

Confessions of a custom-essay writer (2010) - redcap
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/

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nhangen
During my life as a ghost writer for bloggers and authors, I had very similar
interactions. It got to a point where I was writing comments/replies on behalf
of some people because they didn't know how to defend work. Knowing what I
know about online content, it gets me wondering how much of what we read is
really written by the name attached to it.

As for the topic of schools, I'm not bothered by it. Part of the learning in
college comes from learning how to meet deadlines and get results. It's not so
much about writing the paper on your own, but providing an end product to the
end user. That type of skill will serve people well later in life.

~~~
mquander
I hope it goes without saying that if a prospective student wants to learn how
to "meet deadlines and get results", he should go get a job, not go to
college. Going to college and cheating is both a destructive (it takes away
time, resources, and credibility from the students who are actually there to
learn the topic) and inefficient way to learn those skills.

~~~
nhangen
Sure, but they want the paper, so students figure out the most efficient way
to get the paper. The fix isn't to catch cheaters, but to stop valuing the
damn paper so much.

~~~
mquander
Well, if it were that easy to come up with good assignments year-after-year
that did a great job of aiding and testing the students' progress but weren't
amenable to cheating, then we wouldn't have this problem.

~~~
nhangen
I'm not talking about the written paper, I'm talking about the degree itself.
Sorry for the poor wording.

~~~
mquander
Oh, OK. I guess I agree with you then.

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int3rnaut
I never had the money to invest in one of these writers. I don't know if I
ever would but I knew as a University student they were around and that there
were people in the classes I took that used them.

I find it incredibly interesting that this no-name writer basically did the
same thing I did to courses I never attended (essentially his main
demographic); Google books and Wikipedia were my bread and better and it
always lit a huge smile on my face when I'd "beat the system" as it were and
put a few hours into a paper and pass a course I knew nothing about just to
get my degree.

I don't know what it says about the education system, but hacking it in this
particular way did a lot for me in terms of personal growth. I probably
learned less about the subject at hand then I could have, but at the same time
I learned a lot of useful skills that are transferable to my future compared
to something like Women's lit (not that there's anything bad with that--oh how
I remember the cold stares).

I'm sure you could argue for or against these methods, I just wanted to put my
personal perspective out there.

~~~
int3rnaut
hahahahahaha I just realized I wrote "bread and better"

------
amalcon
School ideally provides two things: domain expertise (by way of education) and
the perception of domain expertise (by way of a credential). The problem is
that these two functions are significantly disjoint. Studying for exams, doing
research, and doing projects _can_ provide education, but it is not
necessarily so. Likewise, one can be educated effectively without actually
completing such assignments.

As such, someone who is more interested in one half of the result can optimize
to obtain that half with less effort than would be required for the whole.
These are not likely to be brought into alignment any time soon. Session
exams, if re-created from scratch and kept confidential, are difficult (though
not impossible) to cheat. Unfortunately, they _are_ typically possible to
cram, still possible to cheat, and they reward test-taking skills as much if
not more than subject mastery.

The practical exam is probably the most effective, where one purporting to
have a skill is simply asked to demonstrate it on the spot. Unfortunately, not
everything is amenable to this, and they are _still_ possible to cheat, though
there are really only two ways[1].

Practical exams are unfortunately not so good for research-heavy subjects
(like, say, all of graduate studies). You _can_ do it (research this topic,
take all the notes you like, bring them into class, answer some questions
(possibly in long-form), but it is a less effective exam than the normal
research paper if the latter is done honestly. Still, I think they are the
only way to go if you really want to put an end to cheating.

[1]-Impersonation and outright bribery. There was a big scandal about the
former in one of my classes back at Uni, in which six students were expelled.
I've never _heard of_ the latter, but I find it implausible that it never
occurs.

~~~
timwiseman
_You can do it (research this topic, take all the notes you like, bring them
into class, answer some questions (possibly in long-form), ..._

At least some university do exactly this for the Comprehensive Exam required
as one part of a master's degree. My wife is preparing for something very much
like you described for her master's in history right now.

------
corin_
Previously submitted and discussed at
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1901152>

~~~
gmantastic
This link's been plagiarised?

------
ajray
As someone who (sometime in the far future) aspires to be a professor, this is
an important thing to hear. As a student I guess I was ignorant about how
available services like this are, and as a professor I'll definitely be wary
about it (and possibly design assignments around making this sort of thing
difficult or less rewarding grade-wise)

~~~
MaxGabriel
Just because it seems so difficult to circumvent, any strategies in mind to
avoid this?

~~~
DanielStraight
I can propose a few:

Have a one-on-one conference with each student where you ask them about their
paper without letting them look at it.

Skip papers altogether and simply do a one-on-one interview about the topic to
evaluate their knowledge of it.

Make students write papers in class.

Don't assign homework. Grade entirely based on class participation.

~~~
derleth
> Skip papers altogether and simply do a one-on-one interview about the topic
> to evaluate their knowledge of it.

OK, so you have to deal with the fact some people are intensely nervous around
authority figures and a one-on-one is not going to reflect their knowledge:
They'll be so nervous they won't be able to answer intelligently, or at their
full capacity.

> Make students write papers in class.

Then for God's sake scale the paper sizes and complexity to class length. (You
don't know how to do that. You think you do but you don't.)

> Don't assign homework. Grade entirely based on class participation.

This has all the downsides of the one-on-one coupled with all the downsides of
large group dynamics: Some people are going to dominate the discussion, some
people are not going to be able to get a word in edgewise, and there's nothing
you can do to change that. The ones who dominate the discussion are not always
the ones who are getting the material, and being a wallflower does not
correlate with much of anything relevant to most college courses. (There are
exceptions.)

~~~
DanielStraight
I realize there are weaknesses in all those suggestions. There are pros and
cons to every grading method.

I think some of these can be mitigated though (whereas cheating probably
can't, especially in my mind since I intensely disapprove of Turnitin).

A few ideas:

For the interviews, start by requiring office visits for more trivial things
and build up to the main interview.

I had one professor that regularly started class by having every write for a
few minutes (like 5-10) about something they found interesting in the assigned
reading. Aside from making sure students actually read, assigning an amount of
time rather than a topic allows students to select a complexity level they
feel is appropriate for the time allowed.

For class participation, this obviously requires some re-thinking of what
class participation means. It also probably requires smaller classes. In a
class of 10 students, I find it unimaginable that the professor wouldn't know
before grading anything approximately what grade each student will receive.

------
Shenglong
Amazing read. It's kind of disturbing that the quoted text is almost identical
to the writing of one friend. Here's a blurb for confirmation:

 _Actually i mnot to sure eiter iguess the very basic is someone smart funny
and feedm food. haha like someonei canlearns uff from idk but wat i no is that
he isnot y typ_

One thing I can't make sense of, with the ESL students (and maybe someone will
be kind enough to inform me): I understand that they may not be great in
English, but they should at least know that _ican_ (I can) is wrong right,
especially when it's underlined in red, right?

~~~
thehigherlife
I laughed at your last sentence which has a strange verve, and slightly
ambiguous meaning. I cannot tell if you were being ironic, but it is
definitely entertaining in the context of your post.

[quote]but they should at least know that ican (I can) is wrong right,
especially when it's underlined in red, right? [/quote]

~~~
Shenglong
That wasn't intentional, but it definitely is entertaining. I'm actually
multitasking, and I often end up alt tabbing a lot for every comment I make.
Sometimes, unfortunately, this happens!

------
AlexBlom
Should we be concerned that this is so pervasive, or that educators fail to
realize deep essays written by one with a professed lack of domain knowledge?

------
klbarry
There was excellent analysis of this article the last time it came up
(someone's linked to it now). In other news, if anyone needs an blog/essay
writer, I know a quite good one who's done some work for me.

