Introduction
Writing academic essays can be a daunting task for many students. The demands of researching topics, organizing thoughts, creating coherent arguments, and meeting formatting standards within tight deadlines can often seem overwhelming. As a result, some students may be tempted to seek out essay writing applications or software that claim to be able to write essays for them with little or no effort on their part. Students need to be very careful when considering using such apps, as many do not actually produce high-quality, original work and could result in accusations of plagiarism or unfair academic practices. This article will explore some of the top essay writing applications currently available, how they work, their limitations, and ethical considerations around their use.
Popular Essay Writing Applications
Some of the most well-known essay writing applications include:
Grammarly – This application is primarily a grammar and spell checker rather than a true essay writing tool. It reviews papers for style, tone, clarity, grammar errors, punctuation issues, plagiarism and more. It does not actually write the essay for the student. At best, it provides suggestions for improving existing writing.
EssayBot – Claims to help generate essay outlines and draft rough versions of essays based on topics and requirements provided by the user. The quality is often poor and passages may be plagiarized. The essays also lack human-level organization, coherence and argumentation.
AutoEssay – Works similarly to EssayBot in using AI to create basic draft essays. The quality is inconsistent and may contain factual errors, weak arguments or plagiarized content. The writing also lacks a true “human voice” or perspective.
PaperRater – Like Grammarly, this app focuses more on editing and revising existing writing rather than composition. It provides feedback on grammar, style, structure, citations and catches unintentional plagiarism. It does not write the paper itself.
WriteLab – Uses AI to generate essay outlines, topic sentences and basic drafts. Claims to consider assignment requirements, but results are often too simplistic or generic to earn good grades. Significant human editing and revision is still needed.
How Essay Writing Apps Work
Most essay writing apps operate using artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing. They have large databases of sample student papers on various topics that they can reference to generate new writing. When a user provides requirements like the essay topic, length, sources to include, and any instructions, the app will:
Search its databases for relevant samples and passages on the topic.
Use machine learning algorithms to analyze sample structures, identify common arguments made, and detect patterns in successful student papers.
Develop an outline or basic structure for the new essay based on previous models.
Generate a rough draft by piecing together relevant sentences, paragraphs and content it finds in its database relating to the outline and topic.
Sometimes an AI assistant may ask simple clarifying questions to try expanding or refining the draft.
There are limitations to how “human” the writing can be considering it is pieced together by machines:
Cohesion and logical flow between ideas may be disjointed.
Transitions and linguistic patterns won’t match a person’s writing style.
Perspective and voice won’t have an individual emphasis or flavor.
Facts, citations and specific details may be inaccurate or surface-level.
Arguments can be simplistic, generic or lack a deeper critical analysis.
So while basic drafts can be produced, extensive human editing, review of sources, and changes in mechanical errors and style are still necessary to produce a high-quality, college-level paper. Simply submitting generated content as-is would likely result in a low grade due to these issues.
Ethical Considerations
While essay writing apps aim to save students time, their use raises ethical concerns that students need to carefully consider:
Plagiarism – Even if the student rewords generated material, passages may still originate from sample papers without proper attribution. This can be considered self-plagiarism.
Unfair Academic Advantage – Relying too heavily on AI assistance without substantive personal effort means the student has not truly completed the assignment themselves.
Potential Legal Issues – Some educational institutions explicitly ban using writing applications to generate papers for submission. Students could face penalties for academic dishonesty.
Skills Development – Fully relying on apps means students don’t gain experience with critical research, analytical thinking, coherent composition and revision that assignments aim to teach.
Employer Expectations – Future employers will expect job applicants to have strong independent writing and problem-solving abilities developed through their education. Overuse of apps could undermine such skills.
Therefore, while essay writing applications may provide some initial support, students are generally advised to:
Use apps for minor tasks like outline development or limited drafting of non-essential sections.
Thoroughly review, substantively edit and rewrite generated content in their own words.
Fully cite and attribute any reused content or ideas from samples.
Prioritize researching sources, developing their own arguments and revising through multiple drafts.
Conclusion
While essay writing apps aim to ease composition demands on students, the quality of generated writing is still too limited to substitute for independent effort. Their content may also raise issues around self-plagiarism or unfair academic practices. At most, these tools are best applied judiciously to support specific narrow tasks, not replace substantial self-authored work. With proper use and guidelines, students can benefit from tech assistance while still gaining the intended educational outcomes of assignments. But fully relying on AI to produce papers can seriously undermine learning goals and ethics.
Andrew Stroud