A Man of Many Degrees +Plus+ Ph.D

Jiro

Jiro

If You Know What I Mean
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The Shadow Scholar
I've written toward a master's degree in cognitive psychology, a Ph.D. in sociology, and a handful of postgraduate credits in international diplomacy. I've worked on bachelor's degrees in hospitality, business administration, and accounting. I've written for courses in history, cinema, labor relations, pharmacology, theology, sports management, maritime security, airline services, sustainability, municipal budgeting, marketing, philosophy, ethics, Eastern religion, postmodern architecture, anthropology, literature, and public administration. I've attended three dozen online universities. I've completed 12 graduate theses of 50 pages or more. All for someone else.

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.

I work at an online company that generates tens of thousands of dollars a month by creating original essays based on specific instructions provided by cheating students. I've worked there full time since 2004. On any day of the academic year, I am working on upward of 20 assignments.
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How Did I Do It?
After I've gathered my sources, I pull out usable quotes, cite them, and distribute them among the sections of the assignment. Over the years, I've refined ways of stretching papers. I can write a four-word sentence in 40 words. Just give me one phrase of quotable text, and I'll produce two pages of ponderous explanation. I can say in 10 pages what most normal people could say in a paragraph.

I've also got a mental library of stock academic phrases: "A close consideration of the events which occurred in ____ during the ____ demonstrate that ____ had entered into a phase of widespread cultural, social, and economic change that would define ____ for decades to come." Fill in the blanks using words provided by the professor in the assignment's instructions.
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I read this article a few days ago. Super fascinating, but it scares the shit out of me to think that my students might use a service like this. I'm pretty sure none of them do, but eh, you never know...

Some good points were definitely made in it. The comments section at the end is even more interesting.
 
Dammit. You caught me. That's how I "wrote" my 109 page thesis.
 
Why you guys reading my articles? Go read something else kthx.
 
He could, but even in writing it is a dog eat dog world. Go to a writer's discussion forum sometime, you'll see writers slamming each others work. They'll easily kill a newb. They do daily word pushes, NaNoWriMo and they spend HOURS upon HOURS working on their craft. They even have little 'contests' for best Novella, and some even go as far as freelancing and posting masthead information for many publications, fights have broken out if two writers submitted articles to the same publication and only one of them is chosen. Some, I am sure work for academic cheating services, either on their own or with a larger group.

Have I considered doing something like this in the past when money was extremely tight? Yes. Did I actually follow through on that thought? No. Why? Because I try to hold myself to a specific standard of doing what is right. I'm not saying I have never lied or cheated academically, but I don't want to help someone else cheat and end up expelled for academic dishonesty. I could also find myself in trouble as well if I were caught writing other student's papers for profit. There is just something in my conscience that tells me I don't need to be playing with that, no matter how ridiculously profitable it may be.
 
What he does just serves to perpetrate dishonesty and fraudulence. Not just in academics, but in post-academic life. Students who use his services and get away with it think it is OK to bend the rules later in life.
 
Some instructors use software that detects formula papers. Also, if the instructor knows his students he can detect a sudden change in writing style.
 
Glenn said:
What he does just serves to perpetrate dishonesty and fraudulence. Not just in academics, but in post-academic life. Students who use his services and get away with it think it is OK to bend the rules later in life.
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:gpost:
 
Glenn said:
I think he could use his talents in a better way.
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He could but apparently he doesn't want to.

Unfortunately, talents are more easily acquired than ethics.
 
This is the downside of making it easy as possible for many people as possible to get higher degrees. The essay system definately have it's flaws.
 
Did you guys read the full article? There is an association to what he does to his undergraduate experience. He knows he's the "bad guy" - he stated it verbatim. He doesn't copy articles, he can write a four word sentence into 40, probably to why he hasn't been caught yet since they are his own words.
People have their own reasons for doing what they do. It's how a new talent can bloom in some cases, even if it didn't go in the right directions.

As for the essays, I'm sure the undergrad profs didn't care much. Usually they hand it to their TA's or lab section grad students to read it. Prof doesn't give a bat. Master's and phd programs on the other hand, may be different.

Deep down, I think the core issues correlate to the USA education system, not this guy. He's only a facilitator. If he didn't exist, students would be using the services of something else.
 
Glenn said:
What he does just serves to perpetrate dishonesty and fraudulence. Not just in academics, but in post-academic life. Students who use his services and get away with it think it is OK to bend the rules later in life.
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why blame him? blame the students.

and plus - by your logic... lawyers are same thing.
 
The "writers" and the students are all to blame.

I don't understand how any student could feel that he accomplished something or take pride in his grade if he got it by cheating.

Is that behavior going to carry on into the real world of his profession? Will he take shortcuts and cheat in his business dealings, or in his client relationships? That's scary.
 
Reba said:
The "writers" and the students are all to blame.

I don't understand how any student could feel that he accomplished something or take pride in his grade if he got it by cheating.

Is that behavior going to carry on into the real world of his profession? Will he take shortcuts and cheat in his business dealings, or in his client relationships? That's scary.
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focus on students, not writers.
 
TheWriteAlex said:
I read this article a few days ago. Super fascinating, but it scares the shit out of me to think that my students might use a service like this. I'm pretty sure none of them do, but eh, you never know...

Some good points were definitely made in it. The comments section at the end is even more interesting.
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It is scary. But there is a program designed to detect the use of services like these. All the profs at the school I am associated with use it.
 
The intention to cheat is still there if this guy never existed. Same with the issue of white-collar crime, even if you eliminated shady people such as Jeff Shilling of Enron, someone else at another company would/ or have done it.

Find a way around the issues and to the core then you can eliminate the source of the problems.
Of course, the root goes deep down into human philosophy, some of the good and evil in Religion for others, etc, something that isn't going to have a right or wrong or yes/no answers. The drive to succeed (whether for good or bad reasons) is still there, the students have the drive to pass. If they didn't, those are the ones who flunk.

Plus, there's always tangents about whether the material they do for their degrees are relevant or not. I can honestly say from my experiences, a lot of written assignments were redundant, it's just there for the sake of filler material. I learned nearly nothing off writing tons of essays except a way to be extremely verbose and support my points, I'm sure examples of this can be seen on my forum posts. But, often I would receive high marks for papers I turned in, comments are written like "Motivating" "Aspiring" "Good work" when I knew personally I didn't even do that great of a job, I had to write it with less than 48 hours left to deadline.

Work only really matters with on hands on experience once you reach the graduate level or above for what you intend to do, outside of writing careers.
 
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