Discuss: If essays are dead, then where does that leave everything else? - Kelvin McQueen

Oct 15, 2026

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The discussion challenges Shirley Alexander’s argument that university essays are “dead” as a primary assessment form. It reviews three linked concerns: cheating through plagiarised or ghostwritten work, the push for “authentic” real-life assessment, and employer demands for real-world skills. The response argues that essay writing is a structured way to evaluate evidence and sustain coherent arguments, engaging students in ongoing professional debates. It further contends that responsibility in professional roles routinely requires essay-like reasoning rather than eliminating the essay form.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time8 min

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Discuss: If essays are dead, then where does that leave everything else?

Response to Alexander’s objections

Cheating concerns and plagiarism detection

“Authentic” assessment and employer demands

What essays are for in professional responsibility

Critique of apprenticeship-only learning

A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W Discuss: If essays are dead, then where does that leave everything else? A response to: Shirley Alexander’s ‘Buying essays: how to make sure assessment is authentic’ Kelvin McQueen University of New England Professor Shirley Alexander is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Vice-President (Teaching, Learning & Equity) at the University of Technology, Sydney. On 12 November 2014, an article of hers appeared in The Conversation:‘Buying essays: how to make sure assessment is authentic.’ That article traverses, in an abbreviated way, three significant concerns about university assessment tasks. Those three concerns, in sum, apparently render essays ‘dead’‘as the primary form of assessment’. In what follows, I’d like to set out and respond to Alexander’s objections to the essay form. Then I’ll make some observations about what essays are good for and why, perhaps, some people can’t understand that usefulness. The first concern of Alexander’s that drives a nail into the essay-form’s coffin is that there are, apparently,‘cheating factories’ pumping out plagiarised or ghostwritten essays. A search is then undertaken to find ways and means to prevent students cheating; ways and means of which the US National Security Agency would be proud: biometric scanning; hermetically sealing students in exam rooms; or conversely allowing students access in an exam room to everything they’d need to (dare I say it?) write an essay; hoping for ‘ghost writer’whistle-blowers; and, in an odd association,‘high-touch, face-to-face learning’. Contrary to this intensified surveillance of students (who obviously are guilty until proven otherwise), I find that the electronic matching software used at my university works very well in detecting plagiarism in extended-response assessment tasks, if indeed that degree of surveillance is deemed necessary. When Shirley Alexander’s essay finishes dealing with the advantages of exterminating essays to prevent students from cheating, then interwoven in the paragraphs that follow are the other two death-dealers to the essay form: the need for ‘authentic’(or ‘real-life’) assessment; and its companion, meeting employers’demands for ‘real-life’work skills. Here, concerns about types of ‘authentic’ assessment and the vocational ‘value’ of university courses converge. Alexander emphasises this relationship by asking,‘When, for instance, in one’s real life [read: ‘in a job’] does one vol. 57, no. 1, 2015 Discuss: If essays are dead, then where does that leave everything else? Kelvin McQueen 69 A U S T R A L I A N U N I V E R S I T I E S ’ R E V I E W ever have to write an essay, unless you happen to be an academic?’ But this begs the question: what is an essay and in what ways might it connect with the ‘real world’? And in some contrast with the unalloyed virtues of vocationalism, these ‘real world’ essays may both conform with but also challenge what employers may suggest are‘real-life’ skills. Essays, even brief one’s like Alexander’s, are meant to be sustained, focused and coherent arguments that systematically and explicitly evaluate relevant evidence and arguments.They are in themselves a way for students and others to show logically their assessment of evidence and arguments either found independently or provided to them; usually evidence and arguments that are to some degree vital to understanding (some part of) afield of knowledge and practice. That means, crucially, the essay form is used as a way of becoming engaged in however neophyte or limited a way an ongoing debate about evidence, arguments and practices in some field of endeavour. So Alexander’s rhetorical question that supposedly administers the last rites to the essay form can be rephrased in the following way: when, in one’s real life (orin a job), would one have to present a sustained, focused and coherent argument about evidence arising from a field of professional endeavour

FAQs

What is Shirley Alexander’s main claim about essays as assessment?

She argues that essays are “dead” as the primary form of assessment, and presents this as driven by concerns about cheating, authenticity, and employer-aligned skills.

How does the response address the cheating concern?

It argues that plagiarism-detection software used at the university works well for extended-response tasks, even if enhanced surveillance is considered necessary.

Why does the response say essays still matter in the real world?

It argues that professional responsibility often requires sustained, focused, coherent arguments drawn from evidence, so essay-like reasoning remains relevant beyond university.

Oct 15, 2026

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