Nick Mamatas is the author of two novels — described as the science fiction satire Under My Roof and the Lovecraftian Beat road novel Move Under Ground — but he has also earned the title of The Term Paper Artist, for cranking out hundreds of papers on short notice for a fee:
I don’t have the academic credentials of composition experts, but I doubt many experts spent most of a decade writing between one and five term papers a day on virtually every subject. I know something they don’t know; I know why students don’t understand thesis statements, argumentative writing, or proper citations.It’s because students have never read term papers.
Imagine trying to write a novel, for a grade, under a tight deadline, without ever having read a novel. Instead, you meet once or twice a week with someone who is an expert in describing what novels are like. Novels are long stories, you see, that depict a “slice of life” featuring a middle-class protagonist. Psychological realism is prized in novels. Moral instruction was once fairly common in novels, but is now considered gauche. Novels end when the protagonist has an epiphany, such as “I am not happy. Also, neither is anybody else.” Further, many long fictions are called novels even though they are really adventures, and these ersatz novels may take place in a fantastical setting and often depict wild criminal behaviors and simplified versions of international intrigues instead of middle-class quandaries. Sometimes there are pirates, but only so that a female character may swoon at their well-developed abdominal muscles. That’s a novel. What are you waiting for? Start writing! Underline your epiphany.
He makes a good point: students have never read term papers.
An amusing corollary: If you ever find yourself a grad student grading undergrad papers for the first time, you suddenly realize why not everyone goes on to grad school. You probably had no idea just how bad everyone else’s work was.