How to Deal With Cheating Essay Writing Services
As the popularity of online essay writing services has grown tremendously in recent years, so too have concerns from educational institutions about students cheating by using these services to write entire essays or parts of assignments that are supposed to be their own original work. While essay writing services aim to help students who feel overwhelmed or don’t have enough time, the use of such services to have someone else completely write an assignment instead of doing the work yourself constitutes academic dishonesty or cheating. Catching and dealing with students who use these essay writing services can be challenging for teachers and schools. In this in-depth article, we will explore the issues surrounding cheating essay writing services and provide suggestions on effective ways for educational institutions to address this problem.
Why Students Use Essay Writing Services
Before getting into solutions, it is important to understand why some students are tempted to use essay writing services in the first place. Common factors that drive students to these services include:
Heavy academic workload and time pressures. College courses require a massive amount of reading, assignments, and projects all with looming deadlines. The temptation to outsource work is high when students feel stressed, overwhelmed, and running out of time.
Lack of writing skills or subject knowledge. Some students recognize gaps in their abilities to research and compose high-quality written assignments, especially for topics outside their major area of study. Services provide an easy way to get help from professional writers.
Fear of failing or getting poor grades. When students perceive assignments as too difficult or recognize they are struggling in a class, the pressure to pass or attain a good grade, by any means necessary, rises significantly.
Availability of services. With around-the-clock accessibility via computer or mobile, and marketing promises of confidentiality and high-quality work, essay writing services widely advertise their conveniences.
Minimal risks perceived. Unfortunately, many students do not fully appreciate how seriously their educational institution views academic dishonesty. They believe the chances of getting caught are low.
Financial ability to outsource. As long as money is available in a student’s budget, essay writing services offer a pay-to-pass option that some avail of to avoid doing the work themselves.
Addressing the Root Causes
While catching and penalizing cheating is important, schools must also address the underlying causes driving students towards essay writing services. Some proactive steps schools can take include:
Provide academic support services. Writing centers, tutoring programs, subject specialists, and mentoring systems help struggling students get on track and allow them to complete assignments independently.
Manage class sizes and workloads reasonably. Overly large classes and unrealistic due dates push more students into cheating just to keep up. Maintaining sensible class sizes and assignment schedules prevents needless stress and temptation.
Assess assigned work for meaningful learning objectives. Not all assignments have education value. Consider cutting back on low stakes work that adds to student workloads without significant learning benefit.
Communicate academic expectations clearly from the start. Ensure syllabi, student handbooks, and orientations unambiguously define what constitutes cheating and the severity of consequences to avoid any claims of ambiguous guidelines.
Foster a culture of academic integrity on campus. Promote an environment where students embrace scholarship, help each other succeed honorably, and choose to learn over choosing to cheat for grades. Lead by example and accountability.
Detecting Essay Writing Service Use
While addressing root causes is key, schools still need effective methods to identify essay assignments submitted via cheating writing services. Some strategies include:
Search submitted papers against online databases. Services like Turnitin can detect significant matches between a student paper and content available on the open web or previous student submissions.
Monitor anomalous writing styles and skills. Sudden improvements or shifts from a student’s prior work quality/abilities could indicate outsourced writing. Subject experts can often spot differences.
Watch for suspicious citations and references. Styles, formats, sources referenced may not align with course materials or expectations for that student’s level of knowledge.
Check for signaling websites or watermarks. Savvy services avoid direct plagiarism but may still leave behind hints in paper formatting, citations, or webpage references directly or indirectly implicating the cheating service.
Follow web search trails back to services. Keyword searches on topics, titles, or phases from suspect papers may lead back to marketing pages or archived paper examples from cheating sites.
Note suspicious activity or abrupt changes during submission. Late night last minute uploads just before deadlines, changes in writing abilities across assignments, unusually prompt completion of lengthy projects raise suspicion of external assistance.
Follow tips from anonymous reporting. Peers, TAs, or other faculty may notice and confidentially report suspected cases that warrant closer examination.
Taking Action on Suspected Cheating
Once an educational institution suspects essay cheating using an external service, a formal academic dishonesty procedure should commence. Key steps include:
Notify the student in writing of allegations and gather evidence. Provide specific examples from their paper to justify concerns. Request a meeting to discuss the situation.
Conduct an in-person meeting with the student. In a private setting, show flagged similarities, inconsistencies and request an honest explanation. Warn them the matter will proceed to an academic review board if unsatisfied by responses.
Convene an academic review board if student denies wrongdoing. Allow the student to submit a written statement and request witnesses appear before the board to determine responsibility and recommend sanctions according to institutional guidelines.
Communicate an official decision in writing as soon as possible. Specify if found responsible or not, and outline any imposed academic or disciplinary penalties as per school academic honesty policy. Inform the student of their right to appeal.
Apply sanctions fairly but firmly. Penalties ranging from zero credit on the assignment, failing the entire course, academic probation, suspension or expulsion aim to educate and deter dishonest behavior. Suspensions become part of permanent student records.
Share suspected cheating information judiciously. Faculty, academic advisers, and student affairs need awareness to ensure follow up and added accountability, but otherwise maintain student privacy as required by FERPA guidelines.
Collect evidence of cheating for legal defense. Retain original paper copies, digital records, emails and documentation in case of any appeals or litigation down the line from a disgruntled student disputing disciplinary measures. Consult legal counsel as needed.
Dealing with essay writing services requires vigilance, accountability, and making sure students recognize these services represent unacceptable academic dishonesty. With preventive measures, detection strategies and fair processes in place to investigate and penalize confirmed cases, educational institutions can maintain integrity and educate students on the importance of original and honorable scholarship. An ongoing effort balancing support while also deterring cheating helps curb reliance on external help and writes the student, not the service.
Andrew Stroud