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Add to FavoritesYes, I absolutely believe that using an academic ghost writer - or, more accurately, a professional essay writer - is dishonest. Assignments test more than knowledge; they test a student's ability to communicate that knowledge effectively, and one significant component of communication is the ability to write. If a student must work in tandem with a ghost writer, then that student is essentially admitting that he or she lacks the ability to communicate knowledge in written form.
I should say at this point that I feel particularly qualified to address this question because I am a freelance writer, and I have ghost-written material for a number of professionals over the years, including speeches and newspaper op-ed articles. I have never ghost-written material for a student, and I never will because it is, quite simply, cheating. The student is turning in work he or she didn't complete personally and attempting to fraudulently earn a grade for that work. Submitting an essay written by someone else is no different than having someone else sit an exam for you; it's lying, plain and simple, about the quality of your accomplishments.
One argument used in support of using professional essay writers is that it's no different than the assistance a student might receive from a tutor. Presuming the tutor is ethical, that is simply not true. A good tutor will always take the position of responding to a student's work, never generating it personally. While the tutor might provide examples, these should be generic and should never directly preview work the student is expected to accomplish. For example, if a student came to me for help with an essay on President Reagan, I might show a sample outline for a biography of Charles Dickens - this would help the student understand how a good biography paper should be structured, but it wouldn't give him or her a jumpstart on the essay at hand. When a student does bring work to a tutor, the tutor should help identify errors but should never correct them personally; rather, the student should be guided to learn the issues involved and make the corrections. This is very different from the role of a professional essay writer, who is actually doing some or all of the work for the student.
One of the more far-fetched arguments that I've read is that a student who hires a professional essay writer is demonstrating skills in outsourcing and is replicating the realities of the business world much more exactly than if he or she wrote the paper personally. There are a number of flaws in this logic. First, if the skill to be evaluated is outsourcing, rather than essay writing, then that should be made clear in the course syllabus (One would assume it would only be relevant in specific business management courses anyway.). I suspect, though, that this would quickly result in a devaluing of the degrees granted by any university that allowed this practice; despite what cheating students and professional essay writers would like to believe, most businesses consider the ability to write a more important skill than the ability to hire a writer.
The second flaw here is that this argument supposes that ghost-writing is much more widespread than it really is. When I'm hired to ghost-write, it is exclusively for senior executives (I've never ghost-written anything for someone below the level of vice president.). Junior executives are expected to write their own materials. The reason is simple: ghost-writing services are expensive. A reasonably competent professional writer will easily charge $30 or more an hour, and that rate goes up dramatically if the piece requires specific expertise. Essentially, you are paying for two services: the writing itself and the right to put your name on the work in place of the ghost-writer's name. To give an example, I once ghost-wrote a 10-page paper for a company president; owing to the complexity of the project, the price was $500, or $50 per page. Since the company president's time was worth much more than $50 an hour, it made financial sense to outsource the work so that the president could be freed to use that time more profitably. So the value of the executive's time is really the primary rationale in whether or not to hire a ghost writer - not the executive's writing skills, which may be quite strong.
And this brings us to the next flaw in the ghost-writing-as-out sourcing argument. Anyone who has ever purchased an academic paper (and will admit to it) will tell you that the price wasn't anything close to $50 per page. This is because the quality of the work you can purchase from a professional essay writer is simply not at a professional level. To be blunt: if the professional essay writer was skilled enough to write professional-quality work, students wouldn't be able to afford his or her services. So all a student really learns from purchasing an essay writer's services is how to outsource substandard work.
The final argument that often comes from professional essay writers is that their services are not dishonest because what they provide is intended only as reference material; the student is expected to use the essay in order to guide his or her own research and draft an original essay. Frankly, it's nothing short of self-delusion to expect that a student would buy an essay and then simply keep it as a reference tool while writing an original paper. But beyond that, purchasing someone else's research is still cheating. An essay grade reflects all the skills that went into its creation, including research, organization and writing. If a student "outsources" any part of the essay, he or she is claiming credit for work done by someone else, and that is dishonest.
Ultimately , whichever side you take in this debate, the reality is that the overwhelming majority of universities consider the use of professional essay writers to be academic fraud. It's not enough to simply know certain material as a student; you must be able to present your knowledge coherently. If you need to rely on a hired professional to guide your research, frame your arguments and craft your sentences, then perhaps you should leave school entirely and simply fund that professional's college degree, since all you're really demonstrating is your ability to hire someone who has the skills you are supposed to be developing yourself.
Learn more about this author, Jayden Harlow.
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No
I'm an academic ghost writer. Would I use an academic ghost writer? Yes, I would, and here's why.
We don't believe in cheating.
All of the work that you receive from a {good} academic ghost writer is carefully referenced so that you can follow up on the references and read the original source materials. We don't waste time providing you with old, out of date stuff; you tell us what we want and we'll find it for you. It's not cheating, if the school has you spend hours in class learning how to "outsource" when you're out in the real worldand most colleges these days teach that very "skill". When you learn all the ins and outs of selecting just the right company to do work that you cannot do or don't have time to do, and you plan the essay, it's not cheating. I don't understand how colleges think outsourcing professional work is okay, but it's NOT okay to hire a company to assist the student with research, and, quite honestly, to teach students how to write term papers.
We help teach students how to write.
Some of our customers are busy professionals, with jobs, spouses, a child or two, and a need for a degree or an additional degree. Many of our students are quite high up the ladder in their companies, and need the degree to remain competitive. Many times we can tell that our clients could write an incredible paper, if only they had the time. There's nothing wrong with hiring someone to do the base research and write a draft, if the student is quite capable of doing the work themselves. After all, the school is teaching them to outsource
Some of our customers, however, have difficulty stringing enough words together to write an email. Take a minute and think about this: if they've made it this far, their work was perfectly acceptable to a whole slew of other teachers and professors, but that doesn't make it good work. No one could afford to buy their papers the whole way through school, it is too expensive.
A surprising number of students get to their final papers and are clueless as to how to write a really good paper. They submit a first draft of a dissertation or thesis and get it rejected and redlined, and have no idea why. They've spent a huge amount of money on an education and didn't learn to write.
What about their professors?
I get to see hundreds of assignments from hundreds of professors. I carefully write down the name of certain schools, because there are many colleges I would never, and I mean N*E*V*E*R, pay for my children to attend. I see how many professors misspell things, how many professors use the wrong words (in force versus enforce, ensure versus insure, and even the dreaded to two too.) Many assignments, taken directly from college white boards, make no sense whatsoever. It is clear that many, many professors could use our assistance.
If you're paying for an education, you need to get one. If the college doesn't provide it then outsource. That's me.
Have you ever hired a tutor?
My services are no different than a tutoring service, when utilized correctly. I can provide you with the basis of the research that you would need to submit a good paper. It is your responsibility to follow up on the research, correct any errors that you believe I may have made, and to study the materials. Utilizing this method: read, follow up, correct, and study, you will have not only produced a paper that is an excellent paper, but you will have learned the materials. If there are things you don't understand, ask me. I'll be glad to explain referencing, citations, verb use, tense, and person, as well as the ethical issues behind stem cell research.
That's what you pay a tutor to do: to help you to produce excellent work and learn the materials. That's not cheating, that's getting assistance when you need it. The goal is to graduate knowing the materials. With my assistance, you will and you won't be cheating.
What IS cheating?
If you buy a "canned" term paper or copy one off a website, put your name on it, and turn it in you're cheating. You're telling your school you can't be bothered.
But hiring me to help you with research and a draft, to explain why things are done the way they are and how, and to point you in the direction of other research that may exist is not cheating. I am not doing your work for you, but I am giving you an excellent starting point for your own research and giving you a lesson in how to do a high quality paper. Frankly, if your professors haven't taught you these things, then you NEED to outsource, and after you graduate you need to be asking some serious questions of your alma mater.
Who would I hire to ghostwrite for me?
Obviously I can't give you the name of the company I work for. But I will tell you this: if I had a choice of spending sleepless nights trying to write all the papers required in a typical degree program, while neglecting my children and my job absolutely. I'd hire the company I work for in a split second. I'd read the paper thoroughly, ask questions if I needed to, make sure I understood every word, check it for plagiarism, and turn it in with a clear conscience. And I'd be glad I had someone's expertise to depend on.
Learn more about this author, Nita Tyson.
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