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

by Dave Tomar

Dave Tomar wrote term papers for a living. Technically, the papers were “study guides,” and the companies he wrote for-there are quite a few-are completely aboveboard and easily found with a quick web search. For as little as ten dollars a page, these paper mills provide a custom essay, written to the specifics of any course assignment. During Tomar's career as an academic surrogate, he wrote made-to-order papers for everything from introductory college courses to Ph.D. dissertations. There was never a shortage of demand for his services. The Shadow Scholar is the story of this dubious but all-too-common career. In turns shocking, absurd, and ultimately sobering, Tomar explores not merely his own misdeeds but the bureaucratic and cash-hungry colleges, lazy students, and even misguided parents who help make it all possible.

Genres: Nonfiction, Education, Memoir, Crime, Academia, Biography

272 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2012

Reviews

[Tarynwanderer · Rating 2 out of 5]

[This review can also be found on Bookwanderer!]

My feelings about this book, as presented to you by the venerable Kevin McCallister: "Buzz, your girlfriend...woof!"

Okay, okay, that was snippy, but this book brings out the worst in me.

Dave Tomar is a producer of "study guides," papers written to the exact specifications of the students who pay him. Those students then hand in Tomar's papers as their own work. Tomar, who found attending Rutgers to be a tumultuous experience (and ultimately, a waste), starts in this line of work as a student himself; upon graduation, he continues it by working for several different "paper mills" that have perfected the paper-buying system by moving it online. The Shadow Scholar is his account of his time at Rutgers and post-graduation as an essay-writer-for-hire, interspersed with facts and statistics about the U.S. education system, Generation Y, and business practices. (And yes, this is the same Tomar who, as Ed Dante, wrote this article for The Chronicle of Higher Education.)

My main issue was this: so much of the book smacks of justification of Tomar's job. While I appreciate knowing the motivation behind a memoirist's decisions, to go on angrily and at length about how you were forced into an unethical career due to campus parking tickets, poor professors, and a terrible job market is not pleasant reading. Because college failed Tomar, he decided that helping to widen the cracks of a broken system wasn't a big deal. (Tomar likening himself to a neglected child, lashing out against the abuse of college, was a particularly offensive bit of metaphor. Really, dude?)

The contrasts between The Shadow Scholar and Always Running, a memoir of growing up as part of a Chicano gang and of truly lacking access, autonomy and choice, could not have been sharper for me. Sure, I have student loan debt, but my brothers never cut my tongue with a razor blade when I lost a fight. Everything's relative.

I am a bleeding-heart liberal through and through, and so I technically agree with much of what Tomar writes. It is shameful that in the U.S., higher education is a privilege and not a right, that students graduate so deep in debt they will be paying it off for the rest of their lives, that support systems for low-income students are either shaky or nonexistent.

That's why it kills me to admit that I found myself blaming him.

Basically, I began to feel that it wasn't the system that was the problem every single time--it was Tomar. He comes off as abrasive, juvenile (I cringed at his jokes about...everything) and arrogant. It was hard for me to feel sympathetic for someone who feels no remorse at all for his work aiding people in cheating, and in fact, at various points characterizes this work as the shining result of globalization and free-market capitalism, and himself as far superior to the clients whom he considers morons.

I'm not naive; there are severe issues ingrained in our educational system, not least of which is the pressure on high school students to plunge themselves deeply into debt to pay for college. And the current obsession with getting into "good" colleges that manifests itself as parents competing to get their toddlers into the best preschools is ridiculous.

But college is venerated for a reason. It can help uplift students out of generational poverty. It's the first step in helping young women have more options available to them. It introduces sheltered teenagers to new cultures, new people, new ideas, and new ways of thinking. It's a formative experience for millions of people.

So in praising self-education and education using internet resources--one of his hobby-horses--Tomar completely ignores the benefits of experiential learning, or learning by doing. As an environmental educator and volunteer, that immediately struck me as a weakness of his arguments in favor of purely online education. Experiencing nature--to use one example--can help students learn to explore, use critical thinking, and understand interconnectivity. It's been linked to decreases in obesity and in ADHD behaviors, and to better standardized test scores. You can't really get those same results by plunking students down in front of computers and letting them google "nature."

I am willing to concede, though, that his interpretation of events is probably truthful. I only have my own experiences with my undergraduate and graduate institutions to pull from, and while I did experience a few typical mix-ups, by and large the administrators at my school were helpful, friendly, and responsive.

The Shadow Scholar is interesting, if only to get a glimpse of what the world of college cheating looks like. I certainly learned a fair bit about the process of buying a paper from someone, and that's what drew me to request the book in the first place. I did feel for Tomar at some points, when the frat-boyish facade was dropped, but overall, I couldn't help feeling disenchanted.

I received this book free for review from the publisher, Bloomsbury USA, through NetGalley. The Shadow Scholar will be released September 18, 2012.

Bookwanderer Rating: Two out of five stars
Bookwanderer Tagline: "I have made my living off of a disaffected, in secure, and dependent generation with no sense of itself, its obligations, and the obligations ahead of it."

[Dani Shuping · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC provided by NetGalley

Almost two years ago “Ed Dante” wrote an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education on his experiences writing for a paper mill. His article created a wave of conversation across academia as we read his story of how he wrote assignments not only for undergraduates, but Master’s and PhD level students in all fields as well. And just how little and poorly prepared many of these students were. And now Ed is back, under his real name of Dave Tomar, he shares his story of how he got into writing papers for his fellow students at Rutgers University to his final assignment of writing a Dissertation.

Dave’s tale alternates between autobiographical and a harsh condemnation upon the higher education system that produces students that can’t write their own assignments and are all too willing to pay someone else to do them. Dave provides details, such as emails exchanged between the parties, that show just how poorly they can spell and provides anecdotes from conversations exchanged with parties as to why they aren’t doing the assignments themselves. He shines a particularly harsh light upon Rutgers University and how it failed not only to provide him with a worthwhile education, but other students as well. Dave relates how these experiences followed him throughout his career and the trends that he sees at other universities as well. This unique tale raises questions, much like the original article, that still need to be addressed and answered. Such as, are we pushing too many students towards college without grounding? Are we providing the right resources and focus so that students can succeed in their college experience?

Where the book falters, at least for me, is that Dave often gets long winded, often providing descriptions of what he thinks students look like based upon their email. Or being overly harsh upon his own educational experience and his attempts to show that school hasn’t improved, such as how long it took the parking service to email him back with information about how they spend money. Or where he describes having pot under his fingernails for job interviews. It’s these types of points that will cause some readers to ignore the valid points Dave is bringing up in his book and write him off as nobody or a whiner, which is a shame.

Overall, even with the deviations, this is still a book that folks in higher education should read. I give the book 3.5 out of 5 stars.

[Jo · Rating 2 out of 5]

I initially glanced over this, but the tagline forced a second look. The inside flap sounded interesting so I checked it out from the library, hoping for a good, in-depth look at the failings of the university education system.

THE SHADOW SCHOLAR dances around the subject and gives Dave Tomar a chance to recount some of his bitter dealings with university life, but most of the book is spent detailing Tomar's past, which really isn't as interesting as it sounds. I can sit through one or maybe two accounts of how he produced an essay for a desperate/lazy/procrastinating college student (or said student's parent), but he kind of goes overboard with his stories, to the point where it seems like he thinks his previous job is something worth bragging about.

Let's just say that with his experience, Tomar is very good at padding out essays for college kids, and it shows.

[Rich Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Right off the bat, the subject of cheating is so scandalous. It just pulls you right in. Just google college cheating and every major news network is covering th subject, But it's really Mr. Tomar's writing style and sense of humor that keep you turning the pages, and turning them quickly. The subject of this book is fascinating, the pace is furious and the laughter frequent. The chapter on for profit colleges blew my mind. These companies are EVIL. I also found the author's personal stories very interesting.

Now, take a moment and think about the fact that your doctor, lawyer, kid's teacher, congresman psychologist or accountant may be one of the clients Mr. Tomar so eloquently describes in his book. Be afraid, be very afraid!

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dave Tomar writes a memoir of the years he lived and supported (barely) himself writing research papers and essays for an online company that students at all levels paid a lot of money for. You want to hate a person who helps others cheat their ways through academia but Tomar makes that impossible. Of course, many of his clients are incredibly lazy, have too little command of English to be in an American university, or are just plain illiterate (most, it seems). But he also "cheats" for the over-scheduled panic-stricken high school students who try to meet their parents' overwhelming expectations of them often in vain and despair. I was impressed that Tomar did actually write mostly decent papers, did all his own research, never plagiarized, seemed to genuinely care about his work, and -- ultimately -- drove himself and others around him nearly insane with his obsession to be constantly writing (and earning a living wage).

Though I never incurred any dislike for Tomar's profession, I bemoan the academic atmosphere that allows students to keep such companies alive and thriving. I don't see them as overworked victims of the system but real cheaters. With nearly no real evidence that they ever learned anything in college, they have become our co-workers, our bosses, our corporate CEOs, our freely-spending unethical Wall Street behemoths, maybe even our physicians and lawyers. Think about that next time you meet with a so-called professional who appears to be an idiot -- he may well be that!

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating book about the exploitation of weaknesses in the education system, with an interesting angle showing how Big Education resembles Big Business in the profit motive. Seems that many people in this world can barely put a sentence together and are willing to pay someone else to think for them.

At turns funny, pathetic, and a bit terrifying, Dave's story is one that should be read by educators just so they can see what they might possibly be up against.

My favorite part: "Don't tell us not to use Wikipedia. We're going to do it anyway. Show us how to read it, how to verify its claims, how to spot and debunk its errors, even how to correct it and contribute to its improvement." (p.87)

Also, seeing some of the assignment instructions, I was truly grateful for not being a student anymore.

[Tamara]

I wanted to learn more about cheating. Not sure I did - Tomar has relatively little to say about his clients - though his own sort of slightly lame main character syndrome and contempt for institutions offers something in that regard. The writing does improve as he matures (I wondered if the book was actually sketched out over a long time, as the early lengthy anecdotes about parking tickets read like they were written by a teenager and I had to skim through long sections.) I'm baffled by why he kept is up for so long if it was both exhausting and poorly paid, and his sense that writing end of term papers is living on the edge akin to, at minimum, joining the French Foreign Legion, is risible. Oh well.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating, horrifying look at the oozing sore of today's college experience. You've heard about the binge drinking, the hazing, the spring break of sex, drugs, and harassment, of outrageous tuition hikes and $300 textbooks. But have you heard about large-scale academic fraud? About blatant dishonesty in classrooms across America and around the world? An earlier generation's "everyone cheats" has become "everyone cheats on everything."

I wanted to read this so badly I ordered it when the store had no copies. The first 100 pages are a disappointment. But it gets better. I have complaints, but I commend this book to every teacher grading research papers.

This book has tone problems: Was I right to help college kids cheat, or was I right to quit in search of an honest living? Or are both options right? Or is ‘right and wrong’ a meaningless social construct?

The book does not answer such questions—it raises them, but it cannot answer them. Perhaps that is to be expected when a career “cheater” writes a tell-all. He is reformed now, and the book ends with hope for a brighter future. But the book begins with a defense of cheating that consumes over 100 pages: it’s the college’s fault, it’s society’s fault, it’s New Jersey’s fault, it’s President Bush’s fault, it’s television’s fault, it’s my high school’s fault, it’s Rutgers' fault, it’s the federal student loan system’s fault, it’s the college admissions officer’s fault, it’s the financial aid officer’s fault, it's the usurious practices of the Rutgers parking system's fault (what a story!), it’s the professors’ fault, it’s poverty’s fault, and on and on and on.

I was annoyed and took to writing notes all over the book—reactions to Tomar’s arguments. At one point I wrote that “this cheater is one of the most cynical, self-justifying writers I have ever read, a whining child with no coping skills. He is so bitter about Rutgers it hurts his credibility on every subject.”

Tomar's book is personal and passionate. He writes with an engaging frankness that is immediate and forthright. You may not like him, but you will encounter the man head-on. His voice is fresh, frank, and forthright, and it will provoke a reaction. I gave the book four stars in part because it got under my skin: Tomar frustrated me, but I found myself thinking about the book throughout the day. That is a win for him (and I rarely give four stars).

His personal tone, his engaging passion that grabs the reader by the lapels and shouts and spits in his face--that loud voice that cannot be ignored--evoked a personal reaction from me. It is not the most sophisticated way to analyze a book, but at each turn I found myself comparing Tomar's choices to my own: What would I do in the same situation? How would I handle a life-crushing bureaucracy? Could I ever share his attitudes? How would I write the ideal paper? How would I write a paper if nothing mattered but coherent English and the page count? My answers do shape the admittedly self-serving essay that follows.

At one point in his rants about Rutgers, Tomar calls himself a “swindled investor” who is practically forced to cheat on papers. After reading 100 pages of this, I was so done. The book began annoying me. But then he tells another detailed story about a specific paper, the instructions he received by email (from the college student’s mother!), his writing process, and the complaints he later received from another barely literate student who instead of taking ESL classes in night school where he belongs is working on a PhD somewhere—and I was hooked. There is compelling, extraordinary, outrageous content here.

If Tomar has a thesis, it may be this:

“The world was a crooked place, and I was no Boy Scout. There are more evil things that one can do than defraud a university. And at the time, I really felt that it was one of the finest things that I could do. My university had defrauded me.”

I found this argument specious and despicable. Like Tomar, I hated high school, was chronically un-motivated, and graduated in the middle of my class. But instead of blaming the system, I attacked my college education with zeal and enthusiasm (and it was my good fortune to attend a small private college where I ran into none of the road blocks that barred Tomar’s way). Nevertheless, I found Tomar’s chiseling defense aggravating and immature. He was me at my worst, only my worst had not descended that low. Then he was every one of my lowest-achieving but highly gifted high school students, too busy making excuses to bother tapping into their real potential. I found that tiresome too: (If I had a dollar for every student with self-diagnosed “senioritis”….)

Then he was that cheater I knew in law school whose plagiarized paper kept me up nights in my duties to make it “publishable,” until finally I threw my hands up and took it to our editor-in-chief. She immediately recognized the egregious violations and the student (a judge today!) was brought before the university's honor court. Then Tomar began to remind me of the college kids I teach in an urban state college. I have seen it all at this point, and Tomar’s book did not seem to be providing me with anything I did not already know.

The first significant work of my own that was published was a 2002 analysis of a law passed in 1998. While the paper has its flaws, I was proud of my work for two reasons: first, the paper includes notes from my interview with the man who shaped the drafting of that law and whose efforts led to its passage--in other words, the paper added relevant, never-before-seen information to the discussion of its subject, and second, I knew that I had read every word I could find on that subject--literally: every word. I used the internet to find sources, but by the time of publication, there was nothing published on the law that I had not read and wrestled with. I knew the context of every quotation and fully comprehended every source I cited. Never before had I so thoroughly mastered the materials I included in a paper. I knew that was the way it was supposed to be done, and that was the reason my paper would be published in academic journal: mastery of a subject based on a thorough comprehension of everything published on the subject to-date.

Thus, I was not overwhelmed by Tomar’s gifts as a writer—he is a good writer, of course, blessed with an easy fluency that allowed him to cobble together three or four decent research papers a day with no real mastery of the subject matter—because (and this is where we professors need help) a "passing" paper does not require such mastery, but need only string together useful quotes in a manner that progresses from point A to point B. What is impressive is not so much Tomar's gift for the composition process but his willingness to work extremely hard, and his flippant disregard for the sort of excellence that separates the good from the good enough (his race to fill a page-count cannot be slowed down by high standards of quality control). What Tomar has is experience. Who has written as many papers as this man--and on such a stunning breadth of topics? It is an astounding tale.

**(As an aside, I would note the cover of this paperback edition, a misguided effort to illustrate Tomar's prolific work: it is a stack of paper, thousands of pages high. Yet the curiously (dare I say, "ironically"?) misleading cover art is a picture of the one thing Tomar never did--print papers. He is unapologetically committed to the internet, to internet sources, and to emailing papers and files back and forth. He has only insults for professors who forbid internet sources--though of course, this could be one of the better ways to prevent cheating, though Tomar does not say.)

But there remained one thing I wanted from him. I grade student research papers every semester. I am realistic about cheating and plagiarism. Frankly, I expect it. But what if I am missing something? Could Tomar help me? When CATCH ME IF YOU CAN’s Frank Abagnale left his life of fraud, he traded the life of a fake pilot, fake doctor, and fake lawyer, for life as a real FBI agent. Could Tomar do the same? Could Tomar’s experience help college professors better detect fake papers? I kept reading. The book gets better. He grows a bit. He reflects once in a while, when he is not stoned or high or drunk or all three. He finds love and thinks about the future. He admits, “I was a disappointment. A handful of squandered talent, all the straight As that a third grader’s mother could want, all the ambition to learn, to know, to become more. Now I was just an angry jerk with a shitty job, just barely affording a crummy apartment.”

And he tells more good stories about crazy papers and crazy clients. It was depressing, the ease with which students can buy and sell papers disheartening. Could Tomar teach me something? Anything?

His book is filled with research, peppered with quotes and notes of all kinds. The back includes Notes, a Bibliography, and an Index—all the things my generation desperately needed for research papers before the internet. Frankly, Tomar’s book, packaged as a memoir, may include too much research. And his handling of it always left me wondering—did he read the source, or just copy the sentence he liked? Does he have any idea what the author was really getting at—does he know the context—or is this just another pretty proof text he can use to decorate the book the way he decorated all those papers? Tomar himself seems to share my doubts:

“Even writing papers had become a menial, formulaic task. It was as rote and thoughtless as anything. . . . I had started to feel more and more like a guy who only read the inside jacket of the book, the back cover of the DVD, the little blurb in TV Guide. You get the idea.”

Yes. I get the idea: proof texting. Find a great line, copy it into your paper, grab the citation information, and move on. Why bother reading entire articles? Who has the time to master context or content? Who needs expertise when you can write well enough to make a superficial conversation interesting?

Although THE SHADOW SCHOLAR is his first book, Tomar’s baby, if you will, his magnum opus, and a project that probably drew from him much more effort than the meaningless papers he anonymously sold to the highest bidder, I found myself unable to trust Tomar’s research. To use a television analogy from my college years, I felt like Diane Chambers being wooed by Sam Malone. Is this just a line you’re using on me, the way you used it on hundreds of others before me? Are these words true and reliable? Are these quotes helpful? Do these stats really mean what you say they mean? Is this thing legit?

I found it hard to be persuaded by Tomar’s sources, not only because of the way he prostituted his writing talents in the past, but also because of the extraordinary bitterness and anger that pervade so much of the book. I could not shake the feeling that the quotes and stats Tomar offers are simply the best “hits” he found with each Google search. Why read the whole article? Why master the subject or even comprehend another writer’s entire argument? Just grab a good line and move on.

Still, the story became interesting, if not because of the research, which I found uninteresting, then because of Tomar’s own narrative. The memoir is worth the read. The rambling essay on the breakdown of the modern university, not so much.

That being said, the essay on for-profit universities is worth the read, and probably the cost of the book. Unfortunately, it is almost entirely hearsay evidence, Tomar’s re-telling of the experiences of a friend who worked for an unnamed for-profit university. The allegations of pervasive and criminal fraud and abuse are too significant, too important not to be reported by an eye-witness.

In the end, the larger story here is worth reading. As a book, it is not without its speed bumps. But the story is good and it does merit the praise it received from the Washington Post: “a stunning tale of academic fraud… shocking and compelling.”

It is that.

I wish Tomar could do more to help fix what he considers a broken system. I wish he could take a path like Abagnale’s—and use his gifts and experience to help cure the ills in the modern university. But until then, his book does a yeoman’s job detailing the breadth and depth of a problem previously lurking in the shadows. It is shocking and discouraging. But I will be a better professor for having read it.

[Kitty Jay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back when Mr. Tomar was still writing under the pseudonym "Ed Dante", I read the article he wrote for the Chronicle of Higher Education and nodded knowingly throughout. Students who could barely articulate a thought, yet still passing their classes? Check. Students wantonly spending their money and somehow earning a degree? Check.

I remember most vividly the comments, ranging from disbelief and claims that Tomar (Dante, then) was outrageously exaggerating the poor quality of writing exhibited by his clients to arrogant professors assuring him that he would not be able to pass their class, surely. I even read a few that speculated that someone who is obviously as capable as Tomar would surely not be doing grunt work for pittance, so it must be some sort of joke or hoax.

The last is, tangentially, what Tomar is addressing. Apparently those souls have bought into the fiction that being smart and prodigious at college necessarily leads to a cushy job, apparently having bought wholesale into the scam that Tomar uncovers in his book.

The beginning reveals Tomar's fraught relationship with his alma mater, particularly the parking division, the bete noir of many a college student. Though he claims to not be resentful anymore, it is hard to take him at his word when the rage boils off the page. And I sympathize. After reading his article, I remember writing a similar, scathing indictment of the promises made to me that college was the only way to get ahead, that afterward I would be able to find a job. Instead, I saw students whose parents paid for everything skate by with little to no effort; they would later land jobs at their parent's firms. Meanwhile, I poured my heart and soul into college, had a 4.0 as a first generation college student, and ate half a pack of Ramen for breakfast and the rest for dinner. I graduated with no cushy job, but plenty of debt to repay.

Eventually, of course, I did find a job, and most of that resentment has become aged, if not dimmed, much like Tomar's apparently has. I see many people angry at his justifications, but I sympathize - even empathize - with him. Because it feels like the system is rigged from the start. We are told time and time again that being smart will help us get ahead; that pulling a 4.0 will get us an interview, that our intelligence will shine in a job*, and we will eventually pull ahead of the people who used to shove us into lockers (metaphorically, one hopes). Yet instead, we see that people whose parents pay for everything can pass through with no problems and still get ahead, so our intelligence is worthless - unless we monetize it ourselves, as Tomar did, by writing papers. I read comments about how college is "what you put into it", and that's true; in the end, these clients are only cheating themselves, but I imagine many of them are doing just fine, which is maddening. It's why people believe in a Just World syndrome, because the alternative is that we inhabit a Kafkaesque world where the smart people are laden with student debt while idiots who cheat get the corner office. Yes, he might be justifying, but it's hard not to when faced with an 8.5% interest rate on thousands of dollars worth of loans. Though the way he wrote it smacks of "It's an unfair world, so we should all be unfair", I don't think that's what he was really saying. I think he was saying that it is an absurd world, one where we are all raised on the fairytale of the noble prince or the clever princess who will succeed, and in the end, the villain gets the castle.

The rest of the book details the particularly stressful line of work he was in, pulling twenty- or sometimes twenty-four hour days to make deadlines, taking on more work than humanly possible, and writing on every subject known to man. He reveals how snippets of information here and there would come together in a full paper; the mind-boggling entitlement of his customers; and the dizzying amount of work he put in to meet the deadline for his monthly pay.

Unfortunately, not much can be said past that. Tomar's strength is clearly in research. With subtle grace, he peppers his book with quotes and research backing up the idea that college as the "gateway to a better life" is becoming nothing more than an unsustainable scam, a bubble destined to pop as surely as mortgages did. When he relates his friend's experiences working for a for-profit school and details their shady practices, he shines. When he talks about his work, he tends to be repetitive. In a way, that might reflect how it feels to pound out paper after paper, no matter how myriad the subject matter, but repetition is hardly a page-turner.

The other problem is that he is too pushy with his writing, too upfront. He blames "cockpit moms" and "this generation" for being too coddled, but there are other, equally valid conclusions for the existence of his line of work. A dry passage shows this tendency even in his writing:

"Fortunately, I don't have to. According to the blog Zero Hedge, Education Finance Council president Vince Sampson is so concerned about the plight of recent and upcoming graduates that he told a panel at a global finance and investment conference in Miami in October 2011 'that lenders are no longer pushing loans to people who can't afford them.'

Well, that is downright responsible, isn't it?" (Tomar 62).

Unfortunately, he does not let it stand, but has to continue, "Wait. Come again. 'No longer pushing loans to people who can't afford them'?" (Tomar 62).

His wit is clear, but often shrouded in his need to "explain the joke" rather than trusting in his own writing, and ultimately, the reader.

That said, he managed to gracefully express a fact that has eluded so many people when discussing the Internet and its implications: "There is indeed a generational divide where the Internet is concerned. But it has less to do with who uses the Internet than with how we are using it... But the difficulty we're experiencing in harnessing the Internet for the purposes of education is not about access or interest or the fact that your great-aunt Sally knows how to attach photographs to emails. Rather, we're experiencing a paradigm shift in the cultural treatment of intellectual property, and this shift is a direct consequence of how our generations variously use the Web" (Tomar 85).

Incidentally, see what I mean about his strength being in academic writing?

The conclusion felt like it verged on epiphany, but was muddled - he clearly had some life-changing thought, but there was no satisfactory reveal. It seems like he quit, or perhaps decided to write this book, but it's unclear.

The book reminded me of Waiter Rant, wherein people become fascinated by a subject written by somebody, and the person believes that people are fascinated by them. I really could not care less about how high people are writing papers for another person, I am more interested in the idea of writing papers for other people. As a framing for an indictment of higher education, it works well and he does not become insufferable, but it does feel like it is lacking the substance of his much shorter article, "The Shadow Scholar".

Overall, an enjoyable read, but not a stellar one.

*Obviously intelligence is not the only thing worthy of getting a job. And honestly, as much as Tomar talks about doing drugs, etc., I seriously doubt his work ethic. Some would argue that pulling twenty-hour days is an example, but sometimes, just being able to do the drudge, repetitive work is more compelling a case for work ethic than pulling a last-minute save. This is more from personal experience, as I'm not unreasonable deficient in social graces, work ethics, or playing the game when necessary.

[Jeff Koloze · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tomar’s autobiography of his years as a paper writer for students who would rather pay someone else to do their work than do it themselves reads like a work of fiction—a compliment, since the book’s language is American enough (scatological and devoid of functioning religious faith) to enable one to read it in a day. Bush- and Cheney-bashing comments aside (pages 15, 23, and 40; but he’s still young, so don’t worry), Tomar’s critique of American education is profound. Some phrases are pithy and trenchant, for example: that America now has a “generation of malcontents” inheriting “a fading empire” (4) or that professors should, instead of fear the Internet, “help students navigate the evolving virtual space” (86). Some sentences are eminently quotable, such as “everybody is dishonest everywhere” (43) and “whatever it costs to go online in your region, that’s how much it costs to learn” (82). His commentary about for-profit colleges is scathing (the entire chapter nine, 121-38, is worth copying).

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I hadn't spent nearly twenty years around big universities, I would have thought that this book was fictional. As it is, it is still hard to believe that there is such a large industry in writing papers for other people. The author clearly still has a major axe to grind with Rutgers, but his version of his story sounds like it has a nugget of truth. My time at universities in this country has made it clear to me that far too many decisions are being made due to the influence of money as opposed to scholarship or teaching.

While the author may have gotten paid for writing other peoples' essays, he clearly wrote things that were shorter than a book. His prose style is informal and breezy and easy to read, but I felt the structure of the whole book was flimsier than I had hoped it would be. There was a rushed quality to the later chapters that I did not feel in the beginning of the book.

IT is not a great work of social criticism, but if you are interested in the state of higher education today, I would definitely recommend this book.

[Brunnstag · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastically written and disturbing look into just how badly our schools are failing our students. I'd very highly recommend this book to anyone who went to college, is thinking of going to college, or to anyone just wondering why schools seem to be so bad and why it is so many people who are clearly struggling are being pushed through their systems.

[Shubham Joshi · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not just a narration of events that the author felt were necessary to understand his evolution as a person who took money to write academic papers for someone else, but this is also an attempt by the author to expose the system for what it is.

It’s not just about how Mr Tomar became a person who was exploiting the crack in the system, but also how the system thrive is on these so called intellectually poor kids who have to resort to these companies and people like Mr Tomar.

In the book at one place, Mr. Tomar, says that if one third of the students fight that instead of learning from the class, it is easier to get the test back and cheat the system, wasn’t that an indication of failure of the system rather than failure of the student.

Also, as a service provider industry, the so called institutions of imparting knowledge and educating the next generation of human beings. It is quite imperative that day be held accountable rather than just being the judge and executioner for the system. Students as described in the book are exploited systematically and the poor state of the system is what Mr Tomar brings about quite clearly in his book.

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just wanted to drop a line and let folks know that Dave Tomar has released a follow-up to this book: The Complete Guide to Contract Cheating in Higher Education .



Where The Shadow Scholar details Tomar's perspective on his own work within the cheating industry, this latest book explores more of why students cheat, the pressures to avoid failure at all cost that play into that why, and what colleges & universities can do not only to help students address the underlying reasons for cheating but how to stop cheating's rise altogether.

You can find additional details about The Complete Guide to Contract Cheating in Higher Education at Academic Influence, where Tomar is Managing Editor.

[Mary Whisner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like me, Dave Tomar grew up in the suburbs (South Jersey for him, Seattle for me) and went to a large state university (Rutgers for Tomar, University of Washington for me). Unlike me, he was alienated and bitter throughout. When he had the opportunity to solve a money problem (parking fines) by writing a paper for another student, he jumped at it. Soon he was in high demand, eventually working for an online term paper mill and churning out everything from college application essays to graduate seminar papers. I can't imagine taking his path, but I'm fascinated by it. And I wonder about the students I see on campus: how many use or have used the services of writers like Tomar? How many of our law students got here in part because of grades that a ghost writer earned?

[Claire Binkley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am glad that I never went down this path. My mother had told me to, since I was maybe fourteen, as she envied my abilities to communicate in English text, but I refused. I had enough funding to be choosy.

[Nshslibrary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A refreshing read for both the educators and the educated, The Shadow Scholar follows Dave Tomar’s life story of a disappointing and frustrating journey through the flawed American education system and how, ironically, he now makes his living off of it. However, what seemed like a potentially enlightening lesson on the ethical debate on cheating quickly turned into a self-righteous rant about the absurdity of his own schooling experience. Much of the book invested around Dave Tomar’s personal life, which normally isn’t a problem considering that this is basically an autobiography, except that it seems his entire life revolves around writing papers, getting drunk and high, and complaining about all of it. He reminds the reader, quite often, that his life is unimaginably stressful yet he asks for no sympathy, giving off a very self-absorbed tone to the text in addition to his giant drops of sarcasm, which are admittedly hilarious but unnecessary and difficult to associate with the supposedly scholarly topic at hand. At a certain point, the book reaches an unbearable redundancy that cannot be ignored and the reader is forced to accept Tomar’s ideas as nothing more than biographical bias in which a certain someone had a particularly bad experience in their collegiate career. Unfortunately, the cons don’t stop here. The irony of The Shadow Scholar fails to elude the reader that Dave Tomar is doing something ethically questionable, to say the least, in response to being treated in an ethically questionable way by his own university, Rutgers. Simply put, his implication that writing papers for college kids is justified by how badly he was treated as a student at Rutgers shows a major lack of maturity. In addition, for someone who claims to be relatively smart and well educated, Dave Tomar curses in his text to no end, while using non formal language, and does so many drugs that he claims to lose track of time, almost in a boastful manner. In fact, as a challenge, there were many times when Tomar wrote his papers while under the influence of marijuana and alcohol. With “burnout” tendencies such as these, it isn’t all that hard to see why Dave may not have had the best relationship with his University. Instead, without any consideration for his own actions, he blames all the institutions of higher learning as outdated, money hungry, and insensitive. This becomes pretty ridiculous when the reader sits back and realizes that Dave Tomar is just as shady as he claims the Administration to be. Without even taking into account that parking illegally, for whatever reason, is still illegal, and that maybe once in a while it is a good idea to check with your advisor to confirm that you do, in fact, have enough credits to graduate, Dave Tomar points his finger to the conspiracy of higher education that are constantly undermining their students as cash fountains. Speaking of which, Dave Tomar goes into incredible detail justifying his need to find parking spots, mostly illegal, in order to get to class because he can’t afford a parking pass. Sadly, it's not convincing. What he does not do is go into incredible detail on the legitimate issues of higher education outside of his own accounts. In the end, the book came out to me more of an account of an unfortunate and underprivileged student rather than an analytical and systematic breakdown of what exactly is wrong with the universities of America. The biggest disservice that The Shadow Scholar committed is never further elaborating on one of the biggest and most interesting topics regarding the education process. ~ Student: Brandon B.

[Christina Vasilevski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review originally published on www.christinavasilevski.com.

Something interesting happened when I publicized my decision to become a freelance writer: more than one person told me that I should consider writing papers for university and college students.

I, being the kind of university student, who, you know, actually wrote all my papers myself, was shocked at this suggestion, and dismissed it out of hand. Now I have Dave Tomar to thank for showing me what a world of frustration, indignation, and heartbreak I've avoided.

The Shadow Scholar is an in-depth look at what it's like to be a writer for a paper mill, and what circumstances drove Tomar to, and kept him in, the industry. Student debt. A lacklustre education that left him with few marketable skills. (Incidentally, this book is the second story I've come across that makes Rutgers University sound like an absolute shithole.) A bad economy.

It's also a portrait of desperation, as well as an exposé of how truly messed-up the modern education system is. However, despite the sense of crusading against corruption that his book exudes, Tomar himself doesn't come out looking like the best of people. He hates his job and the toll it takes on his body. He has contempt for his clients. He uses drugs to either keep himself alert or to dull the meaninglessness of his existence. He also gets into long digressions about his on-again, off-again relationship with his future wife, which lends an unnecessary whiff of soap-opera drama to the proceedings.

This brings me to the heart of The Shadow Scholar's problem: its author. Most people assume that the paper mill business a seedy one, and so it makes sense that Tomar himself is more than a little seedy - who else but a cynical opportunist would take this sort of job on? But a large part of the book's focus is spent on arguing exactly how and why America's higher education system needs to change. This in and of itself is a respectable goal, but Tomar tries very hard to make himself out as a tortured, Charles-Bukowski-like figure - in short, exactly the kind of person whom it would be best not to take advice from. Tomar's paper mill career already turns him into an unsympathetic narrator - he just makes it harder for himself by sounding like a self-absorbed jackass.

[Dawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I stumbled across this book at the library and decided to give it a try. While I agree with other reviewers that his in depth biography was not a necessary part of the book, it did not irritate me to the extent of other readers. Call me naive, but it would never occur to me to outsource my college papers, undergrad or otherwise so I found this topic very interesting. I was also amazed at the sheer breadth of topics this guy could crank out. Impressive! Interestingly enough I was not outraged by his profession - I could clearly see why the need is so great, and it does not surprise me that lazy, rich and/or stupid people out there created a demand for this type of work. Reading his observations of some of his clients' writing skills coupled with their feelings of entitlement caused me flashbacks to my days of teaching middle school English in Arizona - I know the types of people he dealt with first hand, as well as their parents!

The more I read about his less than impressive college experience combined with astronomical student loan debt and inability to get a decent paying job, the more I began to wonder about the state of higher ed today. We are always pushing EVERYONE to go to college, but seriously - SHOULD everyone go? Are they actually ABLE to succeed? At what price? $40,000? $60,000? $80,000 in debt? Is this the smartest way to going about the rest of your life?

Not attending a university? his chapter on the numbers game and access to personal information which allows universities to basically hold you ransom for tuition you never even used was highly disturbing.

Bottom line for me - very informative book on a lifestyle I knew nothing about and food for thought on the costs and realities of higher education today.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good book. Its always refreshing to have someone else write a book similar to your own experience in college, minus the drinking and pot smoking. It validated my experience in college. My opinion is same as the author in these points-colleges are producing more graduates and not enough job opportunities. If you are a nurse this is more understandable; you must get your BS or masters to work in a hospital even though you already have all the job know how already. There is another book just on the topic of how colleges make money and delaying your graduation process. This book touches on it as well in chapter 1-3, although through the eyes of the author's personal experience. I identified the author when he explained the process of colleges adding classes that are not in your catalog to delay your graduation. He was able to fight his, but I had to take an extra class when I was graduating.
My second point he validated was the rise in colllege tuition, rise college loan debt, rise in unemployment,declining wages and the Wall Street crash of 2007-2009. I never understood the Occupy Wall Street thing until I read chapter 5. Its worth reading.
Lastly, it's a narrative of having a degree but not doing anything worthy of your education and your brain. It validates there is no reality American dream because of debt and the cycle of how America works.
The last 5 chapters are about Tomar's personal input on his work. I only wished when I was in college I knew about his line of work. Its like a dirty little secret you know and everyone else knows but you can't really prove it beacause you really dont know how too.

[Vee · Rating 4 out of 5]

If some one offered me $50 to write their essay, college entrance essay, etc. while I was in high school. I would probably do it. If some one offered me $250 - $500 or well over $1,000 to write their paper while I was in college, would I do it? Absolutely yes but I would be very picky about the assigments I chose. (Note, I am not a writer.)

Would I turn that hustle into a full-time enterprise? No.
If I was saavy enough to create a company that hired Dave Tomar and others, yes.

With that admission out of the way, Tomar's memoir was not as good as the article but still very interesting. This book made me think about how and why people cheat systems, how they take shortcuts to success. In the end, while Lance Armstrong, Roger Clemens, and Alex Rodriguez may have been shamed, they still enjoy a relatively good quality of life. Mission accomplished. I don't know if they care about personal integrity, ethics or can sleep at night with infamy but continuing to win usually helps. There's always another story of redemption to sell.

If you're still reading, check this story out:
Developer outsources his job to China at 20% of his income.
This guy has a great story to tell.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-575...


Quick Tidbits:
Honestly I would like to hear R.P's(the pyschology major) story.
The vignettes toward the end was simply odd, maybe unnecessary.
I think a clever screen writer can turn this into a good Hollywood film.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Shadow Scholar: How I Made a Living Helping College Kids Cheat, is Dave Tomar's memoir about his years spent writing papers for college kids at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels. The book fluctuates between a personal memoir and an indictment of contemporary higher education.

This book is highly disturbing and oddly uplifting at the same time. Tomar speaks for the brilliant, cynical, and disaffected of his generation. He candidly shares his own frustrations and highlights the miseries of the university system while simultaneously telling a story of personal growth. This book is both a warning of the degradation of our higher education system and a coming of age story.

It's true that Tomar rambles at times, and that his frustration, drug use, and overall angst will turn many readers against him. But Tomar speaks with an honesty I find remarkable, and he reminds me of all the people I've met who were utterly brilliant but too angry with the world to make a difference. If Tomar comes across as a whiny, unreliable narrator it is largely because we underestimate his feelings of loneliness and alienation and overlook how much he grows and changes throughout the course of the book.

Honest, sarcastic, and subtly sweet, Tomar's memoir reveals the sweeping inadequacies of our education system, yet the author's own growth and realizations point out the times when our education system works out after all. Even if it was in ways we never intended.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don't judge!
While the title may lead you to believe that this is a book written by a gloating academic ghostwriter (it kind of is, but read on), it's more an indictment of academia in the US and the circumstances that led to this situation in which students will pay a lot of money and risk violating university academic integrity policies to have other people do their work for them. Sometimes, even the parents of these students seek out such "help". Equally deplorable, Tomar points out, is the reality that one can actually do the work it takes to graduate from an academic institution with good grades and a degree, only to find that without the right networking and connections, scholars often find themselves financially compelled to "take the money and run" in order to survive. So, who are the real "criminals", then? The ghostwriters? The students? Their parents? Or is it the culture of academic pressure and unreasonable expectations that's at fault? I encourage you to read and decide for yourself.
The book is based on an article Tomar wrote for the Chronicle Of Higher Education (written under the pseudonym “Ed Dante”) ; I would have given it another star, but the book seems to have a lot of peripheral filler to add pages to the original text...ah, an old school essay writing trick ;-)

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

The one thing that caught my attention about this book was the title. "How I Made A Living Helping College Kids Cheat." Granted that was some part of the title, nevertheless that is what made me decide to read this book. Interestingly enough I never heard of Dave Tomar and find it difficult to comprehend if what he did was such a scam, then why am I just not hearing this? Usually I will at least her about him in college but I never did. Either I have been living under a rock or I just never had the desire to search into scams.

Judging by the content, this book was pretty neat. Although I do not condone the fact that he cheated for other college students, it did make me admire him. I admire him because his reasons for cheating was pretty justifiable. I know that he mentioned that he needed the money, college to him was a waste of his time and it never was a secret. Dave seems to be an ordinarly guy that got fed up with the expectations of college and wanted to reveal the injustice of school performance. Also I thought some parts were extremely hilarious and find myself rooting for him to prevail in the ned.

I will say this book is great soley because of his reasons for helping college kids cheat. It may frustrate professors and shame people who are dedidicated to their studies but it will make students question college and how authentic it really is.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I'd hate read this book - cheating REALLY frustrates me in school. To some extent this book gave me what I wanted. It showed me how easy it was to cheat, how little checks there were against it and just how many students took advantage of the "study guides" that Tomar and many many others published. What the book also gave me, that was unexpected, was Tomar placing his activities inside a critique of higher education at large. Perhaps Rutgers just sucked, but Tomar had some frustration from his undergrad days to get off his chest. These recriminations against large universities gave him justification for his activities - it was just participating in a large, corrupt, degree granting, money making machine after all. Things get even more contemptuous when talking about for profit universities. Essentially looping low skilled individuals into a criminal (or at best duplicitous) cycle of debt and false hopes. While these larger discussions gave depth to the book, ultimately I feel like they were just glimpses of the book I would have liked to read, not the one I actually was. It's worth a read, but it's not the full length critical examination of large universities that I wish Tomar would have let himself write.

[Aspen Junge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unlike most local-organic-sustainable farming books I've read, this one goes beyond, "It's good for the soil! It's good for the people! It's good for communities!" although there is a certain amount of that. She gets into the interconnected economic system that we need to rebuild in order to make small, sustainable farms prosperous. Farmers need markets, food buyers need a reliable product, there needs to be a middleman who can match these needs who is optimized for non-industrial farms. We need a way to process meat in small batches. We need skilled warm bodies to take over farm management from an aging farmer population. Gustafson traveled the country interviewing people who have been working on solutions for these problems which hopefully can be adapted for other locations and local economies.

[Susan Ariew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dave Tomar writes an amazing story about his life making a living writing essays and research papers for lazy or desperate college students. He works for Internet paper mills. His account is an indictment against a system of higher education that promises a great deal and leaves a lot of young people like Dave behind, kids who can't find decent paying jobs and who are hopelessly in debt. The book also includes a scathing description of the callous bureaucracy he experienced in college at Rutger's (what he describes as the "RU Screw" ).The book is also a sad depiction of a portion of the Generation Y millennials who cheat and buy their way through school as well as a shocking snapshot of how for-profit schools exploit the most vulnerable populations. Tomar's style is funny, bitingly sarcastic and unforgettable

[Pavel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will give you two things: moments of spasmic laughter and a devastating critique of the American system of higher education. The critique is one-sided, focused only the negative aspects of the system, assessed entirely through a generalization of the author's personal experience, but nonetheless real. One should keep this critique in mind when thinking about for-profit HE institutions and system reforms. I wonder, however, to what extent is the personal history retouched. Also, the ending, I thought, was a bit facile.
The book is dark, cynical, angry, unashamedly one-sided, but a real page-turner. Giving it five stars, I thought, would suggest a greater measure of approval of the author's actions and assessments than I was prepared to extend. But do read this book.

[Laure · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh, my. The author of this book made a living writing papers (also called "study guides") for high school, college, master, and even PhD students. Very scary as I had no idea this was going on to this extent. He was, at times, even hired by parents who wanted their child to get a good grade/get into a top-notch college. The writing was good, if at times repetitive. It sounds like the author had a terrible experience at Rutgers so often sounds overly bitter and critical of colleges and universities. Overall enlightening.

[Kathleen McKim · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I whole-heartedly agree with Tomar's assessment of the failures of the academic industry, and I have no problems with how he made a living, I still found some of the chapters a bit too whiny and obnoxious. The last two chapters in which he tries to veer into creative non-fiction were very odd and made me think he might want to keep his options open as far as shadow scholarship is concerned. By far the best laugh is on the kids who bought his papers, as he seems to have been a bit of a mediocre writer, earning "C's" and missing due dates.