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The Shadow Scholar: How I Made a Living Helping College Kids Cheat Hardcover – September 18, 2012

by Dave Tomar (Author)

24 customer reviews

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Last fall, a writer using the pseudonym Ed Dante wrote an explosive article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, confessing to writing term papers for a living. Technically, they are "study guides," and the companies that sell them-there are quite a few-are completely legal and easily found with Google. For about $10-20 a page, Dante's former employers will give you a custom essay, written to your specifications. During Dante's career, he wrote made-to-order papers for everything from introductory college courses to Ph.D. dissertations. There was never a shortage of demand.

The Shadow Scholar is Dante's account of this dubious but all-too-relevant career. In stories embarrassing, absurd, hilarious, and ultimately sobering, he explores not merely his own misdeeds but the bureaucratic and cash-hungry colleges, lazy students, and even misguided parents who helped make it all possible.

With unemployment pushing 10 percent and many college grads living with their parents, the need for this book has never been more urgent. As this bitingly funny memoir reveals, colleges and graduate schools are victims not merely of tough economic times but of a profound sense of entitlement and apathy. Here is a searing, often maddening indictment of the big business of college.

The Shadow Scholar: How I Made a Living Helping College Kids Cheat

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Dave Tomar
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Product Details

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (September 18, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1608197239
ISBN-13: 978-1608197231
Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,107,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #25235 in Books > Education & Teaching > Higher & Continuing Education
- #49793 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Memoirs
- #93980 in Books > Education & Teaching > Schools & Teaching

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3.8 out of 5 stars

5 star		46%
4 star		16%
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Top Customer Reviews

Worth reading, but doesn't live up to its promise

ByDunyazadVINE VOICEon October 2, 2012

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I loved the original Shadow Scholar article when I read it a couple of years ago. It was well-written and fascinating. Here was a guy making a living writing papers for other people--to put it more bluntly, helping students cheat their way through school--and he offered an inside look at a world that many of us had never seen before. I wanted to read more about it, so I was thrilled when I found out that he had a full-length book coming out; it was probably my most highly-anticipated read of the year.

Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bit of a let-down. The two works are completely different in tone, for starters. The article is smooth and polished, while the book feels a lot rougher, both in its argumentation and in its language.

There are certainly lots of thought-provoking ideas here, but as the book progressed, it increasingly turned into a self-indulgent personal history that was only tangentially related to the central issue. We hear lots and lots--and lots more--about how Tomar was working unsustainably hard to produce so many papers and make a living. He reached the point of burnout and was fired from multiple essay-writing companies. This is all well and good, except that it eventually becomes clear that these problems were just a matter of his time management skills and didn't necessarily result from the nature of the job. He took on too many assignments, he barely slept, and he used a lot of drugs to get through it all (and for fun on many other occasions). This might be partially understandable if he were working for minimum wage and honestly struggling to get by--but the few times when he mentions his pay and rate of production, he's making $45-$60 per hour. The numbers just didn't compute for me, even taking into account that the summer months were much slower. And if the point isn't to understand the job itself, but only to understand Tomar's personal issues, then the book suddenly becomes a whole lot less interesting.

By the end of it, I was just tired of hearing about Tomar's life, because it was pretty boring. I wanted to read about the work that he was doing, his communications with his clients, and the problems facing the post-secondary education system more broadly. And all of those topics are present. They're just diluted by largely irrelevant pages about Tomar's love life, his social activities, and other similar details. I could forgive him for the fact that his position isn't always carefully argued--for example, he asserts that professors hate Wikipedia because it eliminates their monopoly on information, with no reference at all to the fact that Wikipedia prioritizes common statements over accurate ones--because there's still some value in raising controversial and thought-provoking points. The tedium, though, really detracted from the reading experience, especially towards the end of the book. It took me much longer than expected to get through it. I still think this is a worthwhile read, but I wouldn't approach it with the highest of expectations.

0Comment 27 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

The Shadow Speaks

BytakingadayoffTOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICEon September 18, 2012

Format: Hardcover

The Shadow Scholar is based on an article which appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education in 2010. I didn't read the article at the time, but I remember that it caused an uproar in the education community.

In his book, David Tomar explains how he became disillusioned as a college freshman. He had gone into debt and was getting little from a university designed for profit more than for learning. When a friend offered to lend him the money he needed to pay off his gigantic parking ticket debt, Tomar balked, not knowing when he'd ever be able to pay her back. His friend offered an alternative. She needed a paper for an assignment and was willing to pay Tomar to write it for her. Soon other students were asking him to write their papers and Tomar was off and running.

Tomar was angry about his college experience and felt no guilt over writing papers for other students to turn in as their own. It was hard work. Tomar was driven, obsessed really, about writing as many papers and earning as much money as he could. So he kept late hours, drank too much coffee, ingested too many drugs, and wore himself out.

Tomar's indictment of the university system that crams as many students into a huge class as possible in order to maximize profits explains some of his anger, but he also expresses anger at his parents, ex-girlfriends, his high school and junior high school, George W. Bush, all of his employers, and the lazy rich students who paid him to write their papers. (Lazy rich students are only of the many groups that buy papers.)

Tomar professes to be anger-free by the end of the book, but it may be too early to be sure.

The book, which is really quite gripping, does a good job of explaining Tomar's motives. The story of how he spent a decade subverting an admittedly already corrupt system is fascinating. The discussion of the entire for-profit education system and the massive debt that students carry is an important one. On the down side, there is too much autobiographical filler in the book. You can easily skip the story of his days in junior high school and details about his relationship with his parents.

I found the actual process of writing so many papers on so many different subjects astonishing. Tomar may have received his degree from Rutger's, but he got his education from the essay mill.

22 comments 11 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Most Recent Customer Reviews

Great book

Now I know how those party schools / universities educate younger generation and why we get to see so many underperformed employees nowadays

Published on June 9, 2014 by Wu Chun Pang

The Truth Hurts

Have you ever done something wrong and wanted to admit it, but were afraid to do so for fear of the consequences? If you answered no, you're a robot.Read more

Published on May 28, 2014 by Adam Dembowitz

Great!!!

What a great true story. Was very interesting to hear about his life and how he used his writing skills!! Recommend to everyone!!

Published on April 26, 2014 by William M. Serotta

a book every lecturer, tutor, teacher and professor should read!

As a part-time academic and lawyer, this was a real eye-opener. It's a great read, once you get past the first two chapters where the author (understandably) is grinding an axe...Read more

Published on November 4, 2013 by UCJD2011

It feels like a "C." Bulk it up and add a few multicolored graphs.

It was an OK read.

The book is a short and just makes it over the 200 page target to be considered "Book Length."Read more

Published on November 1, 2013 by B. Steinberg

Readable, but not great

I started out really interested in the subject matter of this book. This guy was helping students write essays for their classes. What was he thinking? How did he get into it?Read more

Published on June 5, 2013 by Allstonite

Fascinating on Multiple Levels

Right off the bat, I have to say that helping students cheat to get through school is thoroughly immoral, and will likely have a negative impact on society as time goes by.Read more

Published on March 12, 2013 by Daisy1

Excellent and important book

In my opinion, Tomar completely nails the tone- for those complaining about it being about his personal life- how else could it have been structured?Read more

Published on March 4, 2013 by anne1111

Great book

Great read! Fast read. Wanted more! Very interesting description of how he got into the trade and his current views on how messed up education is in the US

Published on November 18, 2012 by Sarah E Gnadt

The Shadow Scholar: A lesson in personal maturity.

With a small break in my graduate school and work schedule, I managed to give a solid read-through of The Shadow Scholar: How I Made a Living Helping College Kids Cheat.Read more

Published on November 2, 2012 by Eric Sembrat

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The Shadow Scholar: How I Made a Living Helping College Kids Cheat Hardcover – September 18, 2012

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