Page 64 - SpringBoard_Writing_Workshop_Grade8_Flipbook

Sample Text
The Term Paper Artist
The Lucrative Industry Behind Higher Ed’s Failings
by Nick Mamatas
One great way to briefly turn the conversation toward myself at a party is to answer the question, “So, what do you do?” with, “I’m a writer.” Not that most of the people I’ve met at parties have read my novels or short stories or feature articles; when they ask, “Have I seen any of your stuff?” I shrug and the conversation moves on. If I want attention for an hour or so, however, I’ll tell them my horrible secret — for several years I made much of my freelance income writing term papers.
I always wanted to be writer, but was told from an early age that such a dream was futile. After all, nobody ever puts a classified ad in the paper that reads “Writers Wanted.” Then, in the Village Voice, I saw just such an ad. Writers wanted, to write short pieces on business, economics, and literature. It was from a term paper mill, and they ran the ad at the beginning of each semester.
Writing model term papers is above-board and perfectly legal. Thanks to the First Amendment, it’s protected speech, right up there with neo-Nazi rallies, tobacco company press releases, and those “9/11 Was An Inside Job” bumper stickers. It’s custom-made Cliff Notes. Virtually any subject, almost any length, all levels of education — indulgent parents even buy papers for children too young for credit cards of their own. You name it, I’ve done it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the plurality of clients was business administration majors, but both elementary education majors and would-be social workers showed up aplenty. Even the assignments for what in my college days were the obvious gut courses crossed my desk. “Race in The Matrix” was a fashionable subject.
The term paper biz is managed by brokers who take financial risks by accepting credit card payments and psychological risks by actually talking to the clients. Most of the customers just aren’t very bright. One of my brokers would even mark assignments with the code words DUMB CLIENT. That meant to use simple English; nothing’s worse than a client calling back to ask a broker — most of whom had no particular academic training — what certain words in the paper meant. One time a client actually asked to talk to me personally and lamented that he just didn’t “know a lot about Plah- toe.” Distance learning meant that he’d never heard anyone say the name.
In broad strokes, there are three types of term paper clients. DUMB CLIENTS predominate. They should not be in college. They must buy model papers simply because they do not understand what a term paper is, much less anything going on
in their assignments. I don’t believe that most of them even handed the papers in as their own, as it would have been obvious that they didn’t write them. Frequently I
was asked to underline the thesis statement because locating it otherwise would have been too difficult. But that sort of thing was just average for the bottom of the barrel student-client. To really understand how low the standards are these days, we must lift up the barrel and see what squirms beneath. One time, I got an e-mail from the broker with some last-minute instructions for a term paper — “I told her that it is up to the writer whether or not he includes this because it was sent to me at the last minute. So if you can take a look at this, that is fine, if not I understand.” The last-minute addition was to produce a section called “BODY OF PAPER” (capitals sic). I was also asked
to underline this section so that the client could identify it. Of course, I underlined everything but the first and last paragraphs of the three-page paper.
My Notes
Writing Workshop 5 • Response to Expository Text 15
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