The legality and ethics of using essay writing services like Grademiners has long been debated, as they exist in a gray area of academic integrity. While not explicitly illegal, many argue such services enable and encourage academic dishonesty. Others maintain students should have freedom of choice in procuring help on assignments. Let’s explore both sides of this complex issue.
To begin, it’s important to define Grademiners and similar services. Grademiners is an online marketplace where students can commission freelance writers to complete assignments for them. Clients provide details of essays, reports, or other academic work and pay freelancers to research, write and submit the finished product. The key consideration is these freelancers are not the student themselves – they are completing original work and turning it in as if they were the student.
On the surface, there is no explicit law against using such essay writing services. Students are legally able to pay third parties for assistance on academic work. The intent of most college and university academic integrity policies is that students do their own work without direct help from others. When a paper commissioned through Grademiners is turned in as the student’s own unaided work, it violates the spirit, if not exact letter, of these policies.
Most academics and educational professionals argue essay writing services directly enable academic dishonesty, as students are purchasing work to pass off as their own original thoughts and research. This undermines the integrity of degrees and qualifications, as grades were obtained not through a student’s own ability and effort, but through buying a paper from freelance writers. It allows unqualified students to obtain credentials they have not truly earned.
Supporters counter that commissioning written work through Grademiners is not fundamentally different than paying for a private tutor, which is a legal and accepted form of assistance. They argue students should have freedom to seek help through any available means to complete assignments. As long as the service is not explicitly breaking laws, it should be allowed to operate. Critics say tutors provide guidance, not completed work, and students are still doing their own independent thinking and writing.
The lack of explicit laws has allowed essay writing services to operate in a gray area, but some jurisdictions are taking action. In the UK, the 2004 Higher Education Act established it is illegal for any third party “to enter into any contract or arrangement to provide essays or dissertations for students of a higher education institution” as determined by individual establishments. Violators can face fines or jail time. This law targets providers like Grademiners directly.
Meanwhile, in the U.S. where no such federal laws exist, individual colleges have taken their own steps. Many update student handbooks to more clearly prohibit using written work not fully authored by the student alone. Some investigate services that offer pre-written model answer databases by directly plagiarizing content. One university suspended over 50 students for using essay writing help sites in a single year, sending a strong warning to curb dishonest behavior.
Grademiners and others argue they have strict policies against directly plagiarizing or reselling papers to deter unethical conduct. But critics say these policies are often not properly enforced, allowing plagiarism and academic dishonesty to still flourish. Students can pay to have papers closely mirror existing works or databases without outright copying, skirting stated policies. The services also have no means to ensure submitted papers are truly the students’ own work and not purchased from freelance writers.
So in summary – while essay writing services themselves operate in a legal gray area without expressly violating laws, their very function of providing pre-written work for students to submit as original helps enables dishonest academic practices prohibited by most colleges and deemed unethical by educational professionals. Individual jurisdictions are taking varied approaches, with some working to establish new laws against these services or strengthen academic integrity policies at their institutions. The debate will surely continue as long as such services exist and students seek an ‘easier’ alternative to doing their own work independently. In the end, academic honesty should always be prized over shortcut options like Grademiners that undermine the integrity of educational credentials.