Why Shouldn't I Buy Term Papers?

Students sometimes get behind in their studies. Writing a term paper can be quite time consuming. Some students decide to buy term papers instead of writing the papers themselves. Not only can buying term papers can result in academic expulsion, buying term papers means that the student is not learning.

Plagiarism can be defined as a student copying another author's work without giving the author credit. When students buy term papers, the students are not technically copying another person's work, but they are claiming that work to be their own. Schools take plagiarism very seriously. Punishments can range from not getting any credit for the assignment to being thrown out of school.

Many students underestimate how easy it is for instructors to figure out that a student has bought a term paper. Some paper-writing services sell the same papers over and over again. An instructor only has to submit the term paper to a website set up to catch plagiarism in order to find that the paper is not original.

Plagiarism websites aside, instructors have other means of finding those who buy term papers. Some instructors require students to turn in rough drafts. If the final paper is radically different than the rough draft, the instructor may take a closer look at the paper.

When instructors take closer looks at papers, they may compare a given paper with a previously written paper. Everyone who writes has a certain style and rhythm. If the style and rhythm is completely different from previous papers in a way that was not called for by the assignment, the paper may have been plagiarized.

Another way that an instructor may focus on plagiarism is if the report uses language skills that are much above or much below the student's level. For example, college students who recently immigrated to the United States with English as a second language are unlikely to turn in term papers that they wrote themselves that seem to have been written by someone whose grasp of the language is at a graduate-school level. This is another way that instructors catch plagiarism.

Beyond the risks of getting caught, students who buy term papers are not learning the skills that they need to have in order to progress through academics and into the working world. Part of the purpose of getting an education is learning how to manage time while juggling academics and personal lives. When students graduate and start careers, supervisors expect their employees to get their work done on time. Knowing how to do this involves having time management skills.

In addition, students who buy term papers are not allowing themselves to learn how to effectively organize and communicate their thoughts. This, like time management, is a learned skill. Although business and academic styles can differ, the roots are the same. Knowing how to express ideas so that others can understand the writer's thoughts is a skill that must be acquired through practice.