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Is It Illegal to Pay Someone to Do Your Homework?
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Who is Samantha W.?
Feb 1, 2024
9 min
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No, it’s legal.
That could be the end of the article; after all, that’s all you need to know regarding having someone write your assignment for you.
And you can stop right here and pick a proper writing service for your essay. But some questions still remain, don’t they? Like, are there any, aside from legal, consequences of using academic helpers? Or is it illegal to do someone else’s homework for money?
Who knows, maybe those writers are risking their lives while crafting a perfect essay for you. After all, if you ask a fellow student to “write a paper for me” and your professor finds out, both of you can get into trouble, at least in terms of grades.
So, as you can see, saying “No, it’s legal” is not enough. We need to get into details, and that’s exactly what we are going to do right now.
Most Popular Ways of Avoiding Doing Writing Assignments
Now, let’s be fair: while you’re studying, there’s always a certain subject or a task that you can’t bear doing. And, as it turns out, the task that most students can’t stand doing is writing assignments.
The reasons why vary:
5. Students face difficulties writing about something they may not be that passionate about.
6. They cannot squeeze out time to work on their essays between other tasks.
So, what are the ways to avoid doing writing assignments? The most common ones include:
- Asking a fellow student to write it for you;
- Order the paper from an essay writing service;
- Use AI-powered writing tools.
Okay, we’ve already said that if you ask fellow students to do the task for you, yours and the grades of the fellow student who wrote the task may suffer. You may be asked to write the essay once more on your own. But that’s only when getting caught.
How can your professor tell that the essay was written by a different student? The writing style.
So, knowing that the answer to the question “Is it illegal to write papers for money?” is negative, you should consider ordering from a paper writing service or using AI writing tools.
The Advantages and Disadvantages of Academic Helpers and AI Writing Tools
Let’s start with paper writing services. Using them brings you a lot of benefits, although there are certain downsides.
The most important part is that by ordering from such a service, you’re completely delegating your duties to a writer. All you have to do is drop a line saying something like, “write my thesis paper for me,” share your instructions, and check the work when it arrives.
Most services allow you to choose the writer based on their level of expertise in your required field. But you need to be careful with deadlines. If, upon reviewing the delivered paper, you find it not completely satisfying, you need to have time for revisions.
The main problem with essay writing services is that you may run into an incompetent writer who would miss the deadline and treat your task with negligence. You can request a refund, but the time is already wasted.
Living in the 21st century provides yet another option to avoid writing essays on your own. AI-writing tools can produce an essay within seconds. Yet, the quality of that essay leaves much to be desired.
The texts produced by AI are generic, if not robotic, and if run through AI detectors, they are going to be flagged.
Using AI tools is cheaper than ordering from a writing service, but it remains quite a risky venture.
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How to Pick a Proper Online Academic Writing Service
Paying someone to write an essay isn’t illegal, but that doesn’t mean that you won’t encounter problems trying to do so. Order from the wrong service ‒ and your grades can suffer.
You may even end up paying money for simply missing the submission deadline. And you won’t be able to do anything except for leaving angry comments on review aggregators.
You can’t seek any legal action against writing services, as it’s not illegal to write essays for money. Even submitting bad essays in exchange for money is not prohibited. So, here’s what you need to mind when picking a writing service:
- Make sure that it’s a reputable one. Check all the reviews you can find. Check out the list of top academic helpers on the market.
- Browsing through the platform of your choice, make sure that it has clear Terms & Conditions, especially a refund policy.
- Check the information on the writers. If the company doesn’t disclose who writes for you, read the reviews on it.
- Communicate with the support to make sure that these people are helpful.
- Opt for the services that allow you to communicate directly with the writer.
Following these rules, you have better chances to find the service that will satisfy your needs. The reviews come in handy, as they are generally written by former users or people who have thoroughly investigated the service.
How to Use AI Writing Tools for the Best Results
We’ve said that using AI tools is a risky business, but does it mean that you shouldn’t use them at all?
Toying with it can be quite fun. You can directly ask the tool, “Is it illegal to write someone else’s college essay?” ‒ and it will craft a paper on the topic within less than a minute. But here comes the biggest problem of using AI-powered writing tools: you cannot submit whatever they’ve produced for you.
If your professor runs the generated piece through AI detectors, it will become clear that you had little to no input in the writing process. So, what’s the point in using them at all, then?
Well, if you have more free time and are interested in writing your own essay with some help, you can use this or that tool.
Sometimes, you just can’t wrap your head around the topic. In cases like that, you can simply provide ChatGPT or whatever you’re using with a prompt and see what it will craft.
You can use the produced text as a draft for your own essay. In other words, you can use the AI-produced text as an example for your paper. But yes, in no way, shape, or form is it delegating your duties to AI completely.
The Consequences of Ordering From Online Academic Writing Services
If you ask anyone who is more or less acquainted with the law, “Is paying someone to write an essay illegal?” ‒ you’ll get the same answer that we gave you at the beginning of the article. No, there’s zero possibility that you can be legally prosecuted for hiring someone to write an essay for you.
But that doesn’t mean that you can’t face other consequences for your actions. We’ve talked about grades already, but that’s not the only thing that can suffer. Sometimes, getting caught that you hired someone to write your papers can seriously damage your reputation. While it may not be such a big thing in school, it can be a disaster in college.
Imagine a situation where you’ve paid something between $50 to $100 for a large essay that you had no time to work on because of odd jobs or some other stuff you had to do only to come under scrutiny.
If the information that you’ve hired a writer to get your paper done is going to be revealed, you can face suspension or detention. Ain’t no big deal? Think how your professor would check all of your other papers.
Big Troubles and How to Avoid Them
Your teacher or professor keeping an eye on you after learning that you’ve used an academic help service can be only part of your problem. It’s definitely going to make you have second thoughts before paying someone to do your college homework.
But wait, are you sure that you’re going to college? You cannot get legally prosecuted, but that doesn’t mean that your future education is not going to be affected. You may have a hard time getting admitted to the college you plan to enroll in if the information about your reliance on essay writing services spreads.
But there is more. Essays, term papers, course works, how about dissertations? Let’s imagine you got your Ph.D. for a dissertation crafted by a hired writer. You are enjoying your life as someone with a degree, but then someone discloses that you have written nothing. The outcome? Your degree is going to be revoked.
How to avoid that? Don’t tell anyone that you’re using online writing services. And make sure that you read the papers that you’ve ordered.
Communicate with your writer. Ask them about the writing process so you can explain how you got from point “a” to point “b” in your work. That’s the best way to avoid big troubles.
Good News or Why You Actually Shouldn’t Worry
The previous passages were a bit scary to read, weren’t they? Well, actually, you shouldn’t worry that someone will find out that you paid someone to write a dissertation or do homework for you. The cases when someone got caught are not that frequent.
There are cases when students got expelled for using AI writing tools, but even if you search hard enough, there are no cases when someone got expelled for using essay writing platforms.
As for the degrees being revoked for ghostwritten dissertations? There were several cases, but they mainly concerned plagiarism and high-profile people. Let’s say, unless you’re a Federal Ministry of Education and Research in Germany, it’s unlikely someone is going to investigate your dissertation.
However, you should remember to be careful with the texts you order. As we’ve said, it’s better to learn everything about the subject. Just because you’re hiring someone to write the paper for you doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t do anything at all.
You need to get acquainted with the paper written for you so, when asked about it, you can easily prove that it was you who wrote it. Otherwise, you may cause your professor and your peers to suspect something.
No Fines, No Jail Time ‒ Just Pick a Proper Service
So, let’s sum it all up. If you pay someone to do your homework in college, you’re not going to get fined or imprisoned for that. However, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be careful, as you may face academic consequences.
Yes, they are rare, but if you decide to seek help from a paper writing service, it is better to keep it to yourself. Don’t talk about it with your peers, as this information may find its way to your professor.
When you get the paper that you’ve ordered, it’s better to review it thoroughly to make sure that everything is intact. Also, don’t forget to ask the hired writer how they came up with this or that point and whether they used any additional source materials. Knowing all that will come in handy if your professor tries to corner you with questions.
But with talented writers, you can avoid any suspicion at all. You can provide them with your writing samples so they can copy your writing style.
Mind that the chances of getting caught when using essay writing platforms are times lower than when using AI writing tools.
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FAQ
Yes, it’s absolutely legal to pay someone to do your homework. There are no laws against it; hence, you’re not going to be legally prosecuted for that. However, there can be other consequences on an academic level, like suspension or detention.
There have been several cases in the UK, Norway, and Hong Kong where students were expelled from colleges and universities for using artificial intelligence to complete their homework and cheat on exams. Thanks to AI detectors, it’s much easier to get caught using AI-powered writing tools.
There are several things that you need to consider when picking an online academic writing service. You should check articles and reviews on it. Check out whether it’s listed among the best writing services. Read the service’s Terms & Conditions. Make sure that you can communicate with the hired writer directly.
The price may vary from one service to another. It also depends on such factors as the urgency and complexity of the task and the level of expertise of the writer of your choice. Yet, the average starting price of most online writing services ranges between $10 to $13 per page.
