Alan Jacobs proposes a novel theory for the success of essay mills in cranking out low-cost papers for slothful college students:
It seems to me that the most noteworthy fact here is this: essay mills of this kind can succeed only because college professors all over the Western world assign precisely the same kinds of papers. No wonder some of the writers can turn out dozens of the damned things in a week — “I can knock out 10 pages in an hour,” one of them says. “Ten pages is nothing.” The assignments we professors give are so woodenly predictable that they positively invite woodenly predictable essays in response.
I can feel a contest coming on: Propose a topic that’s truly essay-mill-resistant. Better yet, propose a general algorithm that makes any topic harder to fake from a distance. Remember: extra credit for originality!
