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           “The Ethics of A Term Paper Business: A Marxist Overview”
                                        
> 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.
> 
> …
> 
> 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 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.
> 

Via Jason Kottke [1], “The Term Paper Artist”

I hated writing term papers. But perhaps that was more due to the method
required to write them than the actual topics (literary term papers, which I
found loathsome to begin with). We had to, in order:

  1. Come up with a thesis and have it approved.
  2. Find five sources (or more) and write down, on a 3″×5″ card the title of
     the book, author, publisher and copyright year. And yes, each source got
     its own 3″×5″ card, and it had to be a 3″×5″ card. These had to be
     turned in.
  3. Generate at least 50 (but more were always better) facts to support our
     thesis and record each one on a separate 4″×6″ card (as well as the
     source used). Again, these had to be turned in.
  4. Sort the 50 (or more) 4″×6″ cards into some order and generate an
     outline for the term paper, and it had to be of a certain length and
     complexity. And again, this had to be turned in.
  5. From the outline, we had to write a rough draft, longhand, in pencil.
     And yes, we had to turn this in.
  6. Finally, we could write our final term paper, typewritten, using a
     particular style (I forgot if we used Chicago [2] or MLS [3]—it's been
     awhile) and I remember it being very exacting—margins had to be exactly
     1″ and the bibliography had to be formatted just so or you failed.

Is it any wonder I hated the things? Is it any wonder why I would have bought
one if I had the money?

[1] http://www.kottke.org/08/10/writing-term-papers-for-money
[2] http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/
[3] http://www.fhsu.edu/~amorin/MLS_Writing.html

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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