Can I Get in Trouble for Paying Someone to Write My Paper?

At some point, every student runs into an essay that they just can’t handle. It might be a tough paper you just can’t research, or maybe it’s an assignment in a course outside your major that you just don’t understand. Or perhaps you’ve run out of time due to extracurricular, employment, or social obligations. Whatever the cause, almost every student will eventually stop and wonder if they should bite the bullet and pay someone to write their paper for them. But what stops most students from paying someone to write their papers is the fear that doing so can get them in trouble. In this article, we’ll look at whether paying someone to write a paper for you can have consequences for your academic career so you can decide whether hiring an expert to help you write your essays is the right choice for you.

Is Buying an Essay Legal?

The first thing we need to discuss is whether paying an online writer from an essay service to write a paper for you is legal. Many students, for example, worry that they could go to jail if they are caught paying someone to write a paper for them. That’s not the case. It is perfectly legal to pay someone to write an essay for you. In most countries, this falls under free speech. There is typically no restriction on what people can write, or the writing they can sell, as long as it does not violate copyright law. When you pay someone to write a paper for you, you are engaging in an act of free speech. The process of buying a paper is not illegal, and therefore you will not face legal jeopardy simply because you paid someone to write a paper for you.

Similarly, the writer who produces a paper for you is not committing a crime by doing so. The act of writing is protected, and a writer may compose a paper on any subject for pay. Contrary to what you might have read in alarmist news articles, essay writing companies are not criminal organizations, nor do they operate outside the law.

Using a Paper Someone Else Wrote

That doesn’t mean, however, that paying someone to write a paper for you won’t or can’t get you in trouble. There are a number of ways that you could get in trouble if you pay someone to write a paper for you. The first and most important occurs if you try to turn in the paper you paid for as your own work. This is not permitted under most schools’ academic honesty policies. It is morally and ethically not permitted to use someone else’s work as your own because academic work must be the result of the student’s own efforts in order to gain academic credit. Therefore, you are not able to simply pay for a paper and hand it in to your instructor for credit.

So what should you do instead?

Let’s say you find an essay writing service online and say, “I want to pay someone to write my paper,” and they send you a completed essay. That shouldn’t be the end of your essay-writing journey but rather the first step. After you receive the paper that someone else wrote, you should use that as a model and a guide to help you develop your own original essay, which you can then turn in because it is your own work.

The Risks of Getting Essays Written for You

Even if you follow the rules about using a paper you purchased as a guide for your own work, there are other ways you could find yourself in more trouble than the paper was worth. One of the biggest risks in buying a paper is purchasing one from an unreliable or shady outfit that gives you a paper that is full of plagiarism. There is always a risk when you trust someone else to write a paper for you that they will try cutting corners or that they don’t know what they are doing. If you receive a paper that is full of plagiarism, copying, false citations, or other violations of academic honesty, you may find that the paper you write from that model contains similar flaws and will get you in trouble with your instructor.

In order to keep yourself free from plagiarism problems, it’s always a good idea to purchase papers solely from reputable firms that have a track record of delivering high-quality, plagiarism-free work. You should look for companies that offer a guarantee that their work will be free from plagiarism and are readily contactable and therefore can be held responsible if there should ever be a problem with your order.

Consequences

Many colleges and universities are cracking down on students who turn in papers they bought online, which they call “contract cheating.” Colleges and universities hold seminars on contract cheating and have begun training their instructors on methods to detect contract cheating. For example, instructors are trained to examine students’ writing styles to see if an assignment departs from their typical style, indicating someone else may have written the paper. If a student is caught using someone else’s work as their own, they can face a range of penalties. Generally, a first offense will result in a student failing a paper. Being caught more than once can lead to escalating consequences, including failing a course or even being expelled from school.