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.