The Shadow Scholar – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Here’s one of the scariest and most riveting articles I’ve read recently: “The Shadow Scholar” in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Here’s a sampling:

“For those of you who have ever mentored a student through the writing of a dissertation, served on a thesis-review committee, or guided a graduate student through a formal research process, I have a question: Do you ever wonder how a student who struggles to formulate complete sentences in conversation manages to produce marginally competent research? How does that student get by you?”

“Let’s be honest: The successful among us are not always the best and the brightest, and certainly not the most ethical. My favorite customers are those with an unlimited supply of money and no shortage of instructions on how they would like to see their work executed. While the deficient student will generally not know how to ask for what he wants until he doesn’t get it, the lazy rich student will know exactly what he wants. He is poised for a life of paying others and telling them what to do. Indeed, he is acquiring all the skills he needs to stay on top.”

“Over the years, I’ve refined ways of stretching papers. I can write a four-word sentence in 40 words. Just give me one phrase of quotable text, and I’ll produce two pages of ponderous explanation. I can say in 10 pages what most normal people could say in a paragraph. I’ve also got a mental library of stock academic phrases: ‘A close consideration of the events which occurred in ____ during the ____ demonstrate that ____ had entered into a phase of widespread cultural, social, and economic change that would define ____ for decades to come.’ Fill in the blanks using words provided by the professor in the assignment’s instructions.”

“With respect to America’s nurses, fear not. Our lives are in capable hands­ — just hands that can’t write a lick. Nursing students account for one of my company’s biggest customer bases. I’ve written case-management plans, reports on nursing ethics, and essays on why nurse practitioners are lighting the way to the future of medicine. I’ve even written pharmaceutical-treatment courses, for patients who I hope were hypothetical.”