<p>Hey guys, my friends and I are always debating this question, so I was wondering if you guys could offer your input. What's stopping someone from taking an essay from one of those thousands of "top college essay" books, switching around the words, and using it as their own? Since college admission officers read thousands of essays, how can they tell if an essay is a student's original work? This question is just out of mere curiosity.</p>
<p>It depends a lot on how you switch the words around. I’m not going to argue that, hypothetically, someone who’s really good with words could play around with the essay and turn it into his own. But if you’re able to do that properly (i.e. not got caught), you’d be able to write a better essay yourself. And it’s a LOT harder to tweak an essay than it is to write one yourself and THEN tweak it (trust me: when I correct something for someone, I find it almost impossible to actually change the essay - I just draw an arrow pointing at the sentence and tell them to fix it :P).</p>
<p>I think what you’re asking for is the ways that people can get caught. Well, if you outright copy it, it’s very easy to detect, courtesy of Google. If you change/substitute/move the words, assuming you’re not particularly good at it, the essay will become extremely distorted, sometimes to the point where it can cause physical pain to the reader (okay, maybe I’m abnormal). If you decide to use that essay as a “mould” (in structure, format or style), you’ll have a very hard time trying to fit yourself into someone else’s frame and it is fairly easy to spot.</p>
<p>But like I said above, you’re only going to get “caught” (they won’t figure out you used another essay, but they won’t like your essay either) if you’re not good enough to manipulate words. And if you’re good with words, why not just write your own essay?</p>
<p>Hope that made sense to you :)…I know it didn’t to me.</p>
<p>haha it made sense! thanks! anyone else have any input</p>