October 15, 2008
The Term Paper Artist
A fascinating peep into the world of Term Paper industry, Nick Mamatas, describes the secret to churning out eight term papers about Hamlet (or whatever) by Friday (via):
The secret to the gig is to amuse yourself. I have to, really, as most paper topics are deadly boring. Once, I was asked to summarize in three pages the causes of the First World War (page one), the major battles and technological innovations of the war (page two), and to explain the aftermath of the war, including how it led to the Second World War (page three). Then there was this assignment for a composition class: six pages on why “apples [the fruit] are the best.” You have to make your own fun. In business papers, I’d often cite Marxist sources. When given an open topic assignment on ethics, I’d write on the ethics of buying term papers, and even include the broker’s Web site as a source. My own novels and short stories were the topic of many papers — several DUMB CLIENTS rate me as their favorite author and they’ve never even read me, or anyone else. Whenever papers needed to refer to a client’s own life experiences, I’d give the student various sexual hang-ups.
Apparently, between terms papers and the schlock he wrote for business journals during the dotcom boom, he was able to buy a house.
Update: Kottke’s polling, Have you bought a term paper?
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This guy is my antihero.
[...] The Term Paper Artist Published October 16, 2008 asides , writing Tags: asides, college, school, term paper, writing Nick Mamatas tells his story. He’s a term paper writer. He writes term papers for people. He’s partially financed his house thanks to this trade. (via cf) [...]