Writing Custom Essays: The Ethics behind the Process

Ivan Dimitrijevic
4 min readMay 5, 2016

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A lot of people seek help from professional custom writing services to provide them with expert material for their thesis, research papers, term papers, dissertations, or anything else they may need. Whether it’s for getting a good grade at school, passing an exam at college, or completing a task for their job, people turn to professional writers with the needed expertise in order to get some work done.

There are two main reasons why they don’t write their essays on their own, but instead pay someone else to do it for them. They may not have good writing skills, or perhaps they only think they don’t, or they may not have enough time for writing. So, is it wrong to have someone else write their essays for them? Is it unethical? It’s the question that many people seem to raise nowadays and the answers vary depending on who you ask.

Ghostwriting — Plagiarism or Not?

Ghostwriting has been frowned upon for a long time as being something that approves of plagiarism. However, plagiarism is stealing by definition. It is the stealing and publication of someone else’s work and the representation of it as one’s own original work. That is not what ghostwriting is.

Ghostwriting refers to a contractual arrangement where two parties agree on one doing all the work and the other getting credit for it. Therefore, it is not plagiarism and it should definitely not be considered as such.

If a person agrees to write a custom essay for someone who will pay them for their services, why should it be unethical or even considered illegal? All they do is express their client’s ideas and thoughts through their writing and receive a fee for it. Yes, they agree to stay anonymous and provide someone else with all the credit, but it’s their clients’ ideas they transform into words to get the necessary message across and it’s their job, right? It’s what they are paid for and it is an honest job. If someone chooses to make a living by working as a ghostwriter, why would anyone judge them?

Why Hire Custom Writing Service?

Let’s face it — not everyone has good writing skills. However, everyone comes to a point in their lives where they need to write a particular essay, be it for school or for work. Now, this is the tricky part. Having someone else write an academic essay for you is outright cheating and completely unethical. If you have poor writing skills, you should work on improving them instead of hiring a custom writer. However, if you are the one providing someone else with the writing material they need, you should not be labeled as unethical, since you are making an honest living.

When it comes to working, ghostwriting has become one of the key elements for companies to establish an effective online presence and build a public image. Every company hires advertising agencies to help them create marketing strategies, for instance, and they are not accused of being unethical, are they?

The same goes for hiring a custom writing service. If a company hires a writer with skills to help them transform their ideas to the right message to be spread among their customers, no one should be labeled unethical — not the company, and certainly not the writer. They may have employees with good writing skills, but they may not have enough time for writing, so hiring a writer outside the organization certainly seems like a smart choice.

So, Why All the Fuss about Ethics?

Is it the right or a completely wrong thing to do? The answer certainly depends on your own perspective but, in my book, ethics and ghostwriting have nothing to do with one another. They are two completely different concepts that should not be put together in one sentence.

Writing custom essays for a living and helping people get their message across does not include either violating ethics or treading on immoral ground. If you make a living by doing something that does not include lying, cheating, stealing, or harming anyone, you should not be dubbed unethical and certainly not immoral. Labeling custom writing immoral should definitely be out of the question.

The only question of ethics behind the process of writing custom essays would be whether or not the writer has managed to effectively transform the client’s ideas into the right message, that is, whether or not the essay is authentic and meets the client’s needs and requirements. If the instructions were followed and the writing process resulted in success, there is absolutely nothing to be questioned, let alone frowned upon.

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Ivan Dimitrijevic
Ivan Dimitrijevic

Written by Ivan Dimitrijevic

I help B2B companies in creating high-quality content that drives traffic, engagement, and conversions.

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