Essays for College Students

Are you a college student? Are you by chance seeking a way around writing that essay for the class and teacher you despise? If so, you noticed already that there are a number of sites providing essays for a small fee. Is this ethical? No. Will your teacher believe it's your writing? Probably not. The people who write these essays have little to no success as writers, which is why they must depend on desperate students like you to pay for an essay that is equivalent in quality to an average high-schooler. For the most part these sites are scams. If a person didn't write your essay, a computer did, and professors can spot a computer-generated essay instantly. The sentences are formulaic. The words are bland. The ideas are obvious. The paragraphs are simple. Imagine your grade if your entire essay were written like the last four sentences? But, you ask, what about those sites that charge for editing? The idea here is that you actually write your own essay and someone proofreads it for grammatical errors. This is ethical, and very useful, and allows you to develop as a writer. If only "someone" actually did proofread it. The software, slighlty more advanced than Microsoft Word's grammar check, will scan your essay for the simplest breaches in grammar. Above all, the software will not comment on the intelligence of your ideas or the consistency of your argument.

If you are truly desperate, search google for a "writing editor" and choose the first result you see. It should be "White Smoke", a very popular computer program put together by writers and publishers to help writers like you. You will be tempted to purchase it. I wouldn't recommend doing so, however. The program is run by a number of pre-existing formulas that determine what is "good writing." It will indentify common problems, but it will certainly miss more subtle ones. One reviewer of White Smoke complained that the program did not notice her over-use of "For example," a problem she occasionally suffers from. Your essay will sound as boring and lifeless as a computer. Your essay will be one giant formula, something your teacher will not find appealing to read.

What should you really do? Find a person who is intelligent and articulate in your school and ask for their help. Most universities pay students to help you, as part of the special education program, which means you pay nothing. If that's not possible, respectable people online are willing to help. Try http://thewriterscritic.blogspot.com