THE TEACHING ECONOMIST - William A. McEachern 
| Home | About The Teaching Economist | Contact the Editor | Support |
Issue 20, Spring 2001
William A. McEachern, Editor
Add Needless Words?
Years ago The Teaching Economist first discussed online paper mills that sell research to college students. That's old news. But one site that recycles papers from one course to another offers some curious information. The Evil House of Cheat (http://www.cheathouse.com) bills itself as "The perfect site for research, late assignments and general reference." As a come-on to justify its $10 annual subscription fee, the site provides a paper's pedigree, including its title, the student-author's comment on the paper, the grade it received, and in some cases the instructor's written comments.
The "Economics" portion of the site lists about 300 papers. Some student comments say a lot. To wit, "Took me two and a half hours to complete" (for a paper that earned an A-). "Actually wrote in high school but edited for college level" (what sort of metamorphosis was that?). And the paper Money: The Root of All Evil "was written for English class and I didn't have to use resources" (isn't that an economist's dream-production without resources?). On a paper entitled A Theory of Growth, the student comments "I really didn't understand the essay. I had a past TA write it for me. Don't ask me how." Another student said the paper entitled the Theory of Economics was "boring." I'll bet it was.
The comments from instructors were generally positive, which we might expect since students self-selected whatever comments they submitted to the site. But I especially liked some of the backhanded compliments from instructors, such as "Good paraphrasing," "Language was only problem," and my favorite, "Nicely typed."
Invariably instructors thought the papers too short, with comments such as "Good, otherwise too short," "needs to be lengthened," "needs to be longer," and "Just a bit short." Not a single instructor wrote that a paper was too long. But I would wager that many of them were too long for what they had to say. By telling students to stretch it out, aren't we sending the wrong message -- the equivalent of "Add needless words"?