Risk vs. Reward: Why it's easier to just write your own essay
There comes a time in every college student’s academic life where, well, life gets in the way of academics. You waited too long to write the paper. You got stuck. You started over. You had a life event distract you.
It’s probably hard to admit it, but at some point, every student has considered whether they should cheat. Before you defend yourself, here’s a list of things that are, in fact, cheating:
Recycling a paper you’ve already written for another class
Borrowing a friend’s essay
Using someone else’s essay but “rewording” everything
Getting your friend to “help” you write your essay
Paying for someone else to write your essay
Getting someone to write your essay without paying them
Copying long passages from other texts
And the newest one: having a computer program write your essay
You might think, “I’m so desperate, though. These are my only options. This is a special case. This is different.”
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Let me stop you there. Your case is not different. Cheating is cheating, no matter the reasoning behind it.
Here, in no uncertain terms, is why it’s always better to write your own essay.
First, you’ll be able to live with yourself. If you’re a person with any integrity at all, you will feel guilty about cheating. You will not feel like you earned your grade. Because you didn’t earn it. And believe me, imposter syndrome has enough fuel, even when you’re not an imposter.
You’ll also learn something while you’re writing, which is the whole point of writing an essay. Actually, it’s the whole point of being in higher education at all, so not learning would be self-defeating.
You may already know this, but if you get caught, you will be expelled. Do yourself a favor right quick and google your school’s plagiarism policy. It should be on every syllabus for every class, if you want a shortcut.
It probably says something to the effect of “zero tolerance,” right? It probably threatens expulsion or academic probation or at least automatic failure of the course. Those consequences are very real. One thing they probably don’t mention is that you can also lose all of your funding.
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But the biggest reason why you shouldn’t cheat is that you will get caught. You may well be smarter than your teacher, but you won’t be able to outsmart them in this way. The reason why they’re the ones teaching you is because they’re more knowledgeable than you are about this topic. They have already had students cheat (and get caught) using the exact same ingenuity you’re considering. Forget the archaic Turnitin.com system I always used: Now, there’s accessible, advanced AI technology to detect all essays written by AI. I can’t even tell you how many students I busted just using my own brain alone — I lost count.
The bottom line is that cheating is not worth the risk. It is always easier to write your own essay.
It may come as somewhat of a comfort to know, as well, that the whole decision between cheating or failing is a false dilemma. That means those are not your only two options, ever. Not even in your case.
You might be thinking, “But my parents are going to be so pissed if I fail/don’t turn this in/don’t get a good grade.” Yep. They might be. But you know, your parents are going to get mad at you sometimes (I mean, if I had a dime for every time I’ve been mad at them, right?), and at least this way, you won’t have stolen, cheated or wasted your potential, money and reputation by getting kicked out of school completely. By the way, when you apply to jobs that require your transcripts, they can see suspensions and expulsions. A poor decision now could haunt you for a very long time.
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Cheating, in its many forms, is absolutely not worth it. It is not the solution to your problem.
I’m not saying you don’t still have a problem, either. There are several ways to get yourself out of a jam that don’t put your integrity at hazard, though. Here are a few other options that don’t require you to put everything you’ve worked for on the line:
Ask for an extension
Almost every time a student has asked me for an extension within 24 hours of the due time, I’ve given it. I mean, it’s not like I could grade all 125 essays at the same time anyway.
Try your library or writing center
These are credible resources that your tuition has already paid for, and they can help you get unstuck on any assignment.
Drop the class, then retake it
Not every college has the same policy, but generally, if you retake a class, it clears the first time you took it. Your course grades don’t average. You get a do-over. It’s like it never happened. Take advantage of this if you need it. (You’ll want to consult your academic adviser to make sure this is accurate at your school, but the retake policy has been in place at all three institutions where I taught English composition.)
So, back to breathing. It’s going to be okay. It might feel like you are in a unique position, but everyone has been in a situation like this. Pick one of the three sound options above — or more likely, all three in the order listed above — and get moving in the moral direction.
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