Mar
Custom Essays – Cheating or Study Aids?
A custom essay is a paper written by a ‘ghostwriter’ – i.e. a professional writer who is paid to write books, articles, stories, reports, or other content but who does not receive any credit for it. The essay is ‘custom’ because it is written to the student’s exact essay question. A custom essay may be distinguished from a pre-written essay obtained from an ‘essay bank’ or ‘paper mill’. These types of essays are past essays donated by students, either in exchange for part of the sale proceeds or in exchange for access to other pre-written essays. They will be essays written in answer to a particular topic and therefore not ‘custom’ to the student’s essay question.
Getting another student to write your paper for you is one of the oldest ‘cheats’ in the book – this might have been in exchange for cash, or if the student was weak, as a result of threats. This underground business was formalised in 2003 when Barclay Littlewood founded ‘Academic Answers Limited’, a registered UK company that trades under various names including UK Essays, Law Essays, Law Teacher and Degree Essays. The Company sought to clean up the industry by giving the custom essay customer, who would be used to dealing with dodgy companies often based in poorer, non-English speaking countries, a legitimate and worthy customer service experience. The Company attracted much criticism as ‘encouraging cheating’ and spawned many ‘copycat’ services.