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.
I agree. I consider Mamatas an entrepreneur as well. I like that he is pursuing a job that he enjoys. I also think that his clients are cheating themselves. They pay thousands of dollars to get into a college and then pay hundreds of dollars to have other people do their work for them.
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