Term-Paper Trauma
Note: It’s not about journalism, per se, (unless you think Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair...). But this being the end of the semester, when students and faculty alike are increasingly frantic and even desperate, I offer this chilling cautionary tell-all from The Chronicle of Higher Education. I miss Cliff Notes.
“The request came in by e-mail around 2 in the afternoon. It was from a previous customer, and she had urgent business. I quote her message here verbatim (if I had to put up with it, so should you): ‘You did me business ethics propsal for me I need propsal got approved pls can you will write me paper?’“I’ve gotten pretty good at interpreting this kind of correspondence. The client had attached a document from her professor with details about the paper. She needed the first section in a week. Seventy-five pages.
“I told her no problem. It truly was no problem. In the past year, I’ve written roughly 5,000 pages of scholarly literature, most on very tight deadlines. But you won’t find my name on a single paper....”
“You’ve never heard of me, but there’s a good chance that you’ve read some of my work. I’m a hired gun, a doctor of everything, an academic mercenary. My customers are your students. I promise you that. Somebody in your classroom uses a service that you can’t detect, that you can’t defend against, that you may not even know exists.”
—Ed Dante, “The Shadow Scholar: The man who writes your students’ papers tells his story,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, Nov. 12, 2010
(Thanks to alert WORDster and skeptical professor Sean Michael)
Image: “Fitzroy Back Alley,” by Aaron
• Editorial Comment: Prof, the dog ate my homework. And barfed. Sheesh.
• PeezPix: Happiness is a Warm Sprinkler
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That seems easy enough to detect; it just requires some academic collaboration. If enough Profs loaded all their papers into an online database, and then ran them all through a plagiarism-detecting software (already several available), it would end the practice overnight. It would at least stop the ghostwriters from reusing bulk passages. A sophisticated software tool could even analyze suspiciously similar writing styles.
ReplyDeleteUntil they came up with a new method for cheating....
Oh my, it is hard to believe that people stoop to this level. Hopefully a professor could catch on to someone this illiterate with such outstanding papers but I am sure that in some cases they can't.
ReplyDeleteWhere can I get the contact info for this guy so he can finish up my Media Smarts final? ;)
ReplyDeleteIsn't it interesting to see the lengths people will go to? I've heard of multiple high-priced websites that write papers for students. Seems to me, if you're willing to pay big bucks for someone to write all your papers for you in college, wouldn't you be willing to just pay someone to falsify a Harvard Diploma for you?
"You did me business ethics propsal for me I need propsal got approved pls can you will write me paper"
ReplyDeleteSeriously... I don't even know how she got through high school with her writing skills. Did she cheat her way through k-12 too?
Erica Abbott
This WORD elicited a spate of reader response. No surprise, as the original story about ghostwriter "Ed Dante" drew more than 600 comments on The Chronicle of Higher Education website.
ReplyDeleteHere are the reactions/reminiscences of alert WORDsters:
• How much do people pay for papers to be written, ala 75 pages in a week, Ted? I’m not looking for work. Just curious. Also, is there a rate scale based on passing a course or a particular grade? —Tony
• The truly sad part about this is how the girl will enter the workforce and no one will do her work for her. Then where will she be?—Dave
• Speaking of this sort of thing, we had an interesting case a couple of weeks ago. An instructor detected plagiarism in a student’s paper. The student eventually broke down and admitted that she hadn’t written the paper—any of it. Her mother had…and the mother, in turn, had plagiarized significant sections of published work. Looking forward to retirement. —Andy
• Well, she needed help. If she speaks as well as she writes, she comes from another planet. —Jim
• I think work a student turns in that's not his or her own is pretty easy to detect, don't you? At least it was pretty easy for my Humanities Music professor 50 years ago at Columbia to look at a paper I turned in and guess that I didn't know nearly that much about Charles Ives! Humane fellow that he was, he decided that my embarrassment at being found out and confronted was punishment enough and allowed me to do a replacement paper without further penalty, this time on my own. In the process I did learn a heckuva lot more about Charles Ives, thanks to my ghostwriter (a woman I was dating who wrote record jacket copy for Decca). So I netted more than one lesson from my attempted deceit. —Lauter
• People who write term papers for students should be shot, as Mark Twain would say.—Brian
• By coincidence I looked up an article today (India). Look at this dweeb's bio. About the Author: Kevin xxxxx is a custom writer in academic best writing service online. Being an expert in PR and marketing strategies, he specializes in academic writing help and custom essay papers for young undergraduates. —Hank
. . . continued below
This WORD elicited more comment than any other—no surprise, as the original prompted more than 600 comments to the Chronicle website.
ReplyDeleteHere's more feedback/reaction/reminiscence from alert WORDsters:
• How much do people pay for papers to be written, ala 75 pages in a week, Ted? I’m not looking for work. Just curious. Also, is there a rate scale based on passing a course or a particular grade? —Tony
• The truly sad part about this is how the girl will enter the workforce and no one will do her work for her. Then where will she be?—Dave
• Speaking of this sort of thing, we had an interesting case a couple of weeks ago. An instructor detected plagiarism in a student’s paper. The student eventually broke down and admitted that she hadn’t written the paper—any of it. Her mother had…and the mother, in turn, had plagiarized significant sections of published work. Looking forward to retirement. —Andy
• Well, she needed help. If she speaks as well as she writes, she comes from another planet. —Jim
• I think work a student turns in that's not his or her own is pretty easy to detect, don't you? At least it was pretty easy for my Humanities Music professor 50 years ago at Columbia to look at a paper I turned in and guess that I didn't know nearly that much about Charles Ives! Humane fellow that he was, he decided that my embarrassment at being found out and confronted was punishment enough and allowed me to do a replacement paper without further penalty, this time on my own. In the process I did learn a heckuva lot more about Charles Ives, thanks to my ghostwriter (a woman I was dating who wrote record jacket copy for Decca). So I netted more than one lesson from my attempted deceit. —Lauter
• People who write term papers for students should be shot, as Mark Twain would say.—Brian
...continued below...
This WORD elicited more response than any other—no surprise, as the original article drew more than 600 comments to the Chronicle website.
ReplyDeleteHere's response/feedback/reminiscence from some alert WORDsters:
• How much do people pay for papers to be written, ala 75 pages in a week, Ted? I’m not looking for work. Just curious. Also, is there a rate scale based on passing a course or a particular grade? —Tony
• The truly sad part about this is how the girl will enter the workforce and no one will do her work for her. Then where will she be?—Dave
• Speaking of this sort of thing, we had an interesting case a couple of weeks ago. An instructor detected plagiarism in a student’s paper. The student eventually broke down and admitted that she hadn’t written the paper—any of it. Her mother had…and the mother, in turn, had plagiarized significant sections of published work. Looking forward to retirement. —Andy
• Well, she needed help. If she speaks as well as she writes, she comes from another planet. —Jim
continued ...
...continued...
ReplyDelete• I think work a student turns in that's not his or her own is pretty easy to detect, don't you? At least it was pretty easy for my Humanities Music professor 50 years ago at Columbia to look at a paper I turned in and guess that I didn't know nearly that much about Charles Ives! Humane fellow that he was, he decided that my embarrassment at being found out and confronted was punishment enough and allowed me to do a replacement paper without further penalty, this time on my own. In the process I did learn a heckuva lot more about Charles Ives, thanks to my ghostwriter (a woman I was dating who wrote record jacket copy for Decca). So I netted more than one lesson from my attempted deceit. —Lauter
• People who write term papers for students should be shot, as Mark Twain would say.—Brian
• By coincidence I looked up an article today (India). Look at this dweeb's bio. About the Author: Kevin xxxxx is a custom writer in academic best writing service online. Being an expert in PR and marketing strategies, he specializes in academic writing help and custom essay papers for young undergraduates. —Hank
• OK, that was a scary read! I hear about plagiarism and other cheating but this is a whole new thing. But for the ethical questions, I think I could make a living as an Ed Dante. —Bob
... Part Three...
ReplyDelete• I wrote a paper on another's behalf once. I was just divorced, broke, finishing at USC and looking for a way to buy Christmas presents for my kids, so when this spoiled, wealthy girl offered me $100 to write a 5- to 10-page paper analyzing one of Milton's lesser-known sonnets (paper due the next day), I took the task on. I pulled an all-nighter and delivered an A paper early that morning, cautioning the (other) miscreant that she should rewrite it in her own words. Instead, she slapped her own title page on it (different typewriter, different font) and turned it in. The prof gave her an F, saying that she has cribbed a published paper, but allowed her to rewrite it for a C. I got $100 and went immediately out of business. —Will
• Woe is us! I think a lot of college application essays get written that way, too! —Mary
• This idea that anyone can define what's true (and what isn't) has a huge amount to do with the fact that we newsfolk are right down there with politicians and used-car salesmen in terms of being trustworthy. One wonders where little Virginia would send her letter asking about the existence of Santa today. Could her Papa say confidently that if you read it (or hear it) in this paper or on that broadcast, it's believable? —Joseph Benham, Kerrville TX
• This was always an option for the elite classes, now available to the masses. —Lois
Come to think of it I once wrote a poem for my twin sister. We were both in Middle school- 'her' poem got tons of awards which made me extremely jealous. Note to self, don't let others take credit for your good works!
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand I know I have taken ideas from my husband and advice from him for papers that I have written. I think there has only been one time that I've given credit to him within the written text. I bet if we all thought about it, we've all taken advice on writing material from someone and then failed to give them credit for the idea.
Erica Abbott