It’s Sunday night and you have just remembered you have an essay due in a few hours.

What do you do? Well, you can either take the ethical route and write the essay in the limited time you have or ask your teacher for an extended time to write this essay, or choose the immoral option, and Google “essay writer.”

I’m sure we have all been in the middle of this dilemma, and the urge to use websites like essaybot.com, essaytyper.com, papertyper.net, etc. is definitely prominent. This choice would not be a smart one.

Your rebuttal to this may be that it is a quick way to get your essay done, the option is there so why not use it, and that you aren’t hurting anyone by doing this.

The truth is you are cheating yourself and your teachers. Using essay generators “is not just morally wrong and unwise, but it’s also irresponsible. It’s also unprofessional and throws false positives in the system,” (gsobinghampton.org).

Although not illegal, using these sites can seriously damage your academic career and reputation.

Furthermore, you may be surprised to know that essay generating websites do count as plagiarism.

“Shelby Perlis, an English graduate student and tutor at the Cal state Fullerton writing center, said any use of these services would be defined as plagiarism by an academic institution. When a business, person or website writes an essay for a student, that’s cheating,” (dailytitan.com). 

Plagiarism can be extremely serious, especially in college. Under the academic integrity rules, students who plagiarize any submitted piece of work will be committing an academic integrity violation, which can result in expulsion depending on the severity of the plagiarized material.

According to an article in the New York Times written by Kevin Roose, ChatGPT is an accessible way for students to compose narratives, and figure out math as well as science questions. To counter it, a Princeton student invented GPTZero, which he says can spot writing created by means of artificial intelligence.

What is a hard-pressed student to do with all these easy, unethical alternatives and a crushing deadline?

The next time you find yourself in this dilemma, consider the moral lessons ILS, your parents, and the Catholic Church have, hopefully, instilled in you. Be true to yourself, your peers, your teachers, and most importantly, God.