College is nothing like high school; this is a cliché we have all heard since we began considering postsecondary schooling. Though this statement is redundant, over the course of my college education, I have found it to be extremely true. In high school, teachers are required to allow makeup tests and assignments; in college, if you miss a class, any missing or overdue assignments are your responsibility. Similarly, high school teachers give step-by-step instructions for every single assignment. In college, finishing homework and papers sometimes feels like trying to walk through a maze blindfolded. With college coursework, some resources are helpful, and others can make your attempts more tedious. With this, here are some tips to consider when reaching out for help with college assignments.

 

Never pay for subscriptions to Chegg Study or Course Hero. For one, both of these resources are ridiculously overpriced. One month of Chegg subscription costs fifteen dollars, while Course Hero costs between ten and forty dollars a month depending on the plan. Not only are they expensive, but these online resources are somewhat unethical. For the most part, both Chegg Study and Course Hero pay instructors and students money to upload answers and resources from various classes. Not only this, some of the coursework uploaded to these sites for payment are done so without permission from the assignment’s creator. Sure, both websites also offer tutoring services, but Chegg Study and Course Hero are mainly based on giving answers for worksheets circulated around the internet. Even if there were no unethical factors behind Chegg and Course Hero, the answers found on these websites could be wrong. Even if a key to a worksheet or a test is posted on one of the websites, there is nothing to verify that the answers given are correct since assignments and answers can be uploaded by anyone.

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Though Chegg and Course Hero offer questionable help, some online resources can be useful when used sparingly. During the revising steps of a paper, websites such as PaperRater, Hemingway Editor, and Grammarly are helpful for catching spelling mistakes, badly phrased sentences, and comma splices. However, these should only be used during one step of the editing process and cannot replace human eyes. As far as content and argumentation structure are concerned, online resources cannot catch errors in fact. Like Chegg and Course Hero, these apps are not worth any monetary investment. PaperRater, Hemingway Editor, and Grammarly all offer premium memberships, but the free versions are all that you need during the first step in paper revisement.

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This is not the first time you will hear this, and hopefully, it also will not be the last: when in doubt, use the Learning Resource Center and your professors’ office hours as your first line of defense. The LRC offers tutoring for most courses on campus, all the way from math and science courses to humanities and social science classes. Tutors can offer homework help, review a paper during any step in the writing process, and so much more. However, possibly the best person to turn to when any problems with an assignment arise is your professor. After all, your professor is the one who will be grading the assignment, and most of the time, professors are more than happy to help students with any questions. This advice may be obvious, but it goes without saying that between online and on-campus resources, the latter option is the best for any assignment.