Effective Medium

Mr. Mamatas is a well spoken man. I thought he spoke rather quickly. I had to carefully listen to his words or all of his words would run together. During the interview, Mr. Mamatas was very calm and sounded relax. Mr. Mamatas had the opportunity to get defensive about protecting his profession but decided to stay calm. He also doesn’t sound to by cynical about his profession. He takes his job as a Term Paper Artist rather seriously. He had a passions and a gift for writing and found he could easily demonstrate his talents through writing term papers He wrote “model paper”. Mr. Mamatas was a helping hand. Who in their right mind would refuse his expertise?  

Listening to Mr. Mamatas did not affect my opinion of him being a term paper artist. I simply just see a man trying to make a living, by taking advantage of lazy or incapable people. Mr. Mamatas is an entrepreneur. Nick Mamatas said “I was a freelancer”. He simply took advantage of a situation that was presented to him. “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.” Mr. Mamatas is nonchalant our other people views and opinions. He did nothing against the law, just your moral beliefs, but haven’t we all executed an act that broke someone’s moral beliefs? Should we really hold Mr. Mamatas accountable for his actions of making a “model paper” or should we be more attentive on the students that handed in Mr. Mamatas’ term paper?

After listening to the audio, many people could say that he is cocky and doesn’t care that he is an enabler for cheaters. When Mr. Garfield calls Mr. Mamatas actions unethical, morally disgraceful, sleazy, and repulsive, he responds with “No that pretty much sums it up.” He tries to rationalize his work as term paper artist to comparing prostitution and tobacco companies to his line of work. I think the print would do more justice to Mr. Mamatas, because Mr. Garfield is trying to make Mr. Mamatas look bad. Mr. Garfield asks “So Nick, how do you rationalize your behavior? I mean, it sounds kind of whorish to me” and “You’re willing to sell yourself for money.” In the article, The Term Paper Artist, Mr. Mamatas never tried to rationalize his behavior; he just gave us the facts of his job.

Choosing the correct medium is important because each medium will get across the message differently. Using video, people’s opinion may change of the same message from Mr. Mamatas’ body language, clothes, posture, and physical looks. Audio would also change people’s opinion of Mr. Mamatas’ message by how well he talks and articulates his words. Images will change the viewer’s opinion because the viewer may judge his looks. The viewers may find him ugly and geeky. Using print, readers would have to form images in their head, so the author has to carefully choose their words if they want the readers to have a positive view of the message of the article. The medium chosen will be dependent upon the audience the material will be presented in front of. The effectiveness of Mr. Mamatas point of view on his career will be more effective on his supporters and even non-supporters.

A Lesson on Entrepreneurship

The Term Paper Artist, the lucrative industry behind higher education failings, by Nick Mamatas is about how Nick Mamatas had a passion for writing and found a way to use his talents. Mr. Mamatas says “I’ll tell them my horrible secret- for several years I made much of my freelance income writing term papers”. At a young age Mr. Mamatas passion for writing was shot down, but one day while reading the Village Voice he found an ad for wanted writers. Writers would write short pieces on business, economics, and literature. Mr. Mamatas thought this was his opportunity from the term paper mill to start off his writing career. He thought “writing model term paper is above-board and perfectly legal.” The term paper business is managed by brokers who assume risk finically and mentally. “Most of the customers just aren’t very smart”. Mr. Mamatas had to make sure that he did use words that his client would not understand.

There are three different types of term paper clients, dumb clients, one-timer, and professionals who lack writing skills. Dumb clients are college students who would call Mr. Mamatas and ask for the thesis statement and the body of the term paper to be underlined. These students simply don’t belong in college. The one-timers are students who aren’t English majors who are forced to take an English class, who have no idea how to write. The author uses the example of chemistry major college student forced to take a poetry course. The one-timer clients would include future college students who have to write personal statements for college applications. The third group of clients include “well-educated professional who simply lack English-language skills”. This category of clients is mainly people who already have a degree but would like to just get another degree. Mainly the clients are foreigners who were engineers, medical professionals, and scientists in another country.

“Term paper writing was never good money, but it was certainly fast money”. There are many students who would call Mr. Mamatas last minute stating that they needed a well-written paper in order for them to graduate.  The students are “better off spending $600 on the model paper instead of $2,500 to repeat course.” Simply said, the student would rather spend a few hundred dollars to pass the class instead a couple thousand to retake the same course.

“Term paper work is also extremely easy, once you get the hand of it”. Several of Mr. Mamatas friends attempted the term paper business but failed. Mr. Mamatas technique is that the paper is not important, the deadline, page count, and number of sources are the most important elements of a paper. It took Mr. Mamatas twenty minutes to finish a paper which his girlfriend couldn’t complete within twenty hours. Mr. Mamatas argument is that in order to successfully write a term paper first a student has to read a term paper. He uses the comparisons of writing a novel, he says, “Imagine trying to write a novel, for a grade, under a tight deadline, without ever having read a novel”. 

The author, Nick Mamatas, brings up many good points in The Term Paper Artist. At the end Mr. Mamatas says, “The students aren’t only cheating themselves. They are being cheated by schools that take tuition and give nothing in exchange.” Students are supposed to go to school to learn, yet they don’t learn anything. The students pay someone to write their papers in order to graduate and get a good grade in a class. Your college education will determine the future you will have. Everyone wants to be successfully and it begins with doing well in college. The students can write term paper but not well enough to pass their classes. I don’t agree with what the students are doing, but I understand. The students feel the pressure of college knowing that if their GPA is not high it would be difficult for them to find jobs after graduation. These students are not bad people; they just want to be successful like all of us. Their weakness, such as bad writing skills may dictate their future, and they found a way out. I would consider Mr. Mamatas an entrepreneur, he assumes the risk of his business and he makes all of the profit. He is helping out the young minds of America. I am upset that this article didn’t have his phone number or email address because I may need it later on in the future.

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I didnt know ppl seriously used blogs........wats wrong w facebook?