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 this article, the author would like to set out and respond to Alexander's objections to the essay form. The author of this article will also make some observations about what essays are good for and why.