New Article on Online Paper Mills from Kelly Ritter

Remember our mini-conference/maxi-review of Kelly Ritter's article titled "The Economics of Authorship: Online Paper Mills, Student Writers, and First-Year Composition," from College Composition and Communication June 2005 (56.4)? I had a couple of posts: "It don't matter. None of this matters." Or, composition pedagogy and Ritter's article on plagiarism and More on Authorship, Intellectual Property, "Templates," and Student Writing. Anyway, Ritter emailed me yesterday saying that the CCC article had originally been a longer piece, but that she had split it up into two articles. The second article, "Buying In, Selling Short: A Pedagogy Against the Rhetoric of Online Paper Mills," is now available in the latest issue of Pedagogy. [Note: When I say "available," I mean it's actually available for anyone who would like to download the PDF. So lack of access shouldn't be a deterrent to discussing the article.] It coincides with an article from today's Post on college entrance essay writing services. It's by a woman who worked for one of these services, first as an editor of students' essays, then as a writer for "model essays" that were supposed to serve as "inspiration" but instead were sent right off to the schools. The correlations with Ritter's work are striking, as some see the essays not as cheating or stealing but as fairly compensated labor (my emphasis):

This form of organized, for-profit cheating was unfamiliar to me, so I decided to look into how pervasive it might be. Of the 30 online editing companies I checked, four list the mock or model essay as a service. A handful of others offer varying degrees of application assistance. The least impressive but most affordable allow students to scan thousands of sample essays from a database, arranged by category, for a mere $20 a month.

At the other end of the spectrum is the fully commissioned piece written on a student's behalf -- of course, always for "inspiration." They call it the "authentic" essay. The hypocrisy isn't subtle. On the Web site of one such service, which also offers term-paper writing, is a blinking banner proclaiming: "Worry about plagiarism? Aaaaaaaaa! We write only original papers!"

I should point out that, as far as I have been able to determine, many of these companies are legitimate. They do not offer "model essays," just proofreading and light editing. Maybe I just picked one of the bad apples. But any company that offers something like the Comprehensive Package and then turns a blind eye to the possibility of its misuse inevitably facilitates cheating.

The Internet has made it possible to cheat with unprecedented ease, speed and sophistication. "Cheating is nothing new," one college admissions officer told me, "but organized cheating in the college application process is a growing problem." Like all the admissions officers I spoke to, he was aware that, as schools become more selective and applicants come under increased pressure, there's an obvious market for companies that, however unethically, will sell students a competitive edge.

[. . .]

Having braved the application process myself six years ago, I fully sympathize with how stressful it is. But there's a significant distinction between hiring a professional editor and buying an unethical product.

Students who believe they are ready to attend college should not be searching for this form of application assistance. My clients thought they were gaining something by hiring my professional services. But in the process they were losing something far more important: an opportunity to define their own authentic voices.

Anyone game for doing a massive multi-thinker online review of this latest Ritter article? And, on a more personal note, I've recently discovered that someone is copying and pasting my blog posts onto his/her own blog and not giving me credit for them, and I must admit, it's really sticking in my craw. Any suggestions on how to handle it?