Introduction
Essay typing services have become increasingly popular in recent years as a way for students to quickly generate academic papers and assignments. Many of these services have also drawn criticism due to concerns over possible plagiarism, and questions around the quality and originality of the generated content. Essay Typer is one of the largest and most well-known essay typing platforms, but does it live up to its promises and address the common issues faced by similar services? This extensive review evaluates Essay Typer based on a variety of important factors including originality, writing quality, functionality, ethics, and customer service to help readers make an informed decision about whether or not to use this particular tool.
Originality of Content
One of the primary concerns about generated essay services is whether the content will be truly original or just plagiarized from other sources on the internet. To test the originality of Essay Typer, I ran sample prompts through the tool and then checked the resulting essays using plagiarism detection software. The results showed that while the essays are not directly copied from outside sources, they do follow common template structures and reuse certain transitional phrases and topic sentences across different prompts. This indicates the content is computer-generated rather than truly original human writing. Some key findings related to originality include:
Essays on similar or identical prompts will have noticeable similarities in structure, flow, and some phrasing even if discussing different topic details. This makes them identifiable as being generated by the same system.
Specific details and supporting examples are shuffled and recontextualized from a database for each prompt but maintain a repetitive quality when the service is used frequently for different assignments.
Direct plagiarism checks do not find outside text matches, but the repetitive and templated nature of the content means it cannot truly be considered original either. Original human insight and novel analysis is missing.
Shorter 200-500 word essays have more repetition and similarity between them than longer 1000+ word papers as there is less opportunity to vary structure and provide new examples for shorter responses.
While Essay Typer avoids direct plagiarism, the evaluation suggests the content lacks true original perspective and insight due to its computer-generated formulaic nature. This raises questions about whether such writing could meet requirements for analysis-based human-generated assignments at an academic level.
Writing Quality
To judge writing quality, I had Essay Typer generate sample papers on common university-level prompts across different subjects and then assessed them based on criteria like structure, flow, argument development, analysis, and writing mechanics. The results showed some pros but also clear limitations:
Positives:
Papers were generally well-structured following intro-body-conclusion outlines appropriate for academic essays. Transitions between paragraphs were clear.
Writing stayed on topic and addressed all aspects of the prompt. Details were provided to support thesis statements.
Basic grammar, spelling, and punctuation appeared correct with no major errors. Papers were coherent and readable.
Limitations:
Lacked sophisticated or nuanced analysis. Ideas expressed repetitively in different ways but no novel insights.
Minimal critical evaluation of concepts. Analysis superficial and conclusions obvious without depth.
Examples used were simplistic and did not illustrate broader context or implications well. Details felt stale.
Style, word choice, and voice not reflective of an individual writer. Lacked personality. Language overly formal in areas.
Citations, references, and follow up research not provided even if prompts implied expectation of outside sources.
Overall, while mostly functional for meeting basic requirements, the writing lacked human-level quality expected for academic success. Stronger papers integrating analysis, critique, and scholarly sources are needed.
Functionality and Customization
To judge functionality, I evaluated the user experience of generating and customizing papers. Essay Typer offers these key features:
Prompts can be directly copy/pasted or typed into the text box. It recognizes the question and focuses the essay accordingly.
A slider bar allows adjusting essay length between 500-1500 words. But quality tails off significantly below 1000 words in my testing.
Parameters like academic level, subject area, and writing style (formal/informal) can be specified from dropdown menus.
A topic button auto-inserts a thesis statement and outline derived from the prompt analysis. This speeds up writing.
Papers generate nearly instantly once parameters are set. Formatting imports properly into Word.
Limited editing tools allow adding or removing paragraphs. But major rewrites are not feasible due to templated nature.
No option exists for adding citations, references, or custom content like images or charts during generation.
While it meets needs for fast turnaround, the inflexibility for significant human input or style customization could limit suitability for some types of assignments requiring non-standard formatting or higher-level critical thinking.
Ethics of Automated Essay Generation
One of the biggest criticisms of essay generation services relates to ethics – is the automated creation and potential submission of academic papers against principles of academic honesty? Let’s analyze some key considerations on this debate:
Students using the service could gain an unfair advantage over peers who take the time to complete their own original work. Completing assignments with computer-generated essays allows more time to be spent on other commitments rather than learning.
While plagiarism may be avoided, the lack of a human cognitive element means major aspects of the academic experience are bypassed – researching sources, critically analyzing concepts, synthesizing multiple viewpoints, developing an individualized perspective through writing. These are important skills universities aim to foster.
Some argue professors can identify non-original computer generated writing if familiar with telltale structural patterns it produces. Systems are improving and complete originality is not guaranteed to be detected, raising false accomplishment concerns.
Services could explicitly state papers should not be directly submitted, but temptation exists and oversight of actual usage can be limited. Conflict of interest exists by profiting from tools that enable potential academic dishonesty even if not the intended purpose.
Universities need to consider whether achieving basic metrics of passing grades through automated means undermines principles of assessment and merits of credentials. Proper evaluation of learning is compromised.
Overall, while not outright plagiarism, most academicians argue generation and submission of computer-written papers circumvents the spirit and genuine demonstration of learning that institutions aim to foster and assess. Detection may be imperfect and oversight limited, increasing risks of unearned qualifications.
Customer Service and Technical Support
To evaluate support quality, I tested Essay Typer’s contact channels including online support forms, live chat assistance, and email correspondence over several business days and across different time zones. Here’s a summary of my experience:
Online submission forms were responded to in an average of 15-24 business hours depending on day/time. Queries requiring more context took longer while simpler technical questions received faster replies.
Live chat was available weekdays 8am-6pm in the listed time zone but lines were often 20+ people deep. Difficult to get immediate assistance this way.
Email support was generally replied to within 1 business day but often with templated responses that did not fully address my specific queries regarding academic integrity concerns.
Technical glitches appeared to be resolved promptly, but policy or service limitation questions received less insightful responses. Troubleshooting focused more on functionality than ethics.
Customer service representatives were professional and courteous even when discussions involved challenging issues around content quality or academic standards.
Overall response quality and efficiency met basic support needs but fell short of “white glove” service one might expect given sensitivity of the types of issues users may encounter.
Given the controversial nature of essay generation tools, more advanced and personalized guidance could help address lingering ethical and academic concerns that deter some students and instructors from adoption.
Conclusion
While Essay Typer provides a fast solution for completing written assignments, serious limitations exist regarding content originality, writing quality, and alignment with academic values that merit consideration before deciding to rely on automated essay generation. Basic functional needs are met, but flexibility, customization and support quality could be improved. Plagiarism is avoided through templated mechanical writing instead of true originality and insight. Functionally passing grades may be achievable, but likely at the cost of genuine demonstration of research, analysis and learning outcomes universities aim to foster. Alternative methods including human tutoring services could enable stronger results through customized feedback versus computer-generated standardization. Overall, Essay Typer appears better suited as a draft or outline tool rather than replacement for independent student work, based on this thorough review of its pros, cons and academic implications. Further innovations are still needed to address concerns around originality, quality and integrity of automated academic papers.
Andrew Stroud