Category: Writing

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From the mailroom: Kevin "Asian Grade" Smith Responds

Last weekend, I had a blog entry about a New York Times article that mentioned a term paper service called “Asian Grade.” This morning, I received an email about this blog post from none other than Kevin “Asian Grade” Smith himself. At least as far as I can tell it is him.

Anyway, I asked him if I could publish the email message he sent me and he said yes. So, without further delay or comment, here’s what Smith had to say about his thoughts on the NYT article, his site, and his thoughts on plagarism:

Hi, I saw that you bloged about us (Asian Grade) and just wanted to take a quick moment to say thank you and to perhaps clear up a couple misunderstandings and out of contexts quotes that were in the NY Times article.

To start off: we are not racists, by any means. We believe that we are just a humorous form of parody similar to the style of a Carlos mencia or a Dave chapelle (two mega popular TV shows) we use this parody and humor to reach an audience that we would possibly otherwise miss. An example of this can be seen on our appearance on the mega hit website davesdaily.com this summer. Additionally since being in business (for almost a year now, we have not received ONE complaint on our parody style of our website. Not one. In fact our myspace page (which gained almost 7000 friends in 2 months) has roughly 4500 of those friends being of Asian decent. The simple fact is we’ve been embraced by the Asian community as well as generation “next” 18-24 year olds)

Secondly and this is something we feel the Times left out is that we are first and foremost a campaign to eliminate the term paper as a legitimate academic tool. It is our opinion, that term papers are mindless make work assigned by either lazy teachers or simply teachers who dont want to rock the boat and mess with the status quo. Students do not learn by writing term papers and are such being victims of fraud. (Believe it or not students pay colleges to learn) Additionally, we encourage and support alternative means of education, I’m not a teacher and I can come up with a short list of better, more productive alternatives to term papers: class presentations, class debates, speeches, PowerPoint’s presentations, multimedia and website development etc. Imagine how many more options a teacher could come up with.

As to the fee issue that we do have for each paper. Here’s the deal behind that and I told this to the Times and they choose to ignore this… we loose $$ on the site. Being recent college grads, losing $ is not a luxury we like to take. That feature was designed to at the very least make our monthly server fee. However this backfired: Since we have been in existence, this featured has not been used ONCE. 2 last points on this if I may: 1. Were thinking about removing it. 2. You idea on the way back machine does not work. For one, we have not been saved once by them. For two: papers are done on a download from our website via MS Word. This prevents the Way Back Machine from accessing them.

We are willing to lose money because we believe in our cause. We believe in bringing this issue out in the open and shed light on something that has otherwise been overlooked because of the shadiness other sites in our industry. This shadiness is something we actively seek to change. We know that people have pre set assumptions on our industry. That is why we are proud to put light onto the industry, that is why we realize we need to go above and beyond the “slacker student” misconception. That is why we actively every other month do community service to better our community, and the face of the industry. This is also why we are a proud member of the adopt a highway program as well as have a stated community service and responsibilities section on our website.

We love your comment in your blog “In other words, make an assignment that’s easy to plagiarize and you can be assured that someone will do just that.” but would like to add something to that…we ask teachers to make assignments that are IMPOSABLE to plagiarize, we want to stress unique essay assignments is NOT the answer, unique lesson plans are. This way not only will a teacher be doing their job, but (and more importantly) a student is actually learning the material.

Finally, one thing I would like to bring to your attention that was left out of the Times article was an important notice of hypocrisy on the teacher’s side. Of the 5% of the custom paper sites out there who actually speak English and deliver quality, unique writing, these assignments are done by PAID teachers. That’s right, The ones writing custom papers for 15-20-25 bucks a page are teachers usually looking to make a quick $200-$300. Every month in the spring and fall I get 2-3 emails from teachers with resumes attached asking for work. In the summer this number ranges from 8-12. And the funny part is I dont even offer custom papers, teachers simply take 5 seconds to look at my site, see the word “term paper” and send me their resume. Imagine what actually custom paper sites get in their email box?? This shows me 2 things: 1. Teacher’s are not being paid enough. 2. Teachers acknowledge term papers are nonsense make-work one emailed resume at a time.

The question I ask is why do teacher’s insist on assigning term papers while everyone (including the teachers) know that students do not nor ever will learn ANYTHING from these assignments. (Besides of course becoming experts in what fonts look bigger.)

I would love to get a reply back from you, the more this topic is brought out in the open forum the better. Understand one very important thing, we both want to improve the quality of education in this country. The only difference (I think anyway) is that I believe education can only improve once a term paper is removed from the classroom.

I apologize for the long email, I am passionate about this subject.

Kevin Smith
AsianGrade.com

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My (and maybe your?) connection to the Firefox crop-circle

On a completely different topic: there have been numerous stories about the Firefox crop circle in Oregon lately. Well, this project was the brain-child of a couple of interns at Firefox, one of whom is Matt Shichtman, who is the son of one of my colleagues here, Marty Shichtman.

Anyway, it’s cool stuff, and certainly one of the greatest student intern summer projects I’ve heard of in a long time. Check out this blog entry which leads to a very large video about the event.

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Academic Holding Pattern

When it comes to writing the generic “start of the term” post, I have a couple of problems. While our trip to Europe earlier this month was a lot of fun, it wasn’t exactly relaxing. It was more of one of those great “trips” that require a bit of a “vacation” for recovery. So in a sense, I have kind of been making that vacation now, even though I’ve been sitting in on the training sessions for graduate assistants that Linda AK is leading before she hits sabbatical and hands me the keys to the first year writing program store– more on that in a bit.

And then there’s the whole faculty union stuff. But that’s the subject of a different (tomorrow’s?) post.

In any event, even the threat of a strike casts quite a shadow on the beginnings of the term, especially when it comes to the advising and quasi-administrative work that is going to make up the bulk of my work this year– again, more on that in a bit. I found myself last night going through a backlog of email and telling students, potential students, and other advisees that I will be available next week– unless we’re on strike. That’s kind of annoying, and while I suppose the union negotiators can be blamed for some of this, I mostly blame the administration and I really REALLY blame the lawyer that the university hires to break negotiate with the union. I am certain that if this guy was not at the table, the folks from the faculty and the folks from the administration would have worked out a deal months ago. But the lawyers get paid by the hour, and they get paid to bring us to the brink, right?

Oh wait– I said that was going to be a different post….

Besides this academic holding pattern created by a combination of my body/soul forcing a post-trip “break” and the relative uncertainty of the start of the term, I feel like my non-academic life is in a bit of a holding pattern, too. Our son doesn’t start school until after Labor Day, and oh my, we are all soooo ready for him to go back to school. The Washtenaw County Rec Center, which is where I go to work out (when I go to work out) is closed until September 1, which has thwarted my plans to start getting in shape right after our trip.

Anyway, I know this hold will end eventually. And when it does, when the term really does start, I will begin what will be I hope a very interesting year as a sort of faculty/administrator. I have been the “writing program coordinator” in our department since January. My charges in that job are to more or less run the undergraduate majors in professional and technical writing and our graduate programs in professional writing and teaching of writing. In addition to that, I’m going to be the “interim director of first year writing,” which is what Linda usually does and which is more akin to what most people think of as a WPA. I’m the go-to person for the 120 or so sections of first year writing we have each term, I’m the one who has to do all sorts of miscellaneous paperwork and meeting associated with all of that, and I’m going to take over the teaching of the course our grad students take to get ready to teach first year writing. Linda is teaching the part that meets for two weeks before the term begins right now.

So thing number 1 on my agenda for next year: Don’t screw up the Interim WPA thing too badly. Given the great incoming students we have and the support I’ll be getting from some other folks here (along with Linda from a short distance away), I think this is a goal I will be able to meet.

Agenda item #2: read (and not write) some scholarship. There’s two basic reasons for this. First, with my various quasi-administrative roles, I just don’t know how much time I’m going to have to work a lot on new articles or whatever, God forbid a book. Second, as I elluded to in my earlier posts about my academic mid-life crisis, I kind of feel like that if I don’t have a “burning project” I just have to do, then it would perhaps be a better idea to not do anything for a while. So I’m looking forward to just reading stuff for a year or so.

Well, other than at least one conference presentation.

Finally, there is agenda item #3: Get in better shape. This is an annual agenda item for me, of course. But given item #2, I might actually have a little more time to do this one this year….

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Catching up on blog reading

I did have relatively good Internet access while I was in Europe. It came at a price of between 2-4 Euros an hour, which isn’t too cheap, but it was everywhere. I didn’t take a computer with me, something I will reconsider on my next trip overseas– it would have been nice to do some writing and to watch some DVDs, though there was no WiFi access as far as I could tell. So I went to Internet cafes and I got online about four or five times, mostly to check my email for anything super important, to post to my unofficial blog about our travels, and to check the news.

It’s funny to think about; the last (and only other) time I was in Europe was on my/our honeymoon in 1994, quite a while before Internet cafes and news web sites and such. It was tough back then to even get newspapers and magazines in English, at least where we were. As a result, we found out about OJ and his infamous white Bronco ride a week after it happened while looking at a magazine on the way back home in the plane. This time, we had the ‘net, we had CNN Europe, we had access to USA Today. And as a result, I can tell you I think this John Karr guy is probably just a nut; I’d be very surprised if he did indeed kill JonBenet.

Anyway, even with this connectivity, I didn’t get a chance to read much in the way of blogs while I was away. So, in no real particular order, here are a few things I came across this morning via my RSS reader that might be helpfu to me later on and/or that I just thought were kinda interesting:

Okay, I know I missed a lot, but there you have it.

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9/11 Comic Book

I read in the Ann Arbor newspaper yesterday about a comic version of the 9/11 commission report and I found this morning the amazon.com link, which is where I might be ordering this book from. Or I might be waiting until I get back from my upcoming summer break.

Anyway, this is the sort of thing I need to get for both my teaching in English 328 and in 516, especially the undergraduate class, Writing, Style, and Technology. For a whole bunch of reasons I won’t go into now (but which boil down to the process EMU as an institution is now going through to accredit secondary school teachers), visual elements have become a lot more important in this course in the last year or so. Because Scott McCloud was on campus at EMU in winter 2006, I incorporated some readings and activities from Understanding Comics in my version of the class last year, and I am totally sold on the value of getting students to think about “the visual” as it relates to “the textual.”

At least at this level and for this class; I’m not as sold on this for fy comp. But that’s another story.

In any event, this new 911 comic looks promising. Besides as a potential teaching tool, I am interested in reading it myself.

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Umpteenth article on student writing (but this one says its good!)

Here’s a piece in Inside Higher Ed that might come in handy for English 596 for the Fall: “Worse Than Ever?” by Laurence Musgrove. It’s a refreshing piece because it actually makes the argument that I think is clearly the case: students are not actually becoming worse writers. And it’s a frustrating piece because there are a whole bunch of comments that basically say “I don’t care what various forms of evidence say– I still think that the kids are going to hell in a handbasket!”

At times like these, I always like to remind folks of one of my favorite quotes from the canon of ancient Greek rhetoricians; it comes from Isocrates’ Antidosis

Yes, and you have brought it about that the most promising of our young men are wasting their youth in drinking-bouts, in parties, in soft living and childish folly, to the neglect of all efforts to improve themselves; while those of grosser nature are engaged from morning until night in extremes of dissipation which in former days an honest slave would have despised. You see some of them chilling their wine at the “Nine-fountains”; others, drinking in taverns; others, tossing dice in gambling dens; and many, hanging about the training-schools of the flute-girls.And as for those who encourage them in these things, no one of those who profess to be concerned for our youth has ever haled them before you for trial, but instead they persecute me, who, whatever else I may deserve, do at any rate deserve thanks for this, that I discourage such habits in my pupils.

In other words, about 2400 years ago, the teacher/writer/rhetorician Isocrates was noting the bad habits of Greek young men– basically, back then, they too had too much in the way of drugs, sex, and rock-n-roll. The fact that adults/elders have problems with young people strikes me as more a factor of adults/elders facing their own mortality and distance from their own wasted youth than anything else.

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"Someone to Watch Over Me" article

I wasn’t planning on writing anything here this morning because I gave myself the treat of buying the Sunday New York Times and was planning on just reading and hanging out. But I came across an article that I think might be good for teaching, especially in 516, “Someone to Watch Over Me.” It’s sort of an exaggerated story of the virtual social life of the writer, though it might not be that much of an exaggeration.

I guess that just goes to show you that when academic-types aren’t working, they’re still working….

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QuickMuse (I am not)

From the “about” page, QuickMuse describes itself like this:

QuickMuse is a cutting contest, a linguistic jam session, a series of on-the-fly compositions in which some great poets riff away on a randomly picked subject.

Well, okay, I guess. Still, it seems like a strange kind of party trick to get famous poets to write quickly. I mean, why not the rest of us? Why not ask me? (Steve asks as he falls further and further behind in his projects because he writes too slowly….)

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"Pre-Writing" techniques gone mad!

Actually, that’s just a kind of catchy headline. But I stumbled this morning across this list of “Creativity Techniques,” which is at a wiki site for a group called “mycoted,” which is “dedicated to improving Creativity and Innovation for solving problems woldwide.” Pretty interesting; I haven’t looked at it too closely yet, but essentially, this list looks like variations on that old chesnut of the rhetorical canon, “invention.”

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Writing Cops?

Laurence Musgrove has an interesting piece in Inside Higher Ed called “The Real Reason Students Can’t Write.” I think it’s interesting because I agree with just about half of it.

Musgrove, who is an English professor-type who teaches first year writing and who has been involved in some writing programs at different schools, suggests the following causes of “bad student writing:”

I believe most faculty think that when they find an error in grammar or logic or format, it is because their students don’t know “how� to write. When I find significant errors in student writing, I chalk it up to one of three reasons: they don’t care, they don’t know, or they didn’t see it. And I believe that the first and last are the most frequent causes of error. In other words, when push comes to shove, I’ve found that most students really do know how to write — that is, if we can help them learn to value and care about what they are writing and then help them manage the time they need to compose effectively.

I think that this is all very very true. Musgrove also suggests that a lot of “bad” student writing continues to happen across the curriculum for two reasons. First, it’s a lot easier for most professors to complain about their student writing than to actually do anything about it– like, you know, teach (as opposed to merely assign) writing. Second, students rarely face serious consequences for bad writing; bad writing might receive a less than excellent grade, but rarely do students fail as a result of their bad writing.

But then Musgrove kind of loses me when he proposes this:

All faculty members are hereby authorized to challenge their students’ writing proficiency. Students who fail to demonstrate the generally accepted minimum standards of proficiency in writing may be issued a “writing ticket� by their instructors. Writing tickets become part of students’ institutional “writing records.� Students may have tickets removed from their writing records by completing requirements identified by their instructors. These requirements may include substantially revising the paper, attending a writing workshop, taking a writing proficiency examination, or registering for a developmental writing course. Students who fail to have tickets removed from their records will receive additional penalties, such as a failing grade for the course, academic probation, or the inability to register for classes.

Wha????

Look, average people/students already think that English and writing professors are members of some sort of grammar Nazi patrol; this guy wants to give us the power to write actual tickets? No thanks.

I have been thinking lately though how it’s a problem that comp/rhet folks have reduced the role grammar, correctness, and proofreading in contemporary pedagogy too much. To me, I think this is especially a problem in writing classes beyond first year writing. But that’s another post for another time.