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Plagiarism Inc.
Here's an interesting article on the life and times of 24-year-old Jordan Kavoosi, who has made a business of plagiarism. His Essay Writing Company employs writers from across the country, and will deliver a paper on any subject for $23 per page. In addition, his company will get it done in 48 hours, and he guarantees at least a B grade or your money back. From the article: "'Sure it's unethical, but it's just a business,' Kavoosi explains. 'I mean, what about strip clubs or porn shops? Those are unethical, and city-approved.'"
I asked Jordan Kavoosi if his business was a scam. If he had failed to pay writers. If his tattoos made him look like a dbag. He sent me a YouTube video response.
... I teared up during his re-enactment of the ending of 300. Frank Miller would be proud.
And in case he decides to take down his brilliant acting resumes (complete with sunglasses) like he did with other videos, here are some mirrors. I
Hilarious article though, well done CityPages. I liked the dialogue with the judge and the story of Kavoosi's tattoos at the end. Clear infatuation with himself, I'd avoid.
My work here is dung.
I don't think I'd call a strip club or porn shop unethical. By some standards immoral for sure.. but what is the ethical violation of a strip club or porn shop?
The ethical implications of this are pretty direct though. You help someone get credentials which they are not qualified for, they become a civil engineer and end up building a bridge that falls on your head, cause someone wrote the paper on "building bridges that don't fall on people" for them.
Obviously that's a much oversimplified and unlikely scenario. And ethical concerns aside, I think this is hillarious. This guy has some stones!
While I'm on my soapbox, I'd like to say I think it's pretty sad that this kind of service is useful. If education was done properly, or specifically if students were evaluated in a meaningful and practical way, this service would be useful to maybe a handful of smart but lazy students.
Here's an interesting article on the life and times of 24-year-old Jordan Kavoosi who has made a business of plagiarism. His Essay Writing Company employs writers from across the country, and will deliver a paper on any subject for $23 per page. In addition, his company will get it done in 48 hours, and he guarantees at least a "B" grade or your money back. From the article: "'Sure it's unethical, but it's just a business,' Kavoosi explains. 'I mean, what about strip clubs or porn shops? Those are unethical, and city-approved.'"
I wonder if they can write 5 point comments for me?
that given Mr. Kavoosi's lack of basic vocabulary knowledge, it's a good thing that he hires other people to write the papers he sells. Someone one who doesn't know what the word 'ethical' actually means would probably have a hard time writing papers that use other large words. Unless, perhaps, they were writing papers for business classes...
It is possible to foresee an educational model in which ghostwritten papers are sent straight to the outsourced graders, eliminating the inefficiencies that students and educational institutions bring to the process.
"Imaginary solutions to real problems."
ok, so this is unethical,
but lets look at this with more grainularity:
at what point have I reached unethical in the following situations
1. I hire a typist to type my thesis (this is before computers)
2. I hire a graphic artist to draw my figures
3. I hire a presentation firm to do my powerpoint slides (beamer for me please)
4. I 'hire' (read: give the honor of doing my research) master's students to run my experiments / write code.
5. I 'hire' (read: give the honor of doing my research) phd students to draw conclusions on those experiments
Is the difference between buying an essay and being a research professor that thin? jeesh
jp
Ghostwriting it may be, but unethical it definitely is.
As an academic, I've had numerous cases over the years where a student submits work that he did not write. Just because he may have legally engaged a "ghostwriter" to provide this work does not mean I won't flunk him just the same, and in some cases, see to his expulsion.
When a celebrity, say Sarah Palin, writes a book, everyone just assumes that it's a ghostwriter actually constructing the sentences. Nobody who buys such a book is going to be outraged because it's actually the work of a ghostwriter, because the entire enterprise is more of a cultural badge than a meaningful bit of literature.
If a student submits a paper however, there is the solemn contract between him and the institution that the work presented is his and his alone. It's all over the student handbook and the institution's rules. When you try to play fast and loose with that, you've crossed a line and should be punished. Of course, in many cases it's impossible for a professor to determine whether the student that he's seen a handful of times, out of a class of a hundred or more, was actually capable of writing what he submitted. Since part of my expertise is in the analysis of literary styles, I could usually accurately determine whether someone has written a submitted work, as long as I've exchanged at least a few sentences with him in the course of a semester. Over 20 years, there was only one circumstance where I had an incorrect initial opinion about a student's work, and in that case a brief meeting with the unusually quiet, shy student confirmed that he indeed was the author of the wildly expressive roman candle of a paper he submitted. He got off the hook, got an "A" and ended up as my advisee when he got his well-deserved PhD. Today he writes a most impressive and successful political/cultural blog (Hi Roy!) but really ought to be writing fiction because the motherfucker's a pistol. Now that I've retired from academia, he is one of the students of whom I am most proud.
In closing, let me just say this to anyone thinking about buying a paper online: It's totally lame, so write your own goddamn paper. You're a student dickwad, so you really don't have anything better to do, and if you think your Economics paper is more important than the paper for my class, which you are only taking to satisfy some Humanities requirement, so it's OK to let some bogus bullshit through to me since you don't plan to ever care about literature or composition once you are trading derivatives, I can assure you that you will be found out and that your parents are going to kick your ass when they learn you were thrown out of school for being a douchebag, and your plans for being one of the gods of finance will be shredded into little tiny pieces. And yes, you'll still have to pay off those student loans.
You are welcome on my lawn.