever way of paraphrasing because you will exchange the original words with their synonyms.

This can easily fool plagiarism detecting tools. The Saurus Tool can help you if you are stuck.

3. Change sentence structure

Thirdly, you can change the sentence structure. If the original sentence has been written in the active form, you can change it into a passive form.

4. Break long sentences

Finally, you can break long sentences or information into smaller and separate sentences. This will make your essay original while maintaining the original or intended information.

Read our guide on the Dos and Don’ts of paraphrasing – and learn how to paraphrase well.

4. Submit late assignments wisely

It is a requirement that all assignments should be submitted before the deadline.

Any late submissions are not accepted by most instructors because the students have not followed the instructions and they may have used that opportunity to cheat on their essays.

Depending on the institution you are studying in, your instructors have different preferences when it comes to submitting assignments.

Most will require you to submit the assignments via plagiarism detecting tools such as Turnitin or SafeAssign while others may require you to physically hand in your work.

Either way, late submissions are unacceptable. This is because they can be used as a loophole to cheat.

Read our guide on how to submit late assignments and escape with it.

To ensure that you turn in your late assignments, be sure to upload a corrupted file before the deadline. The instructor will struggle to open the file without success.

During that time, take the opportunity to complete the assignment. You can also seek help from your smart classmates because they will assume that you have also uploaded the file and their help will not have any impact on your paper.

By the time your instructor requests you to re-upload your assignment, you will have completed your paper. Voila!

5. Work with homework help tutor

This method cannot be considered as an unethical approach to cheating on essays. This is because a homework help tutor is just like your teacher or instructor who wants to make you better understand the course and the homework.

Again, parents who think that their children are not at par with their peers at school will most likely hire extra help from such tutors. Those tutors can also help you while completing your homework.

Well, homework help tutors can be actual physical people who you interact with or someone/something that you interact within a virtual space (online).

In either case, both can provide valuable information that can help you complete your homework.

Their experience as tutors and the academic information they possess guarantees that you will complete your homework and expect the best results. 

For example, if you have been given Chemistry homework and you feel that it is difficult to complete because you do not understand the concepts, you can seek homework help tutor

Maybe the grade you will get from the assignment will impact your final grade. Though you will have cheated, seeking help will save your grade.

Look out for our homework help services and see if you can get someone to walk your academic journey with you

This is one of the most effective and successful methods of cheating on essays, homework, and more without getting caught. You have legally or morally done nothing wrong.

6. Re-use previous papers from you or others

This method of cheating on essays, homework, and more can be very risky if not done wisely. As we have noted, some tools are used by institutions to check for plagiarism.

Tools such as SafeAssign and Turnitin can detect any overlaps between your submitted papers and other papers, essays, or works that are available within their databases.

If they detect any overlaps, then your paper has a degree of plagiarism that is dictated by the similarity index.

If the previous papers from you or others to be reused have been previously submitted through either of plagiarism checking tools, then your paper will be detected and rejected because of a high similarity index.

However, it should be noted that the two plagiarism checking tools use different databases and they do not check the other’s databases.

Therefore, it may be possible to reuse a paper that has been previously submitted using Turnitin by submitting it through SafeAssign and vice versa.

Turnitin stores all the papers that have been submitted through it to its database. In the case of SafeAssign, students and instructors can choose to donate those papers as resources.

The key thing to note is that most of the tools used to check for plagiarism have a mechanism of detecting papers that have been previously submitted through them.

Read our guide how to re-use previous papers without self-plagiarism and apply this crazy hack.

However, if your paper or another person’s paper has not been submitted through such tools, you can confidently reuse them.

 7. Smartly cheat your online tests

Some smart methods can be used by students to cheat during their online tests. One of the most commonly used methods is screen mirroring or sharing.

Since online tests are given to students from remote locations, you have the freedom to use more than one monitor.

Those monitors are used to simultaneously mirror the test questions to your smart friends who can provide answers.

The second method you can use to cheat during online tests is by using devices to cheat. Some Bluetooth devices are very tiny and undetectable.

You can place them strategically into your ear and use them to receive voiced answers from your smart friends or any other person you have hired to help you during the online test.

Another device you can use to cheat during online tests is your smartphone. They can store valuable information and answers. They are connected to the internet and you can search your answers on cheating websites like Sparknotes or more.

Another method that can be used to cheat during online tests is impersonation. Here, the candidate hires or uses another person to do the test on their behalf.

You can read our full guide how to cheat online tests and get some easy hacks that may help you escape being caught.

Administering online tests remotely allows the candidates to use impersonators who are more knowledgeable and are likely to attain good grades for the candidates. However, we give a disclaimer that such cheating in school is wrong , and you should try it at your own peril.

Though this is the case, most institutions are now administering online exams though proctored programs like web browsers and tools to avoid cheating incidences. 

8. Use free model essays to write your essays

Copying or using model essays/papers to write your essays/papers is also an effective method of cheating on essays, homework, and more. Model essays have been created by individuals who are well versed in the course content and its requirements.

Most likely, those individuals create those model essays/papers to guide or provide an actual example of how students should do their papers or essays. In most cases, the model essays or papers have been written or approved by the instructor. Therefore, they can be valuable assets when writing your paper or essay.

What you should note is that not all model essays or papers will completely match the assignment requirements given by your instructor.

Read our post on how to use completely free sample essays as models for your paper.

You should carefully check the contents and the context of the model essay or papers before copying or using them to write your essays or papers.

If by chance the model paper is similar to your assignment, you can proceed to copy the points in your paper or essay. However, do not copy-paste. Read our guide on paraphrasing hack 3 above.

If you decide to completely copy the model paper or essay, be sure to check for similarity through plagiarism checking tools such as Turnitin Self-Check, Grammarly, or any other tool. This will ensure that the paper does not exist within the databases of those tools. If they do exist, you can plagiarize or paraphrase wisely to avoid getting caught. If they do not exist, then you can copy and upload the paper as your own.

9. Have someone take your class online

As aforementioned, online classes and courses are administered remotely. Therefore, students and tutors do not physically interact. This gives students a lot of freedom to cheat. One of the methods is to have someone take your online class from the start to end. Due to proctoring tools and online authentication through biometrics and student IDs that are taken

during the start of the online course, having someone take the online class from the start will ensure that they will have assumed your identity. They will also do online proctored tests and exams without any problem.

Essay Cheat Sheet and Tips to improve your writing

1. use proofreading tools to polish your work.

Proofreading tools like Grammarly and writecheck can be very helpful when completing your essays.

They are easy to use and they make your work to be significantly easier.

At the same time, they will take lesser time and save you on the deadline.

When you are done writing your essay or research paper and you need to proofread your work to correct any grammatical errors, punctuation, and so on, you can just copy-paste or upload the file directly to the tool.

Some of the proofreading tools are free while others require a subscription fee.

Read our hacks on how to use Grammarly Premium version for free and see how it works.

Once uploaded, the tool will automatically detect any errors or issues within your paper. You can correct them as required.

2. Format your paper well – cite referencing, etc.

Formatting your paper well will guarantee more points. After you are done writing your paper, it is important to format it following the academic guidelines provided by your instructor.

The format will dictate the arrangement of your paper in terms of paragraphs, the in-text citations, presence or absence of endnotes or footnotes, and the placement of the bibliography/works cited/reference page.

Read our guide how to format papers in APA or MLA and get a quick lesson or essay hack on the same.

The common and acceptable formats include APA, MLA, Chicago, and Harvard. Be sure to follow the format dictated by your instructor to be graded.

Some instructors will not grade papers that do not follow the correct format that is well done.

You can hire one of our cheap essay writers from our website to proofread your work professionally.

3. Self-check your papers for plagiarism

This is also a very important step to do before submitting your paper. As we have noted earlier, most instructors will require you to submit your papers and essays through plagiarism checking tools such as SafeAssign and Turnitin.

However, some submissions can only be done once because they are taken as final copies rather than drafts. It is therefore important to perform a self-check through tools.

Read our guide on Turnitin Self-check alternatives and learn more.

Some of the tools discussed in that article include Turnitin’s Feedback Studio, Grammarly, PlagScan, DupliChecker, and so on before submitting your drafts as final copies.

4. Keep your plagiarism score within the acceptable range

Different institutions and instructors have different standards when it comes to plagiarism scores.

Some will be strict while others will be lenient depending on the course discipline and the writing prowess of the students.

Check out our post on the acceptable plagiarism score on Turnitin and know how not to surpass that level.

As a student, you should take note of the accepted range and try as much as possible to keep your plagiarism score within the acceptable range.

You will not be penalized due to plagiarized content if you keep your score within the acceptable range.

5. Follow online guides on how to write essays and papers

If you google or search the web for topics on how to write different types of papers, you will find several results.

Read our comprehensive guides how to write an essay and how to write research papers for detailed lessons.

Some many websites and blogs provide free guides on how to write different papers. You should however check the credibility of the online sources because some of them may misguide you.

Different papers will take different forms. The most credible sites will give you guidelines in terms of structure, outline, format, tone, and how to effectively cite sources.

6. Know the allowed plagiarism – easy essay cheat sheet

Different institutions and instructors have different standards when it comes to how much plagiarism is allowed. Some institutions or instructors will not allow students’ papers with a plagiarism score of more than 5%. Watch the video below to learn how to reduce your plagiarism.

Others can allow a score of below 25% while others can allow as much as 30% depending on the course’s discipline and the writing proficiency of the students.

If your instructor or institution allows or tolerates a plagiarism score of 30%, then you can plagiarize to that extent.

However, if they do not tolerate that (5% and below), then avoid plagiarism by using the aforementioned methods.

Essays About Cheating: Top 5 Examples and 9 Writing Prompts

Essays about cheating show the value of honesty, see our top picks for examples and prompts you can use in writing.

In the US, 95% of high school students admitted to participating in some form of academic cheating . This includes exams and plagiarism. However, cheating doesn’t only occur in schools. It’s also prevalent in couples. Psychologists say that 50% of divorce cases in the country are because of infidelity . Other forms of cheating exist, such as cheating on a diet, a business deal, etc.

Because cheating is an intriguing subject, many want to read about it. However, to write essays about cheating appropriately, you must first pick a subtopic you’re comfortable discussing. Therefore, we have selected five simple but exemplary pieces you can read to get inspiration for writing your paper.

See below our round-up of top example essays about cheating.

1. Long Essay On Cheating In School By Prasanna

2. the reality of cheating in college essay by writer kip, 3. why cheating is wrong by bernadette mcbride, 4. what counts as cheating in a relationship by anonymous on gradesfixer, 5. emotional cheating by anonymous on papersowl, 1. types of cheating, 2. i was cheated on, 3. is cheating a mistake or choice, 4. tax evasion and cheating , 5. when i cheated, 6. cheating in american schools and universities, 7. review a famous book or film about cheating, 8. a famous cheating quote, 9. cause and effects of cheating.

“Cheating is a false representation of the child’s ability which he may not be able to give without cheating. It is unfair to everyone involved as it deprives the true one of the chance to come on the top.”

Prasanna begins the essay by defining cheating in schools and then incorporates how this unethical behavior occurs in reality. She further delves into the argument that cheating is not learning but an addiction that can result in students losing self-confidence, sanity, and integrity. 

Apart from showing the common causes and harmful effects of cheating on students, Prasanna also adds parents’ and teachers’ critical roles in helping students in their studies to keep them from cheating.

“It’s human nature to want to win, and some of us will go against the rules to do so. It can be harmless, but in many cases, it is annoying, or even hurtful.”

Kip defines cheating as human nature and focuses his essay on individuals who are hell-bent on wanting to win in online games. Unfortunately, these players’ desire to be on top is all-consuming, and they’re willing to go against the rules and disregard their integrity.

He talks about his experiences of being cheated in a game called AoE. He also incorporates the effects of these instances on newbies. These cheaters will humiliate, dishearten, and traumatize beginners who only want to have fun.

Check out these essays about cooperation .

“A cheater is more than likely lying to themselves more than to the people around them. A person can only go so far before their lies catch up to them, begin to accumulate, and start to penalize you.”

Mcbride dedicates her essay to answering why cheating is wrong, no matter the circumstance. She points out that there will always be a definite punishment for cheaters, whether they get caught. Mcbride believes that students who cheat, copy, and have someone else do their work are lazy and irresponsible. These students will never gain knowledge.

However, she also acknowledges that some cheaters are desperate, while some don’t realize the repercussions of their behaviors. At the end of the essay, she admits to cheating but says she’s no longer part of that vicious cycle, promising she has already realized her mistakes and doesn’t want to cheat again.

“Keep in mind that relationships are not based on logic, but are influenced by our emotions.”

The author explains how it’s challenging to define cheating in a relationship. It’s because every person has varying views on the topic. What others consider an affair may be acceptable to some. This includes the partners’ interaction with others while also analyzing the individual’s personality, such as flirting, sleeping in the same bed, and spending time with folks.

The essay further explains experts’ opinions on why men and women cheat and how partners heal and rebuild their trust. Finally, examples of different forms of cheating are discussed in the piece to give the readers more information on the subject. 

“…emotional cheating can be described as a desire to engage in another relationship without physically leaving his or her primary relationship.”

There’s an ongoing debate about whether emotional cheating should be labeled as such. The essay digs into the causes of emotional cheating to answer this issue. These reasons include lack of attention to each other, shortage of affectionate gestures, and misunderstandings or absence of proper communication. 

All of these may lead to the partner comparing their relationship to others. Soon, they fall out of love and fail to maintain boundaries, leading to insensitivity and selfishness. When a person in a relationship feels any of these, it can be a reason to look for someone else who can value them and their feelings.

9 Helpful Prompts in Writing Essays About Cheating

Here are some cheating subtopics you can focus your essay on:

Some types of cheating include deception, fabrication, bribery, impersonation, sabotage, and professional misconduct. Explain their definitions and have examples to make it easier for readers to understand.

You can use this prompt even if you don’t have any personal experience of being cheated on. You can instead relay events from a close friend or relative. First, narrate what happened and why. Then add what the person did to move on from the situation and how it affected them. Finally, incorporate lessons they’ve learned.

While this topic is still discussed by many, for you, is cheating a redeemable mistake? Or is it a choice with consequences? Express your opinion on this matter. Gather reliable evidence to support your claims, such as studies and research findings, to increase your essay’s credibility.

Tax evasion is a crime with severe penalties. Explain what it is and its punishments through a famous tax evasion case your readers can immediately recognize. For example, you can use Al Capone and his 11-year imprisonment and $215,000 back taxes . Talk through why he was charged with such and add your opinion. Ensure you have adequate and reliable sources to back up your claims.

Start with a  5 paragraph essay  to better organize your points.

Some say everyone will cheat at some point in their life. Talk about the time you cheated – it can be at a school exam, during work, or while on a diet. Put the perspective that made you think cheating was reasonable. Did you feel guilt? What did you do after, and did you cheat again? Answer these questions in your essay for an engaging and thrilling piece of writing.

Since academic cheating is notorious in America, use this topic for your essay. Find out which areas have high rates of academic cheating. What are their penalties? Why is cheating widespread? Include any measures the academe put in place.

Cheating is a frequent cause of conflict on small and big screens. Watch a film or read a story and write a review. Briefly summarize the plot, critique the characters, and add your realizations after finishing the piece. 

Goodreads has a list of books related to cheating. Currently, Thoughtless by S.C. Stephens has the highest rating.

Use this as an opportunity to write a unique essay by explaining the quote based on your understanding. It can be quotes from famous personalities or something that resonates with you and your experiences.

Since cheating’s cause and effect is a standard prompt, center your essay on an area unrelated to academics or relationships. For instance, write about cheating on your diet or cheating yourself of the opportunities life presents you.

Create a top-notch essay with excellent grammar. See our list of the best grammar checkers.

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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How to Cheat On a Test

Last Updated: February 16, 2024 References

wikiHow is a “wiki,” similar to Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 439 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 3,390,087 times. Learn more...

Whether you are simply unprepared, lazy, or otherwise unable to successfully pass an exam, you may feel compelled to use cheating as a strategy to get through a test. Here are some steps and tips to help you accomplish your goal and most likely get that A+ you've always wanted.

• Don't look suspicious. It's important to strike a balance between effectively getting your answers and not making it obvious. To do this, don't overly fidget. If you must look around, never hold your gaze in one place for longer than five to ten seconds. Switch it up by randomly staring in other directions — this way, your test supervisors won't get too suspicious and find out where your accomplice (or cheat sheet) is.
• Don't aim too high. It's not impossible to cheat your way into a perfect score if you really put in the effort, but if everyone else is getting an unremarkable grade on the exam, you will draw attention to yourself. This is fine if you normally get decent marks, but if you're known among teachers as one of the slower students, then there's a chance that they'll find out. Deliberately miss a few questions, though, and you'll be good to go. Try getting a B on a test and continually but slowly raising your average score until it's an A. You can even shoot for ups and downs in your scores, to make it appear more natural.
• Dispose of the evidence. As soon as the test is over, ask to go to the bathroom (if you haven't already gone) to wash off or throw away any evidence of cheating. The longer you hold on to something, then the better your chance of getting caught because one person or another will notice.

Using Cheat-Sheet Methods

• Try the "Body Part Cheat-Sheet" method. Instead of printing out the cheat sheet, try writing it on a part of your body. Good places include your forearm if you are a man or your upper thigh if you are a woman. These are both great because you can wear a dress or long sleeve shirt to cover up your cheat sheet when you aren't using it. It's important to not make it obvious that there is writing on your body. Put the words in a place that faces you only.
• Try the "Water Bottle Cheat-Sheet" method. Print out the cheat sheet on a colored piece of paper that matches that label of your water bottle. Paste it on the label and turn it so that it only faces you. Ideally, you want to mimic the writing on the label to avoid suspicion. [1] X Research source
• Try the "Binder Cheat-Sheet" method. If you have a binder that has a clear slot in the front, slide your cheat sheet into there. Move your binder from under your desk to the side of your desk to peek at your cheat sheet. Try to minimize the number of slides, especially if you don't have carpet in your classroom.
• Try the "Calculator Cheat-Sheet" method. This is common for people who are taking math tests because that's the only reasonable time to have a calculator without being suspicious. Slide formulas or information terms between the back of the calculator and the calculator's cover.
• Another Calculator Method to try: If you have a graphing calculator, save the math formulas into your calculator. Then, put the information into an archive, so you will still be able to get to it if your teacher makes you clear the RAM. Unarchive the information during the test. Clear the memory after the test. This also works if it's the school's calculator because no teacher or student is going to look in the archive. If you don't know how to archive things on a calculator, look it up. [2] X Research source
• Try the "Stashed Cheat-Sheet" method. Hide a cheat-sheet in a separate place altogether to avoid it getting connected back to you. This includes on a bulletin board in the classroom, in a bathroom stall, or on someone's chair.
• Wear a long-sleeved shirt and hide your cheat sheets under the sleeves. It is a very good method because your teacher won't look under your sleeves. And when your teacher isn't looking, you can easily take out a cheat sheet, and it's easy to put it back.

Implementing Partner-Cheating Methods

• Establish hand or foot tapping signals for A, B, C, D, E, and "wrong answer." By creating a signal for "wrong answer" you are going to improve the likelihood of you both doing well on the test by helping each other eliminate wrong answers. Also create a vocal noise for getting their attention that isn't suspicious (like a cough, or foot tap).
• Start by coughing to get their attention.
• Use your fingers to give the number of the question (flash 3 than a 2 to with your hand signal question "32").
• Wait for them to signal their answer (pulling their ear for "B").
• If you need help deciding between 2 answers: cough, give the question number, and signal for the answer you suspect it might be.
• They can nod their head if it's correct. if it's the wrong answer they can send the "wrong answer" signal (put up your hair in a ponytail).

Using Hard-to-Prove Methods

• Claim to be sick, go to the bathroom towards the end of the exam until it's over. Or pace yourself slowly. Be sure that your professor will let you come back before using this method as you could actually do worse if they don’t let you finish.

• Keep in mind that some classrooms have cameras. Avoid this if the one you are in does have a camera because if that is the case, it’s much riskier.

• If your exam paper is a question/answer type then remember to add one important point as the question and the other as the answer. You also have to include the page number and marks per question (if included).
• The next thing to do is a staple this piece of paper with the original question paper during the test without anyone noticing.

Implementing Studying Methods

• For essays , try to remember keywords and points. Usually, professors or teachers look for keywords or important points; the essay's formal "fluff" is less important. If you know the topic or possible topics of an essay question, cram four to five terms or important points you know your professor will be looking for instead of studying everything, thereby reducing the effort required. The same is true for short answers that require one or two sentences with keywords and points.
• For true-or-false exams, try studying the facts enough to pinpoint the details. Typically, there are more true statements on a test than false statements. If you find a statement where you have to change part of it to make it true, it's false.
• For multiple-choice exams , try "chunking" information you know will be on the test. Instead of memorizing a list of words, try breaking it into easier to remember smaller lists. [4] X Research source For example, if studying for a history test , instead of remembering "Jefferson, Hamilton, Franklin, Washington, Grant, Lincoln, and Lee" break it up into the "4 of the founding fathers: Franklin, Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton" and the "3 civil war leaders: Lee, Lincoln, Grant." By memorizing the number of men to a specific topic, it'll be easier to narrow down who you are missing.
• For math exams , try to memorize formulas. Knowing a formula can be more powerful than spending hours doing practice problems. If you can write down a formula enough to memorize it, then you can spend the test trying to apply those to the problems.

Community Q&A

Tips from our Readers

• Try getting to class early and then write everything from the cheat sheet directly onto the desk with a pencil. At the end of the test, you can use your hand to wipe away the evidence.
• You can also try writing your answer on your arm and wearing a long sleeve shirt. Whenever you need to look, pull your sleeve down quickly and you have your answer!
• If you're someone who tends to sit cross-legged in class, you can slip a small page of notes in your shoe or boot.
• In some countries, certain methods of cheating on certain important tests is illegal and could entail jail time. [5] X Research source Thanks Helpful 12 Not Helpful 1
• Other students may suspect you cheating and inform your teacher. Thanks Helpful 14 Not Helpful 1
• If this is a shared computer, you might consider deleting the browser history so you won't get caught by your parents. Thanks Helpful 11 Not Helpful 1
• There is always a possibility of getting caught. If you are found to be cheating, you could receive heavy penalties, such as getting an automatic zero on the test, suspension, or even expulsion. Many schools will even mark on your transcript indicating you violated the honor code. Instead of searching for how to cheat on a test, try finding tips on studying for exams. Thanks Helpful 12 Not Helpful 2
• In some countries e.g., those mentioned above, you must not possess any unauthorized material, or electronic equipment e.g., mobile phones in an exam room if you are taking an external exam, such as those detailed above, as this is a serious disciplinary offense. This applies even if you do not intend to use it.
• In many professions, you will need the knowledge you gain by studying instead of cheating. Remember, there is no cheating in the operating room when you're the surgeon operating on the patient or when you're in space as an astronaut flying far from Earth. Thanks Helpful 5 Not Helpful 1
• Don't brag about it. This may seem obvious, but it is something people do. You don't know who could tell the teacher. Thanks Helpful 5 Not Helpful 1
• Always be aware of where the teacher is looking; no method of cheating is successful if the teacher is looking right at you while you hold the notes in your hand and are frantically copying them onto the test. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 1
• If you are copying off the person next to you lean over and rest on your arm while tilting your head to the side to make sure it isn't obvious. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 1
• If you had to cheat because you had no time, remember that it is still worth learning the content after the test. You may have cumulative tests afterward and some of these things could really help you in the future. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 1
• Partnering is always better than cheat sheets and the hard-to-prove methods are even better. Overall, the less evidence there is - the better it is for you. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 1
• If you are allowed to chew gum, write the answers in a gum wrapper, then get out a piece of gum. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 1
• It is never a good idea to do this, because you may feel guilty afterward and get the urge to confess what you did, which most likely will land you in trouble. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 3
• Even if you do manage to cheat without getting caught while suffering the stress of doing so, it is very unlikely that the few extra marks you gain will make much difference to the score. And you risk disqualification, expulsion, or being banned. Thanks Helpful 3 Not Helpful 1

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://edusson.com/blog/how-to-cheat-in-college
• ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/11/10-crazy-and-inventive-ways-students-have-cheated-in-exams/
• ↑ http://www.creativeteachingsite.com/how-to-cheat-on-a-test.html
• ↑ http://thepeakperformancecenter.com/educational-learning/thinking/chunking/chunking-as-a-learning-strategy/
• ↑ http://time.com/4360968/china-gaokao-examination-university-entrance-cheating-jail-prison/

About This Article

To cheat on a test, try sitting diagonally behind someone who will do well on the topic, which will let you look over their shoulder and see their answers. If you know someone who’s willing to help you, use signs to communicate the right answers during the test, such as signing the shape of a letter for a multiple choice test. You could also try buying the instructor’s edition of your textbook online, since it contains example questions that may be used in the test. If you know that your professor will let you come back later to finish the test, make up an excuse, such as that you’re feeling unwell. Then, memorize the topics in the test so you can check the answers before you come back to finish the test. For tips on how to create a cheat sheet, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Essay cheating: How common is it?

• Published 3 May 2018

A BBC investigation has found that prominent YouTube stars are encouraging students to buy essays.

Passing off a custom-made essay as your own is a form of plagiarism known as contract cheating.

It involves a student ordering an essay, usually through a website, for a fee.

But it could also be friends or family members writing an essay on a student's behalf.

Companies offering these sort of services are known as essay mills.

The fee will usually depend on the essay subject, length and deadline.

Some essay mills - including EduBirdie - claim that the essays they provide are "100% plagiarism free". But even if the essay you buy doesn't necessarily contain copied material, the act of submitting it as your own is itself a form of plagiarism - according to the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), which monitors standards in UK higher education.

A student caught doing this could face serious penalties - including expulsion.

EduBirdie says that there is disclaimer on its site which suggested that the work it provided should only be used as a sample or a reference.

What's the scale of contract cheating?

The QAA told Reality Check that it believes contract cheating is on the rise.

In its 2016 report, the agency said leaflets advertising essay services had been handed out on campuses. There were also reports of adverts appearing on university notice boards.

One UK essay writing company boasts that it has helped more than 25,000 students over the past 15 years.

But we don't know how many of those students who used the service went on to submit the essays as their own.

The QAA also referred Reality Check to a 2016 Times investigation. Based on Freedom of Information requests, the newspaper unearthed 50,000 cases of cheating in UK universities over the previous three years.

This works out at 17,000 per year, or 0.7% of students.

YouTube stars paid to sell cheating

Essay cheat companies face university ban

• The man who helps students cheat

The problem with this number, which the QAA acknowledges, is that it includes all forms of cheating - not just contract cheating.

But even if we did know how many students were caught contract cheating, we still wouldn't know how many cases went undetected.

For that we have to rely on survey data, where students are asked if they have ever cheated by submitting an essay written by someone else.

The most recent UK study was carried out in 2012 and found that 29.5% of participants agreed that they had "submitted work taken wholly from an internet source (free or paid) as your own".

Elsewhere, the QAA cites a 2014 study from Saudi Arabia, which found that 22% of students reported having paid someone to write an essay.

Prof Phil Newton, from Swansea University, is an expert on contract cheating. He says that with surveys of this nature, there's always a likelihood that respondents may not give accurate answers - especially if they are owning up to deviant behaviour.

So, we have to treat survey data with a degree of scepticism.

Are these services legal?

At the moment there's nothing, legally speaking, to stop websites selling essays.

In fact many websites contain disclaimers that say students shouldn't pass off the essays as their own and that they should only be used as study aids.

That said, in March 2018, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) upheld a complaint about claims appearing on a UK essay mill website.

The ASA said the website gave the misleading impression that "consumers would be able to submit purchased essays as their own without repercussion".

But even if legislation was brought in, the QAA says it is unlikely to solve the problem.

It says many of these websites are offshore and even if they were closed down they can easily re-emerge.

So what can be done about it?

Contract cheating can be very difficult to spot. As the essays are bespoke they're unlikely to be picked up by software which some universities use to detect plagiarism.

Last October, guidance was issued to institutions on how to deal with contract cheating.

• Have fewer assessments by essays
• Block essay writing websites from IT systems
• Get familiar with student writing styles and try to spot any changes
• Have clear procedures to report suspected cheating
• Support struggling students with their writing skills

Why do students do it?

There are many reasons - it could be as simple as laziness or a lack of confidence in writing ability.

In April, Prof Newton, along with colleagues, published a study into contract cheating in Australia.

The study focused on students who had asked either friends or family members to write essays on their behalf.

The researchers found that were three factors which increased the likelihood of contract cheating.

• Students who spoke a language other than English
• A dissatisfaction with their learning environment
• Where students perceived there were opportunities to cheat

Read more from Reality Check

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• Published 1 May 2018

• Published 9 October 2017

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Professors aren’t fans of poor grammar because it interrupts your message and makes your essay hard to understand. ProWritingAid will run a grammar check on your paper to ensure that your message is precise and is being communicated the way you intended.

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A missing period or comma here and there may not seem that serious, but you’ll lose marks for punctuation errors. Run ProWritingAid’s paper checker to use the correct punctuation marks every time and elevate your writing.

Improve Readability

Make sure that in the grand scheme your language is not too complicated. The essay checker's built in readability report will show if your essay is easy or hard to read. It specifically zones in on paragraphs that might be difficult to read so you can review them.

What Else Can the Essay Checker Do?

The editing tool analyzes your text and highlights a variety of key writing issues, such as overused words, incohesive sentence structures, punctuation issues, repeated phrases, and inconsistencies.

You don’t need to drown your essay in words just to meet the word count. ProWritingAid’s essay checker will help to make your words more effective. You'll get to construct your arguments and make sure that every word you use builds towards a meaningful conclusion.

Transition words help to organize your ideas by showing the relationship between them. The essay checker has a built in Transition report that highlights and shows the percentage of transitions used in your essay. Use the results to add transitions where necessary.

An engaging essay has sentences of varying lengths. Don’t bore your professor with long, rambling sentences. The essay checker will show you where you need to break long sentences into shorter sentences, or add more sentence length variation.

Generally, in scholarly writing, with its emphasis on precision and clarity, the active voice is preferred. However, the passive voice is acceptable in some instances. When you run your essay through ProWritingAid’s essay checker, you get feedback on whether you 'r e using the passive or active voice to convey your idea.

There are academic specific power verbs like appraise , investigate , debunk , support , etc., that can add more impact to your argument by giving a more positive and confident tone. The essay checker will check your writing for power verbs and notify you if you have less than three throughout your essay.

It's easy to get attached to certain phrases and use them as crutches in your essays but this gives the impression of boring and repetitive writing. The essay checker will highlight your repeats and suggest contextually relevant alternatives.

Gain access to in-house blog reports on citations, how to write a thesis statement, how to write a conclusion, and more. Venture into a world of resources specific to your academic needs.

What Kinds of Papers Does ProWritingAid Correct?

No matter what you’re writing, ProWritingAid will adapt and show you where your edits are needed most.

• Argumentative
• Descriptive
• Textual Analysis
• Lab reports
• Case studies
• Literature reviews
• Presentations
• Dissertations
• Research papers

Professors and students love using ProWritingAid

If you're an English teacher, you need to take a look at this tool - it reinforces what you're teaching, highlights strengths and weaknesses, and makes it easier to personalize instruction.

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Only reason I managed to get an A in all my freshmen composition classes.

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Great tool for academic work. Easy to use and the reports and summary evaluation of your documents in several categories is very useful. So much more than spelling and grammar!

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Questions & Answers

1. how do i use the essay checker online tool.

You can either copy and paste your essay in the essay checker field or upload your essay from your computer. Your suggestions will show once you enter text. You’ll see a number of possible grammar and spelling issues. Sign up for free to get unlimited suggestions to improve your writing style, grammar, and sentence structure. Avoid unintentional plagiarism with a premium account.

2. Does the essay checker work with British English and American English?

The essay checker works with both British English and American English. Just choose the one you would like to use and your corrections will reflect this.

3. Is using an essay checker cheating?

No. The essay checker won’t ever write the essay for you. It will point out possible edits and advise you on changes you need to make. You have full autonomy and get to decide which changes to accept.

4. Will the essay checker auto-correct my work?

The essay writing power remains in your hands. You choose which suggestions you want to accept and you can ignore those that you don’t think apply.

5. Is there a student discount?

Students who have an eligible student email address can get 20% off ProWritingAid Premium. Email [email protected] from your student email address to access your discount.

6. Does ProWritingAid have a plagiarism checker?

Yes! ProWritingAid’s plagiarism checker will check your work against over a billion web-pages, published works, and academic papers, so you can be sure of its originality. Find out more about pricing for plagiarism checks here .

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How to Cheat on an Essay

Essay cheating is increasingly becoming popular among students. Some decades ago, it was almost unimaginable to cheat on an essay. But today, it is so common that most students consider cheating in school essay an everyday practice. But why do students cheat on their essays, and how can you do some essay cheating on your next essay test?

Sometimes, students get stuck while writing essays because they do not know how to outsmart the writing process. But with some essay cheating hacks, you can save yourself the stress involved in writing an essay test. So let’s hit the nail on the head and delve into details of these essay cheat hacks!

1.       Copy intelligently without being caught

This is an intelligent way of cheating on your essays. Plagiarism is punishable by law because it is considered academic dishonesty. However, it can help you ace your essay if you do it wisely without being caught. First, you can plagiarize by wisely adding adverbs, adjectives to the original sentences to make them different. Also, the order of texts within the original texts can be changed.

This method is safe because tools that detect plagiarism cannot detect any similarities or overlap between your essay and the original work. In addition, changing the order of texts will jumble your texts in such a way that their meaning and coherence will not be lost.

2.      Seek the service of a professional essay writer

You can make use of essay writing service cheating to excel in your essay without stress! This method can be considered as one of the easiest ways of cheating on an essay. Just check out some essay cheating websites and give them the topic. Then, in a few hours, you’ll be home and dry!

This method requires that you hire a professional essay writer that would write your essay for you. These professionals can be accessed through professional writing websites. Thus, there is a high assurance that your essay will be of good quality if written by a professional essay writer. First, however, the credibility of your writing service provider must be confirmed through research. This could be confirmed by considering how consistent they’ve been and how long they’ve been offering the service to students.

3.      Take advantage of free model essays to write your essay

A model essay is a guide or actual example that helps students to write their essays. Using or copying a model essay is a very efficient method to cheat essay papers. These model essays are created by people who are familiar with the course content and requirements.

However, it is essential to note that the assignment requirements given by your instructor may be different from the model essay. Therefore, it is imperative for you to carefully check the context of model essays and the content before using them.

Are you curious about how to cheat on an essay test? As humans, it is our nature to want to win in anything we set out to do. In order to achieve this, we may want to go against the rules. Over the years, cheating on tests and exams has become the norm and is considered nothing new. Unfortunately, technological advancement has made it much easier to cheat and gain undue advantage in almost any situation.

In this age and time where having an excellent and higher grade is prioritized over the actual knowledge, cheating may seem inevitable. Many students cheat today because of the fear of falling behind their mates. They also fear getting into trouble with their parents, who have so many expectations from them. In addition, coping with academic pressure and having to win the competition among classmates may push a student to want to cheat.

In order to get ahead at all costs, cheating may look like the only best option. Unfortunately, many people now see cheating as something that happens often and can be overlooked. You can refer to the essay cheating hacks as a guide to show you how to cheat on an essay! That’s a cheat sheet you’ll always want to have at your fingertips!

Disclaimer: This article is not aimed at giving you the go-ahead to cheat. However, it will equip you with valuable tips and hacks on cheating on an essay. Of course, whatever you do with the information is mainly dependent on you.

Essay Cheating Tips

1.       do a word count manipulation.

If you want to cheat on an essay, make sure you do not use the short form of some phrases. Word count manipulation is one of the most efficient cheating tips. For example, instead of using an acronym, write it out in full. This will help you write more words to hit your word count.

2.      Make it look like you read books

One of the things that your educator would like to see is that you researched well before writing the essay. So, before writing your essay, Google books on the topics you are writing on. Then choose a book( scholarly book) and extract a quote that is relevant from it. By doing this, your educator will be convinced that you have read the book. Also, for reference, you can check the ISBN.

3.      Make sure to paraphrase your essay well

A student can cheat on an essay by paraphrasing. This involves mixing the words of the original text without losing their meaning. By paraphrasing, you will not follow the structure of the original text. Instead, make use of similar words (synonyms) and you can as well break long sentences into smaller, similar, and separate sentences.

How to Hide that your Cheating On Essay

No student wants to be caught cheating on an essay, and no student wants to face the consequences of cheating. To avoid being caught, make sure you read the original text and rewrite them in your words. Do not copy the original text word for word. This can be easily checked and detected by a plagiarism checker. You can also employ the method of letter substitution by using letter duplicates from other languages. Also, you can make use of white-colored text to avoid being caught.

However, if you can put so much effort into plagiarizing someone else’s work to make it look like yours, why not put the same time and effort into writing your original work. This is the easiest way to avoid being caught cheating on an essay.

What if You Get Caught Cheating on an Essay

When you are caught cheating on an essay, you can do the following:

1.       Admit your cheating

If there is any evidence of you cheating that you can’t deny, do not hide, admit your cheating. This is in your best interest not to get into more considerable trouble. Coming out clean may be challenging, but it is the most appropriate thing to do. Then, apologize for cheating after admitting your fault.

2.      You can give excuses

As a method of damage control, you can try to give excuses, whether genuine or fake. But note that this method can only help when you are sure that there is a possibility of you getting away with it. If not, you are going to get into more trouble.

3.      Tell your parents about it

You can tell your parents about it, do not hide it from them so that they can be on your side, and they can talk to your instructor as experienced people. This may increase your chances of getting a pardon.

4.      Try to play the victim

You can use this method in different ways, but you must be very careful when using this method. If possible, this method should be your last resort. If you are not careful, you can make more enemies and further implicate yourself.

Act like you are not aware of the act or claim that you are oblivious of the act. Or you can go ahead to state that you were not aware of the rules and regulations guiding the essay. You can also claim that you were manipulated by bad students into cheating on your essay.

So here we are! Now you know how to cheat on your essay test! First, hire a professional writing service to get your essay done for you, especially if you’re short on time. They’re your best bet!

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Writing Prompts

Make Writing A Habit

12 Essay-Writing Hacks from a Professional Editor

As a professional editor, I’ve edited all kinds of documents, not the least of which are essays. I’ve seen it all—the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Look, it’s easy to write a bad essay when it’s due in less than 24 hours (we’ve all been there), but that doesn’t mean it’s difficult to write a good essay. To write a good essay, you just have to know what to look for to make weak writing stronger.

Simply looking is the number one job of a professional editor (outside of drinking coffee) because looking leads to discovering —and once you find your errors, improvement is just around the corner.

After editing over a million words, I’ve come to understand what makes a good essay and what makes a bad essay, and I have a few practical tips—essay hacks, if you will—for improving your own essay-writing skills.

1. Befriend your argument.

Make sure you know everything there is to know about your argument. That means you should understand exactly what it is you’re arguing and why. If your argument was an elevator pitch and you had to explain it to someone in just a minute or two, could you? If the answer is “No,” revisit the main point of your essay. Do more research to make sure you know the topic inside and out.

The reason you need to be prepared is that, if there’s any proof that can shoot your argument down, you not only need to shield those bullets but also to ricochet them back. Don’t just know your argument—befriend it. Find out its strengths and its weaknesses.

2. Challenge every idea.

If you have any questions about your topic, subject, or field, ask them as soon as you can. Hitting a snag later can stall progress on your essay, so if you can hit all the major weak points early on, you can avoid finding major flaws in your argument later.

Challenge anything that causes questions to sprout and play the devil’s advocate for your own argument. If you’ve identified these weaknesses before, now is the time to investigate further and begin to clarify anything that might still be fuzzy.

3. Select your sources carefully.

When selecting your sources, be picky. Don’t resort to using online sources just because they’re easily accessible. Try to use all kinds of different sources, but only if they’re current. Don’t pick a dusty old book from the library just to have a print source in your references list.

Choose current and relevant sources from trustworthy or notable scholars in the field. If your proof is questionable, your whole argument will fall apart, so choose your sources like you would an all-star team if you want to knock your essay out of the park.

4. Start writing early.

This is important: make sure you start writing early. Don’t put your essay off until the last minute. Do you know what’s waiting for you at the last minute? Regret and sadness.

Kickstart yourself now so you don’t kick yourself later. If you need to set an early deadline for yourself or split the essay writing into manageable chunks, do it. Just make sure you start early so you have time to solve any problems you run into later.

5. Organize for clarity.

The structure of your essay is every bit as important as the argument itself. If you have a flimsy structure, there’s no firm foundation to build the essay on; if there’s no firm foundation, your essay could collapse at any moment.

Focus on structuring your essay before you start writing. How will you arrange your argument and provide evidence in a cohesive and logical way? It’s better to answer that question earlier rather than later. Use transitions to ensure your argument flows logically from one point to the next.

6. Watch your tense and voice.

First, use the active voice when you write your essay (unless otherwise instructed). Second, avoid personal pronouns to maintain objectivity if need be (e.g., in scientific and other formal writing).

Third, you should write in the literary present, meaning that all actions performed in the text should be explained in the present tense rather than the past.

Finally, avoid using clichés. Since you want to present original thoughts, overused phrases need to be cut.

7. Explain everything clearly.

Any time you make a point, explain it clearly—even if you think it’s obvious. Your argument will be obvious to you (since you’ve befriended it), but it’s brand new to the reader. Your argument is meeting your reader for the first time, and like any new friends, they need introducing. If you fail to introduce them properly, things will get very confusing and awkward.

8. Be succinct.

Sentences should be straightforward, communicating one point at a time; cut all unnecessary words. You’ll also want to eliminate any repetition. It’s easy to say the same things over and over again in an essay, but doing so won’t strengthen your argument.

Cut unnecessary phrases and anything wordy or redundant, including phrases that don’t add information, such as “it should be pointed out that” or “due to the fact that.” Similarly, don’t ramble on about the same topic or go off on a tangent in the middle of your essay.

9. Avoid academese at all costs.

Try to keep things simple. While you shouldn’t talk down to your audience or explain every technical term, you should always be concise. Most importantly, don’t ever use words or phrases that you think will make you sound smarter.

It’s always best to be straightforward, so use the right vocabulary to say exactly what you want to say. It’s embarrassing if you try to use a fancy word only to find it doesn’t mean what you thought it meant .

10. Be aware of your word count.

Don’t go over your word count. Most markers will stop marking at the last word within the word count, so it’s crucial that you stay within it if you want to do well.

However, you also don’t want to stay severely lower than the word count provided. While you shouldn’t pad the essay by adding information that isn’t necessary to your argument or relevant to the topic at hand, you should get as close to the word count as possible by thoroughly exploring your topic and elaborating on your argument.

11. Carefully cite everything.

Unless you want to face a failing grade, academic probation, or even expulsion, you need to cite all of your sources. There are many types of plagiarism, but as long as you take good notes during your research and credit your sources, it’s easy to avoid plagiarism.

Your academic integrity is at stake here, so ensure that you are overly cautious in recording the necessary material. Be vigilant in confirming that you’ve documented everything fully and correctly.

12. Revise extensively.

Every good essay has been revised at least once, which means you, too, should tighten your writing. Comb through and ensure that everything is clear, consistent, and flows well. Once you’re happy with the content of your essay, you can sweat the small stuff, like grammar and spelling errors.

Even brilliant essays receive lower grades if simple mistakes are left in the document, so consider getting a second opinion and having an expert look over your writing for both form and content. At the very least, run a spell and grammar check. You’ll be so happy you did.

Essay writing doesn’t have to be hard. Anyone can write a good essay with the proper tools. These essay hacks are part of your toolkit, which you can use to improve your essay writing. Go from good to great by considering these tips and implementing them when writing your next essay.

If you would prefer a step-by-step guide for essay writing and want to improve your skills once and for all, you might want to think about taking a course to organize and write good essays every time.

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How to cheat on your final paper: Assigning AI for student writing

• Published: 10 March 2022
• Volume 38 , pages 1395–1405, ( 2023 )

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• Paul Fyfe   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9481-0730 1  

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This paper shares results from a pedagogical experiment that assigns undergraduates to “cheat” on a final class essay by requiring their use of text-generating AI software. For this assignment, students harvested content from an installation of GPT-2, then wove that content into their final essay. At the end, students offered a “revealed” version of the essay as well as their own reflections on the experiment. In this assignment, students were specifically asked to confront the oncoming availability of AI as a writing tool. What are the ethics of using AI this way? What counts as plagiarism? What are the conditions, if any, we should place on AI assistance for student writing? And how might working with AI change the way we think about writing, authenticity, and creativity? While students (and sometimes GPT-2) offered thoughtful reflections on these initial questions, actually composing with GPT-2 opened their perspectives more broadly on the ethics and practice of writing with AI. In this paper, I share how students experienced those issues, connect their insights to broader conversations in the humanities about writing and communication, and explain their relevance for the ethical use and evaluation of language models.

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ChatGPT-3.5 as writing assistance in students’ essays

A large-scale comparison of human-written versus ChatGPT-generated essays

Trust, but Verify: Students’ Reflections on Using Artificial Intelligence in Written Assignments

Availability of data and material.

The course syllabus and module assignments are available open access in the MLA CORE repository: https://doi.org/10.17613/0h18-5p41 .

Code availability

Not applicable.

Plagiarism appears as its own section of “Academic Misconduct” (8.4) in NC State’s student conduct policy (“POL 11.35.01 – Code of Student Conduct” 2020 ).

See Elkins and Chun for a report on an assignment oriented more toward literary writing ( 2020 ). See also the reflections by Lang et al. ( 2021 ).

As defined by Long and Magerko, AI literacy includes “a set of competencies that enables individuals to critically evaluate AI technologies; communicate and collaborate effectively with AI; and use AI as a tool online, at home, and in the workplace” ( 2020 , 2). See also Ng et al. for a review of recent approaches to defining AI literacy ( 2021 ).

Long and Magerko recommend that “Researchers seeking to foster AI literacy may want to avoid misleading tactics like Turing deceptions and black-box algorithms” ( 2020 , 8)—and I could not disagree more. Inviting students into this experience instead resembles how Meredith Broussard works with AI “to commit acts of investigative journalism” into its consequences ( 2018 , 6).

Such cross-disciplinary approaches might especially be warranted given the landscape of ethics training in CS programs (Raji et al. 2021 ).

The course syllabus and module assignments are available open access in the MLA CORE repository: http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/0h18-5p41 .

For an extensive introduction to this class of machine learning software as well as its emerging uses and risks, see Bommasani et al. ( 2021 ).

Scott has since moved to a position at the software company Sourcegraph.

A quick demo of GPT-2 can be done online with the site “Write With Transformer” created by the company Hugging Face: https://transformer.huggingface.co/doc/distil-gpt2 In a subsequent version of this assignment, students used the open-source language model GPT-J which also makes a web-based demo available in a browser: https://6b.eleuther.ai/ .

Similar discussions can be found in the use of AI or automated systems to grade student writing (Anson 2006 ; Anson and Perelman 2017 ).

We considered training the model on student’s own writing for better results, but realized that would require a prohibitive and potentially invasive amount of training data from students: 50 + MB their writing in plain text. We agreed a simpler approach would still achieve the assignment’s goals.

This may especially apply in context of ESL and language diversity, as students and/or instructors disqualify their expression against standard written English.

See also Reid on the “possibility space” of nonhuman rhetoric ( 2020 ).

Personal conversation with the author. Rieder’s own experiments in physical computing and new media composition are similarly interested in hybridity. He describes this as “everting” new media, or “infusing the real with aspects of the virtual.”

For an extensive introduction to assemblage in writing studies, as well as current examples in pedagogical practice, see Yancey and McElroy ( 2017 ).

For specific examples from those frameworks, see Long and Magerko ( 2020 ), Ng et al. ( 2021 ).

As Lauren Goodlad complains, “while there is increasing talk of making AI ‘ethical,’ ‘democratic,’ and ‘human-centered,’ scholars in the humanities seldom shape these discussions” (Goodlad and Dimock 2021 , 317).

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Acknowledgements

My thanks to the students in the HON 202 seminar “Data and the Human” for their enthusiastic participation in this experiment. Many thanks also to NC State University colleagues including Scott Bailey, Zachary Beare, Chris Anson, Helen Burgess, and David Rieder for sharing their perspectives and recommendations. Thanks also to peer reviewers for constructive suggestions that improved this article.

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Fyfe, P. How to cheat on your final paper: Assigning AI for student writing. AI & Soc 38 , 1395–1405 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-022-01397-z

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10 Tricks to Reduce Your Word Count in Academic Writing

One of the most agonizing parts of academic writing is cutting down your hard-won draft to meet a page, word, or character limit. This process can be even more stressful when you’re under pressure to meet a deadline just hours away.

Writing simply is the key to clear and concise content. But good writing is a craft that cannot be mastered within a short window before a deadline.

When you have little time to spare, small changes to your text can add up to the space you need. Here are a few simple tricks you can use to quickly tighten your text and meet the limit .

1.    Delete "The"

You can often omit the word “the” from your text without losing any meaning.

Original: The clarity of your writing depends on both the content and the style. (13 words, 70 characters)

Revised: The clarity of your writing depends on both content and style. (11 words, 62 characters) 

2. Erase “That”

Similarly, the word “that” is often overused in writing and can be deleted with ease.

Original: We found that cells that express the mutated protein migrate across the barrier faster than wild-type cells. (17 words, 108 characters)

Revised: We found cells expressing the mutated protein migrated across the barrier faster than wild-type cells. (15 words, 102 characters) 

3. Remove Adverbs and Adjectives

Adverbs modify verbs, and adjectives modify nouns. But good words don’t need modifying.

Most adverbs and adjectives weaken strong verbs and nouns, which weaken the power of your writing. Omit unnecessary adverbs and adjectives to make your writing stronger and more concise.

Original: The entire treatment lasted for four days, and the drug greatly improved the health of patients. (16 words, 96 characters)

Revised: The treatment lasted for four days, and the drug improved the health of patients. (14 words, 81 characters)

4. Use Shorter Words

Resist the temptation to use long words where short ones will do . Instead of investigate , facilitate , or utilize , simply use study , help , or use .

Original: We investigated whether utilizing the drug would facilitate improvements in health. (11 words, 83 characters)

Revised: We studied whether using the drug would help improve health. (10 words, 60 characters)

5. Trim Wordy Phrases

Clear out the clutter in your writing. Look for needless words you can delete and lengthy phrases you can shorten .

Original: During the course of the study , the majority of cells died in response to treatment with the drug. (18 words, 98 characters)

Revised: During the study , most cells died after treatment with the drug. (11 words, 64 characters)

6. Choose Active Voice

Active voice uses less words than passive voice . And active voice makes your writing clearer and more compelling, helping you tell a powerful story .

Passive: The samples were collected by the researcher. (7 words, 45 characters)

Active: The researcher collected the samples. (5 words, 37 characters)   

7. Revise Needless Transitions

Transitions can help maintain the flow of your writing —and make your reader’s job easy . But some transitions ( e.g. , indeed , then , furthermore ) can be deleted with ease.

Original: Indeed , we discovered that the mutated protein affected heart function. (10 words, 71 characters) 

Revised: We discovered that the mutated protein affected heart function. (9 words, 63 characters)

8. Eliminate Conjunctions

Conjunctions ( e.g., and , or , but , however ) connect two independent statements that can often be rewritten as two separate sentences.

Original: Patients treated with drug X had no symptoms after 3 days, and patients treated with drug Y had no symptoms after 7 days. (23 words, 121 characters)

Revised: Patients treated with drug X had no symptoms after 3 days. Patients treated with drug Y had no symptoms after 7 days. (22 words, 117 characters)

9. Rewrite Running Starts

Sometimes writers like to get a head start on a sentence by using phrases such as “there are,” “it is,” and “the fact that.” These phrases can be rewritten to shorten your text and make your writing more direct and concise.

Original: It has been reported that the cells migrate faster when treated with the drug. (14 words, 78 characters)

Revised: The cells migrate faster when treated with the drug. (9 words, 52 characters)

10. Target Paragraphs with Widows and Orphans

When dealing with page limits, a great trick to gaining an entire line is attacking paragraphs with “dangling words,” also known as widows or orphans .

A widow is a lone word or short group of words that appears at the bottom of a paragraph, column, or page. An orphan is a similar unwanted word or short group of words that appears at the top of a page.

Look for paragraphs with just a few words at the end and focus on how you can shorten them to gain an extra line of space.

Bottom Line: Cut the Clutter

One of the greatest challenges in writing is cutting words. But there is a simple rule you can follow: make sure the words you use add meaning. If you can remove words without losing the importance of the statement, delete them.

Want to learn more ways to reduce your word count? Check out 10 More Ways to Reduce Your Word Count in Academic Writing.

Want cheat sheets to help you reduce your word count? Get access to our free writing toolkit!

Crystal is an editor, educator, coach, and speaker who helps scientists and clinicians communicate with clear, concise, and compelling writing. You can follow her on LinkedIn .

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The college admission essay should be used as a cheating detector

Comparing students’ writing abilities in subsequent assignments with this yardstick could help combat contract cheating, says dave tomar.

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For would-be college students sweating over the prospect of writing their admission essay for the application season, here’s a cheery thought. This will be the last writing checkpoint they will pass in their whole educational journey.

Get through this, and they will never again have to worry about being a competent writer. Or, at least, nobody will ever again try to make them into a competent writer. After all, once they’re in college, the assumption is that they already know how to write.

Except that we all know that this is by no means universally true. That is why I had enough customers to make a living during my decade of ghostwriting students’ papers. And that is why, more than a decade since my retirement from professional cheating, others like me continue to make a living .

When higher education was an elite pursuit, it was assumed that admitted students had all the basic educational tools needed to survive. It was also assumed that technical writing instruction was beneath the dignity of professors. But as educational opportunities multiplied in the second half of the 20th century, competition for space at the most prestigious institutions intensified. By necessity, their admissions process grew more complex.

Superficially speaking, the admission essay is designed to add colour and depth to each applicant’s academic profile. But, more importantly, it is the primary piece of evidence used to confirm that a college applicant has the basic ability to write.

This is important because, massification notwithstanding, college students still do not receive meaningful writing instruction. Yes, I’m aware of your school’s 100-level expository writing requirement; I built my early ghostwriting portfolio churning out these cookie-cutter assignments for struggling students. But they don’t work. That is, students who start college without the ability to write will probably leave college without the ability to write. Many of them will leave without a degree, too – and it is a desperate way to experience college.

It is high time we admitted that things need to change. Classical education is dead. Students go to college to develop practical skills for the 21st century workplace. These are not the same students as the less than 3 per cent of the college-aged population who attended an institution of higher learning in 1910 , armed with prep-school grooming and patrician breeding. It can no longer be assumed that students arrive with the basic academic skills needed to succeed. A 40 per cent non-completion rate within six years serves as pretty damning evidence to the contrary.

Certainly, if we are willing to enrol in college students who struggle to write, we must also be willing to support their academic needs, even if it means re-examining the relationship between college and basic writing instruction. And that could start with the admission essay. If we can use this first active writing sample to better identify and serve students who need meaningful, effective (and ideally ungraded) writing instruction, these students will become significantly less likely to cheat further down the line.

Of course, there will be those who are tempted to cheat on their admission essay, too. I’ve worked for some of them. I once completed an essay for a student applying to Brown University . The essay prompt invited the student “to tell us something more about yourself that would help us toward a sense of who you are, how you think, and what issues and ideas interest you most”. The customer – an aspiring doctor – instructed me to “throw some sort of hook that will make them really look at me. I need about 1,500 words that will we [sic].”

I have no way of knowing if he got into Brown – or the University of Pennsylvania , whose admission essay I also wrote for him. But using his admission essay as a diagnostic tool might have served as its own deterrent. Those like him who are tempted to fake their way through the admission process might be dissuaded by the thought that all their future writing could be measured against this ghostwritten sample. After all, buying your way through every single assignment over four years does not come cheap.

Moreover, those who wrote their own admission essay may be dissuaded from cheating on subsequent college assignments by the thought that this yardstick of their true writing ability exists.

Rather than treating the admission essay as the last writing checkpoint, then, it may be more intuitive to think of it as the first step in the intervention process.

Dave Tomar is a freelance writer and managing editor for Inflection Magazine . His latest book is The Complete Guide to Contract Cheating in Higher Education .

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14 Essay Hacks That Will Make Writing an Essay a Breeze

Essay hacks can make the process of writing a great essay just that little bit easier.

Here are some tried-and-tested tricks and hacks that will help you write a grade-A paper.

14 Brilliant Essay Hacks

1) use wikipedia… but smartly.

Our online essay editors will be quick to tell you that Wikipedia isn’t exactly the most reliable or credible source for essay material. However, if you’re a bit smart about it, you can use Wikipedia to get great results.

The hack is to use Wikipedia to find useful sources as opposed to citing it as a source in itself.

Let’s say you’re writing an essay on Kant’s Theory of Freedom. Simply perform a search on the Philosophy of Freedom on Wikipedia and scroll down to the bottom. You’ll be presented with a ton of relevant sources you can then target in your research. Suddenly, finding useful sources became so much easier!

2) Use Google Scholar

Don’t use the standard Google browser for your academic work and essays; use Google Scholar instead.

Google Scholar is an index of scholarly and peer-reviewed publications. By using the Google Scholar search engine, you limit the search results to academic works and, as such, avoid reams of irrelevant or unreliable sources.

Unfortunately, many of the articles that are indexed on Google Scholar are not free to access; however, it can help you find the titles of articles and papers that will be useful for your essay, and you can subsequently look them up in your university library.

3) Conduct Backward Searches

So now you’ve got with the program and are using Google Scholar instead of the standard Google search engine, you can exploit this essay hack to its maximum potential by using the backward search function.

Let’s say we’re writing an essay on the theme of time in Romeo and Juliet.

Simply perform a search on the topic of interest, “theme of time in Romeo and Juliet,” and you’ll be presented with a list of clickable links you can reference to find content and articles that have cited that source.

This provides a really useful way of finding sources that have been used for similar research purposes to your own, which can be useful for two main reasons. First, it can help you find additional information sources. Second, it can give you confidence that a given source is relevant to your paper.

4) Use Google Scholar’s Cite Function

So, we’ve already established that Google Scholar is a great search engine for finding useful information sources for your paper. But did you know you can also use it to help you compile your bibliography?

Simply click on the cite button (currently denoted by double quotation marks) that appears below the listing you want to add to your bibliography, and a new window will open with a range of citation options.

Choose the style guide you wish to follow, and the correct citation format will be generated for you. You can then copy and paste this into your reference page.

5) Manage Your Time Using the Pomodoro Technique

Don’t attempt to write a full paper in one sitting. In addition to being incredibly mind-numbing, focusing on one task for a long time without taking a break will lead to poor output.

Set a timer for 25-minutes. Once that point is reached, take a five-minute break from your computer or reading to stretch your legs, get something to drink, use the bathroom, or fix yourself a snack.

After five minutes, get back to work for a further 25 minutes.

Rinse and repeat until your essay is finished.

6) Nail the Introduction

The introduction is quite possibly the most important paragraph in your entire essay.

If you get that right, you’ll be a long way toward your goal of writing a great essay.

For practical tips to help you master the fine art of the introduction, check out our guide to writing an introduction .

7) Remove Distractions

If you’re easily distracted by applications such as Facebook and Instagram, try using an app that will prevent you from accessing the sites you regularly waste time on so you can concentrate on your paper. ColdTurkey (for Windows) and SelfControl (for Mac) will block the websites you list so all distractions are automatically removed.

8) Nail the Thesis Statement

If you want to write an essay that impresses, make sure you write a succinct and compelling thesis statement. Check out our guide to writing a thesis statement for further information.

9) Work in the Cloud

There’s nothing worse than your computer breaking hours before a deadline or a power cut, meaning you suddenly lose all your work. Work in the cloud using applications such as Google Office Docs 365 or iCloud and you’ll never have to run the risk of suddenly losing all your work again. What’s more, using a mobile device, you can work from anywhere in the world at any time.

10) Make Zotero Your Best Friend

If you’re a student, Zotero could well be the best essay hack you’ll ever discover. You can use it as a Firefox plugin to find and store references or as a Word plugin that automatically interacts with all the information you have saved in Firefox to insert automatic citations in your paper at the click of button. Another click, and Zotero will even create your bibliography for you. Referencing and citations simply couldn’t get any easier.

11) Use Evernote to Keep Track of Things

If you’re writing a large essay or performing an extensive study for your dissertation or thesis, you can use Evernote to take ongoing notes, keep track of your diary, and store important articles that you may want to access at a later date. The app automatically updates on an ongoing basis, so everything you write will be stored in the cloud. What’s more, as Evernote automatically syncs the stored content across your devices, you can quickly and easily pick up where you left off, even if it’s on a different computer.

12) Avoid Meaningless Words

If you want to ensure your essay reads well and comes across as scholarly and succinct, make sure you avoid using meaningless words in your paper. Check out our guide to words you shouldn’t use in an essay .

13) Talk, Don’t Type

If your typing skills are not quite up to the mark, Dragon voice recognition software can help you to efficiently translate your thoughts into text. Simply dictate the words you want to use, and they will be translated into text-based language. Dragon can be particularly useful when you want to quickly and easily get your thoughts down in text form.

14) Ask Someone to Peer Edit Your Paper

When you have spent hours working on an essay, you may no longer be able to see the wood for the trees. That’s where peer editing can come in handy. Ask a friend or family member to peer edit your essay and he or she will be able to spot any errors you’ve missed, provide constructive feedback on how it can be improved, and even point out any areas you haven’t taken into consideration.

Got any useful essay hacks to share? Leave a comment and let us know.

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