Miguel, thanks for posting the links to the interesting if
dispiriting articles. One point to keep in mind is that
though it may seem like getting "papers written to spec"
is a relatively recent thing (facilitated by easy access
to resources on the internet) this has been going on for
a while. The NY Post article I link to below was published
in 2005 and the Witherspoon article you link to is from
1995 (20 years ago). Doubtless, the practice has been
going on longer but technological advances have made
it easier to do. During the 1990s, while sitting in a stall
in the men's lav at NYU, in addition to the graffiti written
on the walls and stall door, I remember little stickers
for academic papers, either from the author's library of
papers or written to specification. I wondered what the
other faculty thought of this little advertisement. It was
clear that the author didn't care that faculty knew about
his survives. Who knows? Maybe they could benefit
from his services as well. Thank God the pharmaceutical
companies can afford the best writers for their papers ;-)
-Mike Palij
New York University
[email protected]
-------------- Original Message -----------
On Sun, 03 May 2015 04:17:29 -0700, Miguel Roig wrote:
Thanks for posting it, Mike. I was not aware of that particular case.
But, the
story itself should certainly not be surprising given that there seems
to be
plenty of those who make a living by writing others' papers. And judging
by the
two articles below, I'd say that this sort of thing has probably been
going on
for many years.
Tomar, D. (2012). The Shadow Scholar: How I made a living helping
college kids cheat. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.
An article based on the book is available here:
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Shadow-Scholar/125329/
Witherspoon, A. (1995, June). This pen for hire: On grinding out
papers for college students. Harper's Magazine, pp. 49-58, available at
http://www.eacfaculty.org/pchidester/Eng%20102f/Plagiarism/This%20Pen%20for%20Hire.pdf
And it may be even worse in other countries (e.g.,
http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/5/1/2158244015572262). Heck, in some
countries,
you can even get your name in a paper to be published in a high impact
factor
biomedical journal,
http://www.editage.cn/file/science_2013_hvistendahl_publication_market.pdf )
.
But, even here in North America, if you don't feel like writing your own
dissertation you can probably have someone else write it for the right
price,
https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2015/03/07/dissertations-for-sale/ ,
and I bet a few people who can afford this sort thing are walking around
with
Ph.D.s in hand.
________________________________________
On Saturday, May 02, 2015 7:19 PM, Mike Palij wrote:
Here is a story that Tipsters might find interesting even though
it is in a Murdoch rag (on the NY Post Website):
http://nypost.com/2005/10/22/degree-of-stupidity-wal-mart-heir-head-cheated-at-usc/
Two astounding points:
(1) The student who had done all of the work had to drop out
because she couldn't afford the tuition at USC.
(2) The "offending student" had a sports arena named after he
at the University of Missouri because the parents gave the
university $25 million.
This is one of those times one really hope this is a fake news
story.
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