are essay writing services illegal

This blog post was published under the 2015-2024 Conservative Administration

https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2022/04/28/essay-mills-are-now-illegal-skills-minister-calls-on-internet-service-providers-to-crack-down-on-advertising/

Essay mills are now illegal - Skills Minister calls on internet service platforms to crack down on advertising

Skills Minister Alex Burghart has written to internet service platforms to make sure they know that essay mills - which facilitate cheating by helping academic writing, often by appearing to be legitimate - have been made illegal and to call on their support in making sure they can no longer advertise online. Here you can read that letter.

The Skills and Post-16 Education Bill has become law. Through this act, the Government has legislated for landmark reforms that will transform post-16 education and skills, including criminalising essay mills.

As you may know, Essay Mills are online platforms that facilitate contract cheating. Contract cheating happens when a third party completes work for a student which is passed off by the student as their own work. Many essay mill companies use marketing techniques which indicate they are offering ‘legitimate’ academic writing support for students. Reports also indicate that some essay mills seek to blackmail students who use these services. It is right that we have legislated against these insidious crimes.

It is now a criminal offence to provide or arrange for another person to provide contract cheating services for financial gain to students taking a qualification at a post-16 institution or sixth form in England, enrolled at a higher education provider in England and any other person over compulsory school age who has been entered for a regulated qualification at a place in England.

Similarly, it is now an offence for a person to make arrangements for an advertisement in which that person offers, or is described as being available or competent, to provide or arrange for another person to provide a cheating service. Importantly, the offence centres around the act of advertising to students, and for the offence to be committed it does not need to be seen by its target demographic.

There is now a strengthened, collaborative effort across the sector to tackle essay mills and we want you to be part of this campaign. Platforms such as yourself play an integral role in helping us to make the most effective use of the legislation; marketing and advertising are the lifeblood of any successful industry. We are aware that high numbers of essay mills have used your platform to promote their services to students in the past, paying for advertising to promote their companies. Essay mills are now illegal entities, and you should not carry their advertising. It is no longer a moral question; you will be facilitating an illegal activity. I ask you to do everything in your power to prevent the advertising these unscrupulous practices.

Removing essay mill access to online marketing will seriously hamper their efforts to target vulnerable students and I implore you to do so following the introduction of this legislation. We must now all work together to capitalise on it.

I hope that in writing to you today I have underlined the urgency of this issue and the important role that companies like yours play in stamping out essay mills once and for all and am sure I can be confident in your support.

Thank you for your support with this important matter.

Tags: cheating , essay mills , internet service platforms

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Essay Writing Services | Are They Legal?

Nayreth garcia.

• Career Planning , Financial Tips and Scholarships , Non-Traditional Students , Student Wellness

Content Writer At Gradehacker

When you are a non-traditional student, you have many responsibilities in your hands. You need to find a balance between your personal and college life , and you probably don’t have the time or the best writing skills to write a perfect essay. That’s when a professional essay writing service seems like a possible solution. You start searching for professional writers to give you the extra help you need, but your first question is… are essay writing services legal?

This question starts popping up in your mind, among others, since you may have never used an essay service before and you’re afraid of committing a digital crime you are not aware of . This legal topic has been addressed in many debates, forums, and articles for so many years. Most of the people against it are concerned about the fact that they see it as students cheating.

However, the pressure that universities put on their students is enormous. So far, there are no existing laws against the use of essay writing services. It’s certainly not illegal, and there is no punishment for it.

In 2018, more than 40 U.K. universities signed a petition asking the government to take measures and ban essay writing services and several colleges in the U.S. also pressured the government to start creating laws that prohibit ordering essays online, but to this day, there’s no specific legislation registered in the U.S. or U.K.

Essay writing services are now a very popular and heavily used service among students. There are many essay writing service providers online, but what is the reality of the situation? In this article, we’ll explain how essay writing services work and if they are legal for college students who need extra help with their assignments.

Are Essay Writing Services Legal?

It is important for you to know that a legal essay writing service company works in consideration of the laws in the country’s jurisdiction. So the legality of these services should not be questionable outside of personal opinion or bias beyond anyone’s opinion. Therefore the services can’t be called illegal since there is no specific law that prohibits their use.

It’s not the intent of a student wanting to break the law and outsmart the system. It’s an unorthodox effort to overcome challenges and high expectations imposed by professors as long as you are purchasing the product from a legal service provider. In other words, you can go ahead and purchase an essay online from an essay writing service provider without worrying that you are committing a crime in the United States.

Is it legal to hire a professional essay writer online? The answer is also yes; it’s legal to hire an essay writer online in the United States. There are many types of online essay writing service providers you can use to hire a professional essay writer to help you, depending on the essay requirements, class level, or other factors.

There’s not a specific law that prohibits using an essay service, and the majority of the time, people are more conflicted on the ethical aspect of the students. If you have that conflict in your mind, you can read our article Are Essay Writing Services Ethical?

Is it Considered Cheating When Using Essay Writing Services Online?

Many colleges and professors consider using these services as cheating since they see it from an ethical point of view, but in reality, it’s not cheating, and it’s not illegal. It’s a helpful solution for students on a tight schedule who also have difficulty managing part-time jobs, other activities, and commitments. Nowadays, you can find academic writers or experts who can help you with your college workload.

These companies work as a supplement to the efforts of students. They are like guides in their path that show them what they should improve to better understand a subject matter.

When it comes to essays, you should always look for a professional writing service to make sure you will get a high-quality paper, a dedicated writer, quick delivery time, and plagiarism check, among other important factors to keep in mind. Here are: 5 Common Problems With Hiring an Essay Writing Service and How To Avoid Them .

How Does An Essay Writing Service Work?

An essay writing service is a company that offers assistance to college students with their college essays. The essays are written (mostly) by experienced writers with the skills to put together high-quality and original papers. There are many essay writing services online, however, you need to be extra careful since not all of them are trustworthy.

There are many different subjects that students need to write essays for depending on their college level. So how does it work? When a student decides to order essay help, they will be contacted by an agency to let them know their next steps. Of course, every company will have different processes and methods. You can actually learn about our personal experience using three different essay services and see how they worked:

Essay Service Honest Review 2021: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

Edubirdie Honest Review 2021 | Everything You Need To Know

Pay Me To Do Your Homework Review 2021: Our Honest Experience

Are Essay Writing Services For College Students Worth It?

You’re having a tough time with work, classes, assignments, and exams. What do you do?  

At first glance, writing a paper for a college class might seem like a challenge. It is a long and tedious process, especially if you don’t have the time to do it correctly. However, it is not as bad as it sounds. 

As a student who hopes to graduate from college,  you usually need to rely on “unorthodox” methods to deal with all the challenges imposed by professors. Since academic writing is becoming one of the most prominent aspects in universities , the trending development of the custom-writing industry with experienced writers shows that students need and look for this help.

Essay writing services are becoming more and more popular these days and, in most situations, are completely legitimate. Not many students have the proper time to plan and develop an extensive essay. When someone needs quick content on a topic, essay writing services come in handy. The essay writing industry provides students a valid alternative for their academic essays, creating a community of satisfied students.

Plagiarism Is A Risk Factor:

If you want to find an essay writing service free of plagiarism problems , take your time and check the site itself. You should be able to find detailed information about their services or some reviews from other customers as well as information about the writers that are part of it. 

Having original content in your essay is essential, so you need to be very careful with the service you select. For example, here at Gradehacker, our team uses plagiarism checkers, and every essay is also reviewed by our Editor-in-Chief to make sure your essay is free of any potential problems. 

Looking for help is no crime!

Essay Writing Services are a reasonably new concept that allows students to get assistance with assignments to meet deadlines. Nowadays, this process has become much more efficient. We hope this article helps you clear your doubts, so you don’t have to hesitate to ask for help with your essay!

As a college student, it is very important to keep your grades up, so you need to make sure you are not falling behind in your classes. Getting extra help is one of the best ways of doing it.

When you hire an experienced professional writer, you get something higher than the quality of an inexperienced writer, such as attention to detail and unique know-how steps to reach your goals. Our team at Gradehacker is more than qualified to lead you.

Now we know you will be able to make the right, legal, and informed choice when searching for help. You can always visit our personalized  Essay Writing Service and explore all the options that Gradehacker has to offer you to make your college life better. You can also read our articles and reviews about other services that may help you:

How Much Does it Cost to Write My Essay?

5 Common Essay Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Top 5 Plagiarism Checking Software For College Students

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Essay writing services now illegal

Under new UK legislation, providing or using professional essay writing services, or 'essay mills', is now a criminal offence. Students have been made aware of this via today's Student News. They have also been advised that using these services directly contravenes the University's code of conduct. If students are found to be using professional writing services, or passing off other people's work as their own, they will face serious disciplinary action. There are a range of resources available to students about  study skills and avoiding plagiarism  on the Oxford Students website. Colleagues are asked to reinforce these messages to students in their parts of the University.

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Cheating, Inc.: How Writing Papers for American College Students Has Become a Lucrative Profession Overseas

Credit... Illustration by The New York Times

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By Farah Stockman and Carlos Mureithi

Tuition was due. The rent was, too . So Mary Mbugua, a university student in Nyeri, Kenya, went out in search of a job. At first, she tried selling insurance policies, but that only paid on commission and she never sold one. Then she sat behind the reception desk at a hotel, but it ran into financial trouble.

Finally, a friend offered to help her break into “academic writing,” a lucrative industry in Kenya that involves doing school assignments online for college students in the United States, Britain and Australia. Ms. Mbugua felt conflicted.

“This is cheating,” she said. “But do you have a choice? We have to make money. We have to make a living.”

Since federal prosecutors charged a group of rich parents and coaches this year in a sprawling fraud and bribery scheme , the advantages that wealthy American students enjoy in college admissions have been scrutinized. Less attention has been paid to the tricks some well-off students use to skate by once they are enrolled.

Cheating in college is nothing new, but the internet now makes it possible on a global, industrial scale. Sleek websites — with names like Ace-MyHomework and EssayShark — have sprung up that allow people in developing countries to bid on and complete American homework assignments.

Although such businesses have existed for more than a decade, experts say demand has grown in recent years as the sites have become more sophisticated, with customer service hotlines and money-back guarantees. The result? Millions of essays ordered annually in a vast, worldwide industry that provides enough income for some writers to make it a full-time job.

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Are Essay Writing Services Legit?

5-minute read

• 3rd June 2022

Believe it or not, there are many companies, operating within the law, that write essays for students. This means you can pay someone to write your essay and then submit it to your tutor as your own work.

If that sounds like cheating to you, we wouldn’t disagree! So, how do companies offering essay writing services get away with it? And is it ever okay to use them? Read on to find out.

What is an Essay Mill?

An essay mill is a company that makes money by writing essays and other academic work for students. After providing little more than the title and required word count, clients can sit back and wait for their essay, assignment, or even 40,000-word dissertation, complete with a reference list, to drop into their inbox.

Essay mills use freelance writers, and the copy they produce becomes the property of the customer. They claim to write each assignment from scratch and usually run plagiarism checks as part of their service.

The Downsides of Essay Writing Services

The obvious advantage of using an essay writing service is that it saves you time and effort. So, if you can afford to pay someone else to do your homework, what’s not to like? Here are a few things worth considering before handing over your cash to an essay mill:

●  The writer is unlikely to be an expert in your subject: Essay mills and other companies offering writing services use freelancers. It’s therefore highly unlikely that they will have an expert in every academic field at their disposal. Even if they claim that your essay will be written by an expert, you won’t get to see the writer’s credentials, so you only have their word for it.

●  There’s no guarantee you’ll get a good grade: So, your essay is being produced by a writer who most likely isn’t an expert on the relevant topic. Because they’re a freelancer, they’ll only be getting a percentage of the fee you’ve paid, and they’ve not only got to write your essay, but research it, too. Unless they’re willing to work for a very low hourly rate, they won’t spend enough time on your essay to produce work that’s good enough to score high marks.

●  You could easily get caught: If your tutor is familiar with your usual style of writing, they might be suspicious when you hand in work written by someone else. What if they want you to clarify something or they query one of your references? If you’re caught cheating, it could spell the end of your academic ambitions.

●  It’s dishonest: You’ve probably worked out by now that we don’t approve of essay writing services! Whether or not they are legal (and we’ll cover that in the next section), they certainly aren’t ethical. And it’s a form of cheating, which is taken very seriously by academic institutions.

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●  You’ll miss out on learning opportunities: The whole point of an essay writing assignment is to learn valuable information about a topic. By handing that experience off to someone else, you’re essentially giving up part of the education that you’ve worked hard to qualify for (and are likely paying good money for)!

What Does the Law Say About Essay Writing Services?

The law regarding essay writing services varies from country to country (and from state to state in the US), so whether you’d be breaking the law by using them depends on where you’re studying.

At the moment, essay mills are still legal in most of the US and Canada. However, in some states, it’s illegal for students to use them. In the UK, legislation was passed in April 2022 that makes it a criminal offense to provide essay writing services. And similar laws exist in Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand.

Summary: Are Essay Writing Services Legit?

Essay writing services are still legal in some areas, so the question of whether or not you should use them is largely an ethical one. However, even if you’re not committing a crime by paying someone to write your essay, you could get into trouble with your college if anyone finds out.

Unfortunately, essay mills often target international students who may lack confidence in their English writing skills. But, instead of getting someone else to write your essay for you, which is a form of cheating, why not consider just getting help with proofreading? While any tutor would disapprove of handing in someone else’s work, it is perfectly legitimate to have your own words professionally proofread before you submit them.

Our proofreading service includes correcting any errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. In addition, we adapt any unsuitable vocabulary and highlight anything that’s unclear. However, we never make changes that would alter the meaning of what you’ve written. It’s your writing—we just help you make it shine!

You can try our student proofreading service for free by submitting a trial document today. You’ll get it back, error-free, tomorrow!

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Important notice: Essay writing services now illegal in the UK

Following a government reform, it is now illegal to use and/or provide contract cheating services.

On Thursday 28 April 2022, the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill became law, making it a criminal offence to engage in paid cheating services, often known as essay mills.

Essay mills offer students in Post-16 education plagiarism free essays and assignments in exchange for money.

The government has listened to calls for legislation and intervened to criminalise the provision of, and advertising of, cheating services. This aims to minimise the number of these essay mills in operation and to enhance activity already taking place to detect, deter and address incidents of cheating.

In a letter to Higher Education (HE) providers , Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Skills, Alex Burghart MP said: “Cheating of any kind is unacceptable. It not only threatens to undermine the reputation of our world-class higher education sector, but also devalues the hard work of those who succeed on their own merit.”

The university takes academic offences very seriously. Submitting work that is not your own can lead to expulsion.

We want to ensure that all DMU students are following academic regulations, which we outline  here .

The Centre for Learning and Study Support (CLaSS) team work with undergraduate, postgraduate and research students at DMU to provide support and guidance on a range of areas, such as planning assignments, how to approach critical analysis and how to improve your research and referencing.

You can access the CLaSS services here .

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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.

NEWS... BUT NOT AS YOU KNOW IT

The rise of Essay Writing Services: A look at the ethics, legality, criticisms and defences of the VERY controversial industry

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The history of academic cheating is as long as the history of schools and universities themselves.

In ancient China, even the threat of the death penalty for cheating was not enough to put young scholars off trying any tactics that they could think of to get an advantage in the all-important civil service exams.

In the modern world, cheating at school or university is a lot less risky and also much easier. Google “essay writing services”, and you’ll get 3.7 million hits back in less than half a second.

Behind those hits are hundreds, if not thousands, of companies and individuals around the world offering to take the stress out of school or university by writing your essays for you.

Given the ease of accessing such services, it is no surprise that they are increasingly popular with stressed students who are struggling with the demands of their courses.

But just how common is so-called “contract cheating” becoming? In 2018, Professor Phil Newton of Swansea University set out to answer that question.

He went through forty years of surveys of students internationally to see how many of them admitted to getting someone else to write an essay for them. The results sent shockwaves through the academic community.

In the years 1978 to 2014, just under one in twenty students would admit to cheating like that. But in the years between 2014 and 2018, that number shot up to more than one in seven.

Doing the maths, Professor Newton calculated that around 31 million students around the world (including hundreds of thousands in the UK)  were getting someone else to write at least one essay for them each year.

In the five years since that study was completed, the situation seems to have got worse. Much worse according to Dr Thomas Lancaster of Imperial College London, the academic who coined the phrase “contract cheating” in the first place.

Dr Lancaster claims that the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent shift of education online have driven even more students to turn to the internet in search of essay writing services.

At the same time, the rise of sophisticated plagiarism detection software has made it much harder for students to just directly copy someone else’s essay.

But contract cheating gets around that by hiring someone else to produce an original piece of work, which can be almost guaranteed to pass the plagiarism detectors with flying colours.

According to research by Channel 4 , students in the UK using essay writing services have a less than 1% chance of being found out by their university. 

The scale of the problem is clear. But it is not clear what can be done about it. So, we take a deep dive into this murky industry: identifying the different types of essay writing services and looking at the legal and ethical issues around using them.

We also look at the arguments in defence of essay writing services and highlight the solutions that could help prevent students from needing to use them in the first place.

Understanding essay writing services

Essay writing is a thriving industry that comes in a wide variety of different forms. The basic principle is that a student pays a company or an individual to write an essay for them.

At one end of the scale are huge companies like Write My Essay , which offer highly professional essays (which they can then submit as their own work).

At the other end are individual freelancers, who can be found on websites such as Upwork and Fiverr, who will create bespoke essays for their clients.

Such websites have rules forbidding academic cheating, but they don’t appear to be enforced, with job adverts requesting essay writing services regularly posted on the platforms.

In between the very big companies and the individual freelancers are the many so-called “essay mills”, that specialise in churning out original content for students.

The companies normally have websites that are more or less frank about what they are doing. Some claim to be offering simply “educational support” by providing a sample essay that should inspire a student rather than giving them something that they can just pretend is their own work.

Essay writing services vary enormously in price, but research by Dr Thomas Lancaster has shown that sourcing essays direct from individual writers can be very affordable for students.

The average price for a 2,000-word essay is just over $11, with most of the writers providing such services coming from Kenya, Pakistan and Nigeria. Further research by the same author found that students on Twitter are willing to pay up to $66 for a 2,000-word essay.

Are essay writing services illegal?

Hiring someone to write an essay for you might be cheating but does that actually make it illegal? The answer to that question varies depending on which country you are in.

In many places, including most US states, using an essay writing service is actually perfectly legal . The reason for that is that such services only claim to be providing students with sample essays so present themselves as simply online tutors.

However, governments are coming under increasing pressure from universities to use the law to clamp down on the problem, and an increasing number have responded by making such services illegal.

New Zealand was one of the pioneers in such legislation, leading the way in legislating against essay mills. Other places that have already done the same include Australia, Ireland and several US states.

In April 2022, the UK government followed suit. Now it is illegal to either provide or use essay writing services in the UK . As of June 2023, no actual criminal charges have been brought against anyone under the new legislation.

Perhaps recognising the difficulty in enforcing this law, the British government has written to internet search engines and service providers asking them to “do everything in your power to prevent the advertising of these unscrupulous practices”. Nevertheless, a simple search on google.co.uk will return thousands of hits for various companies.

Even in those countries that have not yet banned essay writing services, submitting someone else’s work as your own is certainly a breach of university and college policies.

So, while students in most US states might not face criminal charges for using such a service, they are very likely to find themselves facing serious penalties from their institution. Such penalties could go as far as seeing them kicked off their course. 

Still, given the difficulties in detecting content that has been written by a third party for a student to submit, that’s a risk that many are prepared to take.

Research has shown that up to 50% of students would consider cheating as long as they were confident that they could get away with it.  

Ethical Aspects

Regardless of whether essay writing services are legal in a particular country, serious questions remain about the ethics of getting someone else to do your work for you.

After all, degrees are awarded on the basis of a student’s intelligence and ability to work hard and give them privileged access to jobs and other opportunities as a result. So, surely, it’s wrong to steal an advantage over your more honest peers by just paying someone to do the work for you?

Another ethical consideration is that if students are cheating to gain qualifications does that mean that they might get a job that they are not really qualified for?

And how much more serious do those ethical questions become if, for example, someone is qualifying as a doctor on the basis of work that someone else did for them? In such cases, academic cheating can have serious real-world consequences in terms of impacting patient safety.

Essay writing companies have also been accused of preying on vulnerable students and encouraging dependency on their services.

By doing so, they prevent those students from developing the knowledge and critical thinking skills that are supposed to be the whole point of education. Other concerns have been raised about the fact that essay writing services expose students to the risk of blackmail.

In defence of essay writing services

Nevertheless, despite all the legal and ethical charges levied against them, essay writing services do have their defenders.

Some see them as essential services for stressed out students who are unable to cope with the pressure of having to submit too many assignments, especially when they are using them for subjects that they do not intend to major in.

Others have argued that in the real world after university, people will always collaborate with others and commission them to do work, so why shouldn’t they do the same during their academic careers?

Some commentators have stated that modern students have been brought up in a sharing economy with unlimited access to the resources they need online, so why shouldn’t they use essay writing services too?

Other arguments have focused on the struggles of students who are non-native speakers of English.

Many foreign speakers travel to English-speaking countries to complete their education and use essay writing services to overcome the stresses and difficulties of studying in a foreign language and to put themselves on the same playing field as their peers.

Other students find themselves forced to study in English even when in their own country, which can again prompt them to try to level the playing field by turning to essay writing services.

The basic thrust of many of the arguments that defend such services is that they are filling gaps that the university itself should be filling.

If universities provided proper support, less students would need to turn to essay writing services in the first place.  

Prevention and solutions

So, what can be done to prevent the rise of essay writing services? As the arguments in defence of such services suggest, universities can do more to support students, especially those who are not native speakers or who have learning difficulties.

More academic and pastoral support could reduce students’ reliance on contract cheating. For example, overstressed students should be encouraged to speak with their tutors to request the extra time that they might need to complete assignments, which would prevent them from turning to essay writing services in the days before their deadline.

There are also technical solutions emerging that might prevent students from using such services.

As Dr Lancaster has explained , such technology works by “identifying how we all write. We’ve all got a unique style and it shows in how complex our language is, the words we use too much, indicators like that. If you suddenly then hand in something written with a different writing style, that’s suspicious.”

Finally, more might need to be done to explain to students the importance of not using such services and the ethical issues involved in their use.

As Dr Grant Klinkum of New Zealand’s Qualifications Authority, has said, “Some of our values, based on some Renaissance idea of the value and importance of intellectual endeavour and so on, may not be shared by increasing numbers of students… This is not about immoral students. This is about varied values.”

As we have seen, essay writing services are thriving, despite increasing attempts to clamp down on them through legislation.

Despite all the ethical issues surrounding their use, desperate students will turn to them, especially because there is little chance of them getting caught.

What do you think? Should more be done to prevent students from using essay writing services and to crack down harder on those who do?

Or should we focus on the positive sides of such services and see them as just another aspect of modern education that helps students to learn and develop? Whatever your answers to those questions, it seems certain that essay writing services are here to stay, and some students will continue to use them for as long as they can get away with it.

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Essay-writing services to be made illegal in England

22 February 2022 | Applicable law: England and Wales

Essay-writing services, known as essay mills, are to be made illegal under plans announced by the government on 5 October 2021.

The government intends to make it a criminal offence to provide, arrange, or advertise any essay-writing services for financial gain to students taking a qualification at any institution in England providing post-16 education, including universities.

The move follows a number of steps already taken by the government to protect academic integrity from the effect of essay mills. In 2018, 46 university vice-chancellors wrote a joint letter calling for essay-writing services to banned, and the government worked with the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, Universities UK and the National Union of Students to produce guidance on how institutions could counter the threat of contract cheating, and for students to make them better aware of the consequences (which might include removal from their course of study or expulsion from their place of study). The latest efforts to outlaw essay mills and other ‘contract cheating’ has been welcomed by members of all parties and across the education industry, and hailed as safeguarding the academic integrity and standards of post-16 and higher education in England as well as protecting young people during their studies.

The Skills and Post-16 Education Bill (the ‘Bill’) introduces this measure as a means to protect students from the “deceptive marking techniques of contract cheating services”. The Bill also aims to help level up opportunities across the country by transforming the existing educational landscape: alternative training and career routes, such as technical education, apprenticeships, T Levels or traineeships, are to be emphasised and given equal status alongside the traditional academic route (as set out in the Skills for Jobs White Paper ).

Essay mills – given that they profit from committing academic fraud – are largely considered to be unethical, though they remain lawful in most countries. The UK follows in the footsteps of Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Ireland by taking action against contract cheating.

Ghostwriting services are active globally, and often target students who are studying in a second language. The rise in demand for such services are likely the result of increased competition for university places, especially where coursework and open-book exams contribute to pivotal final grades. Ironically, these services encourage a lack of scholarship that sets students up poorly for further education.

The online learning environment that developed as a result of stay-at-home mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic meant that students became increasingly vulnerable to the lures of essay-writing services. As campus welfare and support became less accessible to students working remotely from home and motivation throughout the academic year dwindled as Zoom-fatigue set in, levels of online cheating exploded: the Quality Assurance Agency estimated in 2021 that there are at least 932 sites in operation in the UK, up from 904 in December 2020, 881 in October 2020 and 635 in June 2018. More brazenly, there are examples of essay mill service providers taking advantage of the difficult circumstances faced by students during the pandemic by offering 2-4-1 deals and other special offers to ‘help’ students navigate a difficult and unusual few academic years.

While the proposals in the Bill are welcome, the measures do not amount to a full solution to online cheating. The International Journal for Educational Integrity has highlighted the increasing number of ways in which students wishing to circumvent rules on academic honesty may do so using technology. For example, the use of file-sharing websites to request assistance from others and receive answers to exam questions – in real time and during exam conditions – has risen by an estimated 196% in the year 2020-21 in STEM subjects. The Bill does not extend to Wales or Scotland, for whom education is a devolved matter: essay mills may yet target UK schools and universities and see plenty reason to maintain operations.

Gareth Crossman, head of policy and public affairs at the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, has touched on the length of the journey ahead, saying: “ [the Bill] sends a clear signal but, with well over 1000 essay mills in operation, the sector must continue working together to put them out of business. ” Only time will tell whether the measures, when implemented, are effective, and whether the government needs to go further to protect students from predatory academic practices in future.

This document (and any information accessed through links in this document) is provided for information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Professional legal advice should be obtained before taking or refraining from any action as a result of the contents of this document.

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Essay mills to be banned under plans to reform post-16 education

Unscrupulous ‘essay mills’ to be criminalised as part of the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill

Services offering to provide students with essays for money, known as essay mills, are to be made illegal under plans announced by the government today (5 October).

The government intends to make it a criminal offence to provide, arrange or advertise these cheating services for financial gain to students taking a qualification at any institution in England providing post-16 education including universities.

The move is one of a number of measures being introduced to the Skills and Post-16 Education Bill , to transform the skills and training landscape and help level up opportunities across the country.

The law will also be changed to give equality to technical education in careers advice in schools, so all pupils understand the wide range of career routes and training available to them, such as apprenticeships, T Levels or traineeships, not just a traditional academic route.

Minister for Skills Alex Burghart said:

Essay mills are completely unethical and profit by undermining the hard work most students do. We are taking steps to ban these cheating services. We have also announced a new measure to make sure all young people receive broader careers guidance so everyone can get the advice that’s right for them.

Banning essay mills will help to safeguard the academic integrity and standards of post-16 and higher education in England and protect students from falling prey to the deceptive marketing techniques of contract cheating services.

This follows a number of steps already taken to tackle unscrupulous essay mills, including government working alongside the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, Universities UK and the National Union of Students to produce guidance for institutions on how to combat the threat of contract cheating and guidance for students to make them better aware of the consequences, sending a clear message that these services are not legitimate.

Additional measures being introduced to the Bill include enabling sixth form colleges with a religious faith designation to become a 16-19 Academy, boosting diversity in 16-19 academies and allowing more faith school providers to open 16-19 academies with a religious character.

The Bill, which will enter its report stage in the House of Lord on 12 October, underpins the government’s transformation of post-16 education and skills as set out in the Skills for Jobs White Paper . The reforms outlined in the Bill will help to create more routes into skilled employment in sectors the economy needs such as engineering, digital, clean energy and manufacturing, so more people can secure well-paid jobs in their local areas, levelling up the nation and supporting communities to thrive.

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Essay Writing Services: Benefits and Risks

Struggling with writer's block? An essay writing service may be the answer to getting your next paper completed, but it doesn't come without risks.

Why Students Use Essay Writing Services

Are you allowed to use an essay writing service, how to choose an essay writing service, signs of a scam essay writing service, 5 essay writing services, final thoughts on using essay writing services, frequently asked questions.

Essay writing is one of the most important skills students need to develop during their academic years. Essay writing is a critical part of the learning process, and it helps students express their ideas and thoughts on a given topic. Essay writing is also an essential part of the assessment process, and it is often used to determine a student's grade. However, essay writing can be a challenging task for many students, and it can often be challenging to get started. One way students overcome this challenge is to use an essay writing service.

An essay writer essentially helps and guides you throughout the essay writing process, and they can also help you improve your essay writing skills. If you are struggling with essay writing, then hiring an essay writer could be one of the best decisions that you make. However, there are a few things you need to know first.

There are various reasons why students may seek out an essay writing service. For example, some students may be struggling with the English language, making it difficult to craft a well-written essay. Others may be working part-time jobs or have other commitments that leave them with little time to complete their schoolwork.

The primary reason students turn to online writing services is because they need assistance crafting high-quality papers. While some online services may provide essays that are poorly written and full of errors, reputable companies like BidForWriting will pair each student with a professional writer who can help them produce a well-crafted and error-free essay. As a result, online writing services can be an invaluable resource for busy or struggling students who need help completing their schoolwork.

Generally, no. Schools and colleges frown on using an essay writing service for your assignments since you're not the one writing the essay yourself. It's essentially cheating since someone else is doing the work for you.

However, if you're paying an essay writer to simply guide you through the process (almost like a tutor), your teacher shouldn't have as much of an issue with this.

Although technically, you should be writing your own essay, many students get away with using essay writers because their teachers are non-the-wiser. Just know the risks—you could receive a fail for the assignment .

Will You Get Caught?

Think again if you think your teacher won't find out you're using an essay writing service. Most teachers know their students well enough to spot a fraudulent essay from one of your regular papers.

The best way to use an essay writing service is for guidance only. Otherwise, you can get penalized for cheating. After ordering an essay, you should build off it and rewrite it to make it your own.

If you do choose to use an essay writing service for school, don't just pick any old one. You want to choose a reputable company to ensure you pay for a high-quality essay. When looking for an essay writing service, you want to look for the following:

• Positive customer reviews (and lots of them)—try not to be fooled by fake reviews.
• Ability to pick and choose your essay writers based on experience, portfolio, etc.
• A service that guarantees essays are 100% plagiarism-free.
• Free revisions.
• Services that follow your brief, guidelines, and essay requirements exactly.
• Money-back guarantees if the essay is not up to your standards and satisfaction.
• Guarantee that your personal information remains confidential.
• Safe payment options—ensure the website is secure and payment is via a standard method.
• Ability to communicate directly with the essay writer.

Some essay writing services you'll want to stay away from. Of course, you don't really know the quality until you use the service, but there are a few warning signs of a bad company (or a scam ) to look out for:

• Fake reviews : If several reviews look similar or are very short with little information, be wary. Sketchy companies can post fake reviews to appear trustworthy and reliable.
• Low prices : A cheap essay writing service may be tempting—after all, you want the best deal possible. However, if one essay writing company is offering its services at a much lower rate than everyone else, you should question why this is. Lower prices may mean lower quality.
• No customer support team : If you're having trouble contacting a real person at the company, don't do business with them. You want to make sure you can easily communicate with them and the writer before handing over your money.

Check Customer Reviews on Third-Party Sites

Check several websites for reviews of essay writing services, including forums like Reddit, before choosing one. You're not going to find negative reviews on an essay writing service's own website, so you need to look on other sites for more honest feedback.

As any student knows, the essay writing process can be both time-consuming and frustrating. From coming up with a topic and doing research to sitting down and writing the paper, there are a lot of steps involved. And if you're not careful, it's all too easy to get bogged down in the process and end up with a less-than-stellar essay. That's where an essay writing service comes in.

By outsourcing the work to a professional writer, you can free up your time to focus on other assignments or even just take a break from the demands of school. But with so many essay writing services available, it can be challenging to know which one to choose. Here are some of the top essay writing services to choose from:

• BidForWriting.com
• Essayassistant.org
• Editgiant.com
• Grabmeessay.com
• Check-my-grammar.com

1. BidForWriting.com

BidForWriting.com is an essay writing service that has delivered original essays without plagiarism for over a decade. The company has reached such a quality standard because of a dedicated team that reviews all essays for plagiarism before sending them to the client.

This department uses the latest software to check for plagiarism, and it can detect even the slightest trace of copied text. As a result, BidForWriting can guarantee that each essay it delivers is 100% original. In addition, the company offers a money-back guarantee if you're not satisfied with the paper.

2. EssayAssistant.org

EssayAssistant.org delivers a wide spectrum of academic writing as well as revising and editing services. The pricing starts as low as $9, which is quite low.

The site has experts in every field of study and so you will surely find a professional writer who can help you with your essay.

3. EditGiant.com

EditGiant.com can take care of the essay writing process for you from start to finish. They have a team of professional writers who are knowledgeable in a wide range of subjects, so no matter what your essay topic is, they can help. In addition, they offer services at very competitive rates, so you can get the help you need without breaking the bank.

4. GrabMyEssay.com

GrabMyEssay.com can handle various types of papers, including admissions essays, lab reports, dissertation writing, coursework, and research papers. Their pricing starts at $14.99/page and you can pay for extra services, such as proofreading and an originality report (i.e., an advanced plagiarism checker).

5. Check-My-Grammar.com

Essay writing is one of the most popular services offered by Check-My-Grammar.com . The website focuses on student writing, whether you're getting a college degree, a bachelor's degree, or a master's degree.

According to the website, the company has a team of over 500 professional writers across 40 disciplines. The company offers all sorts of services, applicable terms, and conditions, including college writing and essay writing on any topic you wish. You can also request a specific writer if you have worked with them before and are satisfied with their style.

There is no denying that academic writing services can be helpful to students. For international students or part-time students, in particular, these services can provide much-needed assistance in getting their work done. In addition, Ph.D. students can often benefit from the help of a professional writer in crafting a well-written and inventive thesis.

While it is certainly possible to overuse or abuse such services, there is no reason to discount their value entirely. When used judiciously, they can be an important tool in helping students succeed in their studies.

Are essay writing services legal?

Yes, essay writing services are legal. The companies operate legally, and it is legal to use them also. However, just because they're legal, it doesn't mean you're allowed to use them to write your essays for you.

Using these services comes with the risk that your teacher could fail you, as having someone write an essay for you is considered cheating.

However, you can use an essay writing service to help you write an essay which may be considered acceptable by your college or teacher.

Will these services write my essay completely?

Yes. Essay writers can write your entire essay for you. However, this is not recommended as you could be penalized for cheating and fail your subject or assignment.

What are the risks of using an essay writing service?

Some of the risks associated with using an essay writing service include:

• Your teacher finding out and giving you a failing grade for cheating.
• The essay not being up to scratch—maybe you would have been better off writing it yourself.
• An essay with plagiarized content.
• An essay that doesn't meet the assignment requirements (perhaps the essay writer didn't pay enough attention to the brief).

About This Article

• I Hate Writing Essays: How Safe, Legal and Legitimate Essay Writing Services Are?
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Are Essay Writing Services Legit and Legal?

If you’ve been busy doing schoolwork and trying to hit deadlines, there’s a very good chance you’ve seen essay writing services advertised online. These claim to take your topic of choice and write an entire essay on them, which you can turn in for top grades. However, are these services legit and legal, and is it a good idea to use them?

Also read: How to Download Entire Websites for Offline Use

Are Essay Writing Services Legit?

Most of the time, an essay writing service will do what it says it does. A company will hire academic writers, either in-house or freelance, and assign them tasks. The writers type up the full essay then hand it to you. The service lets you legally claim the essay as yours so you can just put your name on it.

Often, the service will put a huge emphasis on a no-plagiarism stance. This is because academic institutions often scan submitted pieces to see if they’ve been lifted from a website or book. The writers of the essay will handcraft it themselves so that the client doesn’t get caught cheating.

Are Essay Writing Services Legal?

The entire process is called “ghostwriting.” This is when a writer writes a piece, then allows someone else to claim all the ownership. Ghostwriting is very much a legal avenue of work; some celebrity biographies were ghostwritten by other authors.

As such, someone else writing an essay and releasing their ownership is also legal. There have been efforts by some to ban this practice, such as universities in the UK .

Should You Use Essay Writing Services?

They are legal and legit, so why not use them? While you may be tempted, there are downsides to using a service.

The Potential Problem of Plagiarism

For one, academic institutes will typically ask you to check a box or agree to a statement that says what you submit is your own work. This goes beyond ghostwriting, as the statement will ask you to confirm that you were the original writer of the piece.

What this means is that, if the institute works out that you used an essay writing service, it’s considered plagiarism. This is plagiarism in the fact that you’re claiming that a piece that you did not write is yours. It doesn’t matter if the original writer gave you ownership of it – you didn’t write it, full stop.

While your institute may not find any copy-paste plagiarism in your work, it may raise eyebrows if your essays suddenly have a different “voice” to them or cover something that wasn’t part of the original course.

When Pre-Written Essays Do Damage

Even if you don’t get caught, handing in a pre-written essay hinders more than helps. Sure, you met a deadline without doing work, but essays are meant to further your own education. By having someone else do it, you’re putting yourself back compared to your classmates who did the essay and learned the topic.

Even if you do use a pre-written essay, you may not like what you get. The Guardian did a study on the people who wrote, used, or read an essay written by a service. The people who used it either felt guilty or ended up getting bad grades; the tutors who had prewritten articles submitted to them could smell them out.

As such, it’s not a good idea to use an essay writing service. You don’t learn anything from it, you run the risk of being flagged and kicked out of your course, and – even if everything works out okay – it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll get a good grade for it.

Not the Easy Way Out for Essays

While there are plenty of online courses that you can take for free , hiring an essay writing service to complete your work is not recommended. They’re bad for your education, they may not give you a good grade, and if you’re caught doing it, you’ll be in big trouble. Buckle up and get that essay done!

Have you been tempted by essay writing services? Let us know below.

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This article was updated by the Great British Mag content team on 20 October 2021. 

Have you seen essay writing agencies advertised and been tempted to give them a try? Keep reading to get a better understanding of what essay writing agencies are, how they work and the implications of using them can have on your university education. 

What are essay writing agencies?

As a student, you probably have essay writing agencies very much on your radar. They advertise themselves relentlessly to university goers and seem to offer the perfect solution to tight deadlines.

If their marketing attempts have passed you by so far, a quick Google will pull up countless agencies that promise high-quality easy writing, editing and proofreading services for all levels of higher education. 

For a fee, you can give the agency your essay title and any details you have on what should be included in the content, and they’ll have one of their writers complete it for you within a matter of days.

Are they legal to use?

The UK government announced in June 2021 that it is putting legislation in place to make essay writing agencies that provide pre-written or custom-made essays for students to present as their own illegal. England is leading on implementing these changes. 

Do universities prohibit the use of essay writing agencies?

Absolutely – and they take it very seriously. In fact, there have been several calls over recent years from university leaders for the government to ban ‘essay mills’ (which the agencies are sometimes known as) entirely. In some countries like New Zealand, they’re actually illegal. 

That said, some essay writing agencies frame themselves as providing educational support, in the same way that a private tutor might. They state that the essays they provide aren’t for handing in and passing off as your own work, but for using as a basis from which to research and write your own essay. That makes the legal waters murkier. 

What do universities consider as cheating?

Handing in work that has been completed by someone else is definitely considered cheating – this includes getting a friend or family member to write your coursework for you, as well as going to an essay writing agency. 

Despite this, a   study by Swansea University revealed more students than ever were paying for third parties to write their essays. It found that potentially as many as one in seven recent graduates from around the globe, which equates to around 31 million, had engaged in cheating in this way. 

Indeed, a poll on Instagram that we recently ran suggested that around 25% of our student followers had handed in an essay that they didn’t write themselves. 

Covid-19 seems to have caused an uptick in people using these services too, says Dr Thomas Lancaster , senior teaching fellow at Imperial College London, who has conducted several studies on the topic and actually coined the term ‘contract cheating’, which is what this form of cheating is often referred to as. 

“The pandemic hasn’t helped with the situation. From my own research, we’re seeing many more requests for contract cheating services now than we were before Covid-19 disrupted the sector,” he says. 

With students having to grapple with remote learning, a lack of access to libraries and less face-to-face teaching time, it’s no wonder that more are resorting to using essay-writing services. But no matter the circumstances that cause people to turn to this kind of servive, it’s very much still considered to be cheating. 

How much do essay writing services charge?

This varies hugely depending on the agency, the academic level the essay is for and how close the deadline is. We’ve seen services advertised from as little as £4 for a 2:2 level essay with a long deadline, and up to £260 for a 3,000 assignment with a quick turnaround. 

It’s worth remembering that if a deal on an essay writing agency website sounds too good to be true, it likely is. The cheapest companies will often use writers from overseas whose written English might not be up to scratch. That could not only impact the quality of the essay, but also make it obvious that it’s been written by someone else. 

How likely am I to get caught? 

In all honesty, identifying paid-for essays isn’t easy for university professors. Even if a university does have its suspicions, it’s not a straightforward offence to prove. That said, it’s certainly not impossible – and with cases on the up, more university staff are on high alert of fraudulent submissions.

There is new technology emerging too, specifically designed to detect essays written by third parties. And it’s improving all the time, says Lancaster.

“It works by identifying how we all write. We’ve all got a unique style and it shows in how complex our language is, the words we use too much, indicators like that. If you suddenly then hand in something written with a different writing style, that’s suspicious. 

“There are quite a few detection methods in development that show promise and often there are all sorts of little clues that the university can piece together and use to work out whether the student is submitting work they have done themselves.”

What will happen if I am caught?

Getting caught is perhaps the biggest risk you run – it could ruin your university career. 

While each university is responsible for setting out its own procedure for dealing with cheating (you’ll likely find a page about it on your university’s website), be warned that they all take it very seriously. It’s considered a major violation of academic standards. 

Think about it: for institutions to be handing out degrees to people who aren’t qualified is hugely problematic. They’re breaching the national standards of these respected qualifications, meaning their reputation and status as a higher education provider is very much at stake. 

If you’re suspected of cheating, it’s likely you’ll be interviewed and asked to provide evidence that you wrote the essay in question yourself (think notes and previous drafts). If the allegations hold up after that, it could result in a disciplinary hearing and, ultimately, your expulsion from the university. 

Yep, this is a serious offence and one that could cut your time at university very short. 

What are the other risks?

Expulsion isn’t the only risk you run if you decide to hand in an essay that you didn’t write.  First, of course, there is no guarantee as to the quality of the essay you’ll be supplied with by the agency – you could easily still fail. 

“The writers who work for these agencies tend to be badly paid, so their incentive is to write as quickly as possible, not produce high-quality work,” says Lancaster. “They’ll take shortcuts. They add meaningless content to pad out the word count and make up references.”

So don’t be shocked if, after forking out for a professional writer to secure you a great grade, you still flunk. 

Then there’s the issue that by not studying for one piece of coursework you’re on the back foot for the next assignment – and the next. 

“Students become dependent on these services,” says Lancaster. “They’ve missed out on the learning. And once they’re on a company’s customer list, they’re going to be receiving marketing messages again and again.”

Yes, there is the chance that you pay for an essay, get a killer grade and live happily ever after – but there’s also a lot that can go wrong. 

What should I do if I’m struggling with my studies? 

If you’re struggling with your studies and feeling overwhelmed, talk to your university. There might be ways that they can support you and help ease the strain you’re feeling over coursework and deadlines. You may not need to risk your university career by buying your coursework.  

If it’s the language aspect that is causing you stress and making essay-writing a nightmare for you, then speak to your university – they may well have opportunities you can make the most of to improve your English, such as online courses. There will also be an International Student Support service at your uni, who can help with any non-academic issues that are getting in the way of your studies – everything from visa stresses to feeling at home in your new city. 

If you have any learning differences, like dyslexia, you might be entitled to extra support, so make sure your tutors are aware of the situation. The same goes for if you are experiencing personal problems that are impacting your learning – depending on the situation you might be offered more time to complete work, as well as other forms of help. 

You may also like to read

How to get support for learning differences at university

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The Essay Writing Industry: How bad is it?

In recent months there has been lots of talk, both in Parliament and in the news about the legality of essay writing services . Understandably, this has caused a lot of confusion for students who have used these services previously, are currently using our service, or who plan to use such a service in the future.

These articles are of course shedding a bad light on the industry and those who buy into it, but this light does not necessarily depict the whole picture. Do essay writing services highlight a flaw in recent and future generations of students, or in the University system itself? Let us break it down for you.

Is Using an Essay Writing Service Illegal?

Our services continue to exist due to one simple fact: students are seeking assistance with their University work because they do not have the resources or support for this inside of their academic institution. We completely get it, tutors are busy people, who alongside lecturing and marking, may not have the time to sit with each student and provide one-to-one guidance on how to complete a particular academic assignment or dissertation research , or a specific topic covered in a lecture. This is the main reason why students come to use our services, and to clarify further, no, using our services is not illegal .

Our services are here to help students improve their studies, by providing guidance on certain subjects or topic areas that they may not feel confident in. We also assist international students with their command of the English language - since studying ina language that is not your mother tongue can be a hard enough job in itself! Finally, our services exist because there is a demand for this extra help. Student's want to learn and to understand the work that is set, but sometimes there are simply not enough resources or staff members for them to seek this help inside their University.

Academic writing services are here to provide support to students – be it through the provision of model answers, proofreading or tutoring. Our services are not intended for submission, and as long as students use the work with this in mind, then they are well within the law, and are also not breaking any of their University rules.

The ability to write well –particularly academically, is not something that anyone is simply born with. It is a skill that is developed over time, sometimes with assistance. That is what academic writing services are here for. To provide guidance, and to facilitate learning and development of writing skills.

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How Safe, Legal and Legitimate Essay Writing Services Are?

Author: david anderson.

• Last Updated: January 5, 2024

How Reliable and Safe are Essay Writing Services?

Signs of a scam paper writing service, faqs for potential customers, are essay writing services legal, is using essay writing services legit.

Colleges and universities have become highly stringent institutions. From admission all the way to graduation, students have to constantly battle it out with an endless string of assignments, hectic schedules, deadlines, and maintaining good grades. It comes as no surprise that many students turn to essay writing services to help ease their workload.

But the question is, is it safe and legal to use online paper writing services?

Below, we’re going to answer some important questions, debunk the myths surrounding custom academic writing, and determine once and for all if it’s safe to hire someone to get academic writing help.

With hundreds of options to choose from, how can you tell which essay writing service is reliable?

Unfortunately, not all services are created equal. In fact, you may have to dig deeper to find a safe and trustworthy essay writing service. This is where IHateWritingEssays comes into the picture: We do the heavy work for you and recommend essay writing services that strive to the highest reliability.

You simply can't dive straight into the first writing service you find, simply because they offer the most affordable writing service. These days, the idea of a cheap and reliable essay writing service is an oxymoron! At IHateWritingEssays, we test a service's reliability based on results from repeated trials – and that includes test-ordering from these writing service companies.

For us to consider a company a credible essay writing service, they must meet the following criteria:

• Conduct thorough research during the initial writing stage
• Open communication between the customer and writer
• Can proofread and/or edit the draft
• Create grammatically and structurally correct essays
• Craft academic papers with proper formatting and citation styles
• Can write 100% original, plagiarism-free content
• Offers stellar customer support and service
• Create an agreement with the customer that their ordered paper can only be used as a model essay / writing guide (VERY IMPORTANT!)

If an essay writing service meets these criteria, then they are not only reliable, but legally and legitimately safe to use as well. Sure, there's quite a lot to consider but ultimately, you'll have the peace of mind knowing you've invested on a safe writing service that's worth your time and money.

Anyhow, there are some cases when "write my essay" services are actually bad and not worth the time or the money. Let's look at a few examples.

Below are warning signs of fraudulent essay writer services. Remember, many companies that use an aggressive marketing strategy - create multiple sites and write fake reviews - may provide pretty good essays. But if there's no support, and prices are low, then you shouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole.

1. Fabricated essay writing services reviews

Now if the satellite websites scam is applied, the most straight-forward one to look out for is the fake reviews. One team of writers that owns multiple website domains will make reviews for all of them and rank them accordingly. It sounds stupid, doesn't it? However, on the surface, you can't know they aren't any different.

Do You Know that Most Best Essay Writing Services Reviews Are Fake?

• Why? Mainly because the majority of college paper writing service reviews are meant to polish online reputation . It's a situation that's as simple as: we hire you, you make us look good, you in return will look good and that's about it. Everyone wins from this except the client.
• Another reason to not trust most paper writing services review sites is because they exist just to generate traffic to money sites . You will most likely see a lot of ads meant to produce money, so the information on there is probably not true.
• Thirdly, most of them are owned by essay companies so you already know the client isn't put on the 1st place, and that generating money is their goal. The chance that you will actually find the best paper writing service through them is super slim.

Among the most popular fake "write my essay" review sites are TopWritersReview.com, ToPaperWritingServices.com, RankMyWriter.com, UKTopWriters.com, Best-Essay-Writing.Services, College-Paper-Writing-Service.Reviews, OmniPapers.com, Legitimate-Writing-Services.Blogspot.com, AWriter.org , SimpleGrad.com, TopAssignmentReviews.com, StudyDemic.com, BestEssayTips.com, BestEssayServiceReviews.com and many others.

2. Good service can't be cheap

Low prices are also something that you should question. No one works for free. Take in consideration the time spent and the quality put in your essay before you decide to buy papers online. If the price seems too low for what they're claiming to offer, you might want to search somewhere else.

3. Similar sites with different domain names

If you pick and choose one assignment writing service out of many, there's a chance they all lead to the same team of writers. This is the most common scam out there. Multiple website domains make for a higher chance of clients. Only thing is that they don't know they are being scammed, since all websites look legit at first glance.

4. Lack of instant support

Another thing to look out for is that most of these websites offer no real support. They might advertise it in such an official way that you might get the idea they are there for you 24/7, but once they've written your essay, they might suddenly disappear from the radar. Make sure to ask all details about support before ordering an essay.

5. Absence of User Agreement

A reliable essay writing service would protect their customers’ confidentiality at all cost, yet remain transparent about their background and policies. If a website doesn’t offer refund and revision guarantees, and doesn’t have a page for their Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy, chances are you’re dealing with a scam.

6. No Online Presence on Review Sites

No self-respecting company would allow negative testimonials on their website, so it pays to check for external customer reviews, especially from third-party/independent review sites like IHateWritingEssays . If you can’t find an online presence outside of their website, it may be that they’re a newly established business or that they have mediocre-quality services, people don’t talk about and recommend them. So if you can’t find anything online, it’s better not to risk doing business with them. It’s never a smart move to leave it to luck when an essay could affect your final grade.

Need a Reliable Essay Writing Service? Hundreds of Students Recommend:

Not all essay writing services are scam, there are also safe ones.

Simply speaking, there are a lot of good and trustworthy essay websites waiting to do your essay correctly. Therefore, we will now discuss some of the most frequently asked questions from students and answers legal essay writing services would give.

1) Is it confidential?

Sure thing, while placing an order you will be asked to provide such personal information as your phone number, name, email. Legitimate essay writing companies offer great confidentiality policies that protects the student's rights and personal information. You can rest assured that they will not break their policies, therefore, information about you is safe.

2) Will the student be the owner of the essay?

That's not a simple question. Remember that legal essay writing companies de jure do not transfer ownership of their papers to the buyer. You don't have to worry about it! Now, all essay writing services don't claim their work as their own. Actually, the student is the one with the ownership and it can use the paper anyway he wants.

3) Will the essay be written from scratch or a pre-written work?

Well, the essay will be written from scratch when it comes to the good essay writing service. At the same time, be careful not to run into sites that sell prewritten essays . It might be dangerous.

4) Is it safe to pay through your website?

Of course, it is safe to submit payments through the website in case it has an SSL certificate. Realiable paper writing services are committed to protecting the privacy of their customers.

5) Will the writer blackmail me somehow?

If you deal with the freelancer essay writer there will be a possibility of the blackmail. On the other hand, essay writing service will never blackmail you in any way. Neither you nor the writer will know each other's name.

6) Can I choose my own writer?

Some essay writing services, so-called websites with a bidding system, allow you to choose the writer and negotiate the price. It may be cheaper, but not all students are willing to spend time looking for a writer. Whatever it was, I recommend checking out my ranking of the best bidding sites .

7) Will the paper be sold again after you give it to me?

Now, there is no need to worry about things like that. When they give you the paper, you are the owner, therefore, they will not sell the same paper again. As described above, some companies violate the contract, so always check the reputation and read the reviews.

8) Does it make sense to look for a specific writing agency, like research paper writing service?

It has been the practice of those in their high school and college levels to look for the best research paper or dissertation writing service reviews , and more depending on their assignment.

However, students must know that they can receive better help when they simply look for the most reliable company that offers essay services. By doing this, they can be assured of receiving premium output at reasonable rates. The top essay companies can usually address all your academic needs from writing theses, literature reviews, dissertations , admission essays , movie reviews, scholarship essays , case studies, law essays , nursing papers and other types of paper required by your university professors.

9) Is it plagiarism to buy a paper from an essay writing service?

Yes and no. Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and passing them off as one's own. However, there's no existing policy that prohibits students from using essay writing services. In the case of buying a paper , it's a "victimless" situation because the professional writer agrees to turn over the paper's full ownership rights to the customer who orders them, making the customer the "original author".

10) How can the student avoid getting caught when using an essay service?

As universities continue to find better ways at detecting plagiarism, students need to find new ways to avoid getting caught. Choosing a legitimate writing service that guarantees authentic papers is obviously important. However, the student also has to do their part to make sure their behavior is safe. You can read more about this in our ultimate user's guide .

11) Are Essay Writing Services Worth It?

YES. If you follow our user’s guide and make smart choices, using essay writing services is absolutely worth it. A reliable writing service will have your best interest at heart by meeting your requirements and deadline. Most importantly, they will protect your anonymity and ensure that you get a quality, original paper that gives value for your money.

12) Do Essay Writing Services Really Work?

ABSOLUTELY. With the help of a professional writers, you can get a well-written academic paper on time and according to your unique requirements. If you’re pressed for time with a looming deadline or want to polish up an important paper, an essay writing service can be a life-saver.

13) What Is the Most Reliable Essay Writing Service?

There’s no one-size-fits-all option for everyone’s academic writing needs. Essay writing services aren’t built to be the same, each having their own sets of strengths and weaknesses. Depending on your needs and budget, you can turn to our reviews and ratings as your guide.

What Does It Take to Hire a Trusted Essay Writing Service (with Successful Results)?

With literally hundreds to choose from, it’s no easy task to find the ideal essay writing service online, especially if you’re a newbie and have a tight budget to stick to. Below are some tips and tricks to making your search a lot simpler (and safer):

• Get a clear understanding of your paper assignment and set a goal and deadline to avoid last-minute cramming.
• Spend a few hours on the internet to research and read reviews from students and verified customers (or use our recommendations of trustworthy essay writing services).
• Know your rights as a student and as a paying customer, and understand exactly how a reliable essay writing service works (check the company’s policies and Terms and Conditions).
• Set a budget of at least $150 for an essay, or find cheaper assignment writing service alternatives on our blog .

Students from all the world are using online companies for their course assignments. But are custom essay writing services legal? The short answer is yes. Here are a few reasons why.

Reason #1: A credible essay writing service will always include terms of service on its website.

Terms of use outlines the conditions that clients have to agree to before using a product or service. So when students hire contractors from essay writing firms, they must consent to the sites' disclaimers. Still, the jury is out on whether all customers abide by this.

A typical disclaimer would insist that the papers a service produces are for research or reference purposes only. They absolve the company from any claims of plagiarism or dishonesty. That's how essay writing business works. It is thus up to the students who buy such products to use them ethically. That may include using the papers as a basis for their term papers or final exams. They can however submit them as their original work without even changing a word.

Reason #2: Trustworthy paper writing services just fulfill requests from their clients.

They do not claim to act as a stand-in for the student. The only work of every legit essay writing service is to provide material that helps customers to understand their coursework. This help is especially useful for people who have to cope with several responsibilities.

It's not surprising to find students holding part-time jobs so that they can cope with the high college costs. Others are even married. So they must create the time to attend to their families as well as schoolwork.

Reason #3: Most essay writing services do transfer ownership of their papers to the buyer.

As the sole authors, they don't expect the client to put their names on the product they receive. No need to panic! In fact, most customer service representatives will confirm that you are the sole owner of the product. Then, it's just a question of your ethical principles .

True, paying someone else to work on your paper is a form of plagiarism . However, things will only go south if you choose the wrong writing service. Reputable companies de facto transfer full ownership of the paper to the customer. Additionally, if you arm yourself with the knowledge on how to avoid plagiarism, then sure enough you won't face serious consequences from your teacher.

Reasons #4: Most essay writing services are consistent with the law.

In countries like the USA and England, for example, essay writing services are completely legal.

Even in countries like the UK, where many academic institutions continue to push banning students from hiring essay writing services, there is no existing national law that makes using this type of service, illegal. In short, these legal essay writing services work in consistency with the laws of the country's jurisdiction.

Whatever opinions other people may have, the legality of essay writing services is not in question. For one, essay writing services mainly exist to provide model papers to help students improve their own writing skills. Papers made by essay writing services also serve to provide pointers solely for research.

The logic here is quite simple. Essentially, the argument against essay writing services is more of an ethical nature . It is not illegal to use a custom paper in order to improve one's academic performance. While other schools and universities have a strict code of conduct against using them, the level of offense is not high enough to merit a criminal act.

Legality VS Legitimacy

You're probably wondering what the difference is between the ‘legality' and ‘legitimacy'. The difference is not that hard to recognize if you put it this way:

"Legal" means that something is within a fixed law. Basically, it is the actions taken according to the law of the land. "Legality", in a sense, is a question of whether an action is a violation of a law.

Meanwhile, "legitimate" stands for an action that can be justified with logic. It is the law of society, and social acceptability is what makes one thing legitimate – regardless of whether it's legal or not. In short, "legitimacy" is a question of an action's origin.

In the context of legal essay writing services, there is no such law from any form of authority that forbids us from using them. However, in terms of legitimacy, not all companies offer legitimate essay writing services. Some are purely scam services that exploit writers and rob customers of their money and in this case, they are neither legal nor legitimate.

Using an essay writing service is, in most situations, absolutely legitimate. Where it may not be, will be written in the fine print of the code and ethics of conduct, terms and policies, etc., depending on the circumstances.

Case in point, legit paper writing services are hired not just by students, but by other types of clients as well, including professionals, executives, and academics, just to name a few. These companies are paid to do the work, and then surrender the ownership rights for the paper, to the client who has ordered it.

In the case of academics, many schools and universities do not forbid students to hire out researchers, editors, and proofreaders to help with their essays and term papers. Hiring a legit essay writing service to assist you with an academic paper is no different than getting a tutor to help build your learning skills. Even in the professional world, people hire third-party service providers all the time.

The only time a line gets crossed is when essay writing services commit certain offenses that harm their clients. There are a number of fake essay writing services online that exist only to scam students by promising the best results. However, they are just scammers who falsely misrepresent themselves to everyone.

Is it illegal to pay someone to write an essay?

No, it is not illegal to pay someone for a custom paper . What may be deemed illegal is when a student hands in their ordered paper and passes it as their own work, which essay writing services themselves deeply condemn and discourage.

Is writing essays for others illegal?

No, it is not illegal to offer writing service to anyone who needs it. A lot of people, mostly freelance writers, have written custom essays or other similar works, for money. There is nothing inherently wrong or illegal with this. The only way it could be bad is when a student submits the model paper as their own work.

Final Words

In summary, here's a list showing what people assume essay writing services do in comparison to reality.

They help students to cheat.

Reality: They only supplement the research efforts of their clients. They give pointers to what students should look into to get a better grasp of subject matter.

They water down academic ethics.

Reality: In fact, they give their customers strict conditions that are meant to help them appreciate honesty and originality.

They make students lazy.

Reality: They can't substitute the hard work that students must put in to succeed in their coursework. They may help, yes, but it is up to the client to do the bulk of the studying.

It goes without a doubt that essay writing services might be safe, legal and legitimate.

Essay writing services are legal in a sense that they are registered and work in accordance with existing laws. They are a legitimate business because they exist mainly to serve as a learning aid or guide for improving a student's writing skills or academic performance.

Fake companies are those that defame the entire writing service industry by providing low-quality, sometimes even plagiarized, work to clients. As such, it pays to check for the safety and credibility of an essay writing service, and choose those with a good service record.

David Anderson is the founder of IHateWritingEssays. He hates the idea of companies baiting unsuspecting individuals with fraudulent services. Starting from school, he too, struggled to find a helping hand when it comes to writing assignments. Over time, he focused on publishing comprehensive reviews and helping students find reliable essay services. Thus, the review site came to be – serving as the "voice and the iron fist" of an industry expert.

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Essay Writing Services: Legit or Illegal?

As more and more students all around the world become increasingly busy with studying, working, and living in general, they inevitably seek out external help for their educational endeavors. But is this help always legal? In this article we’re going to explore essay writing services and whether or not they are legitimate solutions or illegal activities.

1. A Comprehensive Examination of Essay Writing Services: Legit or Illegal?

Essay writing services offer convenience and freedom for students struggling to keep up with their workloads, but are they legal? With the modern rise of online essay writing services, many have raised questions as to whether or not these services are legitimate. In order to understand if these companies abide by accepted ethical guidelines, it is essential that we thoroughly examine this topic.

First and foremost, one must consider the legality of using an essay writing service ; are essay writing services legal? . By definition an illegal activity means any type of action which goes against both state-level and federal laws. Therefore in order for a service to be considered illegal it needs to break either one or several laws. Essay writing falls into neither category since there is no law mandating papers cannot be written on behalf of others. Thus it can be concluded that using such a service isn’t strictly prohibited.

• Are essay writing services legal? : While there is no specific law prohibiting the use of paper-writing help companies like those offered by most professional writers can still theoretically commit copyright infringement if they misuse sources without proper attribution.
• [Are] Writing Services Ethical[?] : It’s important to note that while purchasing essays from third parties may not necessarily constitute academic dishonesty – although some institutions view them as unethical – taking credit for someone else’s work could lead administrators at certain universities deeming you guilty under their honor codes.

2. Unveiling the Various Types of Online Writing Support

Online Writing Services The internet has yielded an abundance of online writing services , each offering a unique solution. From editing to proofreading and essay-writing assistance, these services are popular among students who need help with their written assignments. As such, the legal status of these services is often called into question – “are essay writing services legal?” To answer this inquiry accurately depends on various factors pertaining to the individual service in question. To start off, it should be noted that there is nothing illegal about consulting with an expert for advice and feedback on your academic work. As long as you utilize the new information from said sources for personal enhancement rather than submitting them directly as your own work then it will not be seen as cheating. Just like seeking out any other form of support or guidance in completing a task successfully – whether at university or college level – asking someone else’s opinion can only aid one in producing better results overall; thus many believe “are essay writing services legal?” does have some grounds for legitimacy. On the other hand however, there are those third parties which offer up fully prepared pieces intended specifically to submit under somebody else’s name instead of contributing towards gaining knowledge – if found guilty – being legitimate users could face severe consequences regarding plagiarism laws. It would advantageous therefore when planning to purchase essays online firstly consider researching thoroughly prior making payment so establish beyond doubt that customers will gain value via achieving educational growth rather than acquiring possible criminal charges by turning in research material without adjusting according to company’s guidelines hence investigating further “Are Essay Writing Services Legal?” .

3. Investigating Reputable Sources and Genuine Testimonials on Custom Essays

Tracing Reputable Sources Many students seek for reasons to trust the services of custom essay writing sites. To begin with, one should search for legitimate websites that have been approved by peers and authorities in charge. It is important to assess whether these sources are providing verified information about their products or not. Furthermore, some companies post genuine reviews from previous clients on their website; this gives an idea of what kind of service they provide. One can also look out for recommendations from friends or family who may be familiar with such a company’s work history.

4. Addressing Plagiarism Concerns in Third-Party Content Creation

Reading third party content requires some degree of critical thought and analysis from readers. Unfortunately, plagiarism remains an ever-present risk that can detract from the quality of such written works. Here are a few factors to consider when attempting to address this issue with regard to content creation:

• Understand the ramifications of plagiarism – Plagiarizing is a serious offense in academic circles; it can be seen as intellectual theft and carries severe consequences, including being expelled from school or fired from a job.
• Assess sources for reliability – When relying on outside resources for ideas or material, ensure they are reliable by referring back to trusted authors’ work. Additionally, check if these services meet your institution’s standards regarding ethical use practices.
• Investigate essay writing services’ legalities – Are essay writing services legal? Understanding their legality in terms of local laws is key when deciding how much weight one should put into their arguments and claims.

The instances where third party content creates potential issues due to plagiarism cannot as easily be eliminated but understanding what you’re reading will help minimize them effectively. To sum up, never forget there are certain risks associated with illegitimate copying which include possible imprisonment and hefty fines so always make sure proper protocols are followed prior to publishing any text material related or unrelated towards academics since thoughtful consideration needs taken on topics like “are essay writing services legal”.

5. Examining Potential Liabilities for Students who Seek Assistance with their Coursework

It is important for students to recognize the legal ramifications of using outside help with their coursework before making any decisions. Many online services offer assistance with essays and other assignments, but it is essential that students understand whether or not these services are legally compliant.

The legality of essay writing services has been a topic of debate over the last several years and there remains no definitive answer as to whether they are prohibited in all cases or only under certain conditions. In general, most universities require that assignments submitted for grading must be completed solely by the student themselves; however, many schools have allowances in place allowing for limited use of external resources such as libraries and tutoring centers. It is also worth noting that while some educational institutions take issue with outside essay writing services being used by its students, it does appear that these sites remain largely unregulated at this time.

Additionally, potential liabilities should also be considered when examining if essay writing services are legal or not. For instance, there may be intellectual property issues associated with using copyrighted material which could result in hefty fines if discovered during an assessment process involving plagiarism detection software programs like Turnitin® . Furthermore, even though much of what constitutes “cheating” per university regulations can vary widely from one institution to another; generally speaking most activities aimed at circumventing traditional forms evaluation procedures (i.e., term papers / research projects) will still likely render a violation regardless—especially if significant ‘time savings’ were achieved through utilizing said service(s). Consequently, it would behoove anyone considering taking advantage of an online “are essay writing services legal” provider to first ascertain both local laws applicable locally associated with academic dishonesty AND their own educator’s stance on this matter prior proceeding further down such potentially hazardous path 1 .

1 Penalties associated w/violations pertaining copyright & educational integrity policies typically consist warnings & corresponding sanctions based upon severity.

6. Environmental Impact of Outsourcing Academic Work to Remote Specialists

Outsourcing academic work to remote specialists can have a detrimental effect on the environment. The sheer volume of academia material, which often includes large files or digital packages, that is transported between countries via internet connections and servers is an area where significant improvements could be made. Despite some clear benefits from outsourcing essay writing services provide legal services for students worldwide, those come at a cost.

In many cases, research suggests evidence of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting specifically from file sharing activities by professionals who are using essay writing services (EWS). Given its largely unregulated nature – as opposed to traditional transport systems such as road freighting – in terms of measuring CO2 output against EWS usage it has been difficult for governments and other organizations involved with environmental protection agencies to get an accurate representing of the true impact caused by this type of activity.

Furthermore; even when taking into account whether or not these essay writing services are operating within the law there remain questions over their overall ecological footprint. With electronic storage principles becoming ever more common throughout all aspects life such practices should strive towards achieving measurable targets designed and implemented in framing whether or not companies offering these types of service are legally compliant whilst actively promoting responsible conservation efforts.

7. The Way Ahead – What is the Verdict on Professional Assignment Help?

It is important to assess the legal situation which surrounds essay writing services such as professional assignment help. In assessing this, it should be noted that there are different understandings of what constitutes “legal” and many factors to consider before a clear verdict on the use of these services can be made.

For instance, whether or not a service like professional assignment help entails plagiarism will shape any evaluation as to its legality; if students submit work from an external source without appropriate citation and/or permission then this could constitute copyright infringement – making any such action unlawful. Further yet, a variety of countries may have differing laws in place regarding copyrights and other elements surrounding academic writing generally – meaning that consulting national law may also be necessary when addressing questions around the legality of using essay writing services like professional assignment help.

In addition, some assessments suggest that universities themselves might view subscription to online paper writers differently depending on their own student conduct policies (even though for most institutions hiring an external writer would still violate those terms). As such, it is arguably best advised for students who are considering utilizing online paper writers consider first how their institution view the matter; asking peers or faculty members what their stance on are essay writing services legal may prove invaluable here too. Ultimately however while opinions vary greatly regarding the nature of using essay writing websites such as qualityassignmenthelp with regard to its appropriateness and responsibility overall remains primarily in the hands users themselves. Essay writing services can be confusing. While they are not necessarily illegal, some may have questionable standards and practices that could put students at risk of academic trouble or other ethical issues. Ultimately, it’s up to you as a student to weigh the pros and cons before entrusting these services with your work. Just remember – knowledge is power!

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