The Chronicle of Education had an interesting interview/article (November 12, 2010) on the sale of academic papers by a "Shadow Scholar". This process seems to be widespread (and profitable) for those who have writing abilities and worthwhile to the hoards of students needing a paper. Or a draft, thesis statement, or revision. They interviewed a "shadow scholar" to better understand this phenomenon which probably has been under scrutinized by those of us in academia. An area of concern for me personally was that he occasionally had parents order papers from him because "failing is not an option" for their students. In other words, success did not equate learning. Success was having something to turn into the professor. This article should be taken seriously but there were some areas of humor. I especially liked his quote that students were "communicating in haiku, each less decipherable than the one before it".
The "Shadow Scholar" participated in a Live Chat on November 17, 2010 and the transcript is available at http://people.stu.ca/~hunt/temp/livechat.htm. In essence, the "Shadow Scholar" is saying that grades are "killing" students and we should be looking at other ways to effectively encourage actual learning instead of encouraging to make a good grade. Let me know what you think.
