It's interesting that you should mention about the stickers in the men's room. On a number of occasions, I do recall seeing business cards advertising a paper mill (something like 'Research Papers for sale') with a location in either Manhattan or in Jersey City (or both?) and as early as the 1980s or possibly in the late 70s when I was an undergraduate. I don't recall specifically what it was that they offered; whether already written papers, custom-written papers by request, or perhaps both. My recollection is that these business cards could be found in bulletin boards around campus or in the cafeteria, but would quickly disappear.
Miguel PS: I know that on several occasions links have been posted on TIPS depicting spurious correlations. I just found this site that had some interesting ones. Perhaps this one has already been posted here. But, just in case it has not, you can check it out: http://www.tylervigen.com/ ________________________________________ From: Mike Palij [[email protected]] Sent: Sunday, May 03, 2015 11:23 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Cc: Michael Palij Subject: RE: [tips] If You're So Dumb, Why Are You Rich? 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. --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=1632838.7e62b84813297f170a6fc240dab8c12d&n=T&l=tips&o=44479 or send a blank email to leave-44479-1632838.7e62b84813297f170a6fc240dab8c...@fsulist.frostburg.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=44481 or send a blank email to leave-44481-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
