The internet has allowed the general public to have access to information not otherwise accessible to the average person. The internet is not regulated and therefore those who browse the internet are exposed to a plethora of contradicting information . The public suffers from an information overload that may actually make them "dumber." This essay will discuss whether or not the statement; does the web make us dumber is true or false.

Since anyone can pretend that they are an expert in a particular field, the information that is put on the internet consists primarily of personal opinions and beliefs. The average person surfing the web will have a hard time sorting out fact from fiction . Self-appointed experts can espouse radical views without peer review or censorship. A person is not necessarily "dumb" if he or she takes this information at face value, perhaps that person is simply naïve.

Webmasters

Webmasters prey on their visitors by making their website look authentic, with enticing taglines, graphics, and videos. Some websites have discussion boards where visitors can interact with one another and exchange ideas. Each poster submits his or her opinion and others can respond with their own ideas. Sometimes the arguments become obscene , thus making the entire discussion "dumb."

Multi-level Marketing Scams

The internet is not entirely composed of personal websites. Multi-level marketing companies lure unsuspecting people into joining the organization with promises of financial success beyond their wildest imagination. Naïve or "dumb" people join these organizations and spend thousands of dollars for marketing materials to promote the MLM's products or services. Pre-paid legal is an excellent example of this . Sales representatives must purchase approved marketing products directly from the company.

Campaign Websites

Political websites are an excellent example of how people can be influenced into supporting a particular party or cause. Presidential candidates have websites dedicated to raising campaign funds. Politicians are willing to promise almost anything in order to secure campaign contributions. The person who gives to the coffers of the campaign fund could be considered "dumb" if, once elected, the candidate does not follow up on his or her campaign promises.

Jihad Recruitment

The internet is also a breeding ground for groups of radical extremists to freely express their brand of propaganda. Islamic extremists use the internet to recruit disenchanted young men to become jihadists. A recent United States drone attack killed the webmaster of Inspire . Inspire is the electronic magazine that teaches people how to make bombs and become suicide bombers . In reference to the topic of this paper, people who join a jihadist movement and read electronic magazines in order to become suicide bombers are "dumb."

Donations to Religious Organizations

Religious organizations, although non-profit, encourage people to give them donations via a credit card or PayPal . The organization will attract web surfers that may be interested in and agree with its doctrinal statement. Once on the website, the visitor is invited to donate to the common cause. Most of the time, the common cause that the visitor is contributing to is the webmaster's or pastor's bank account . Therefore, the visitor who is conned into giving money to the religious person for a cause that may or may not be legitimate could be considered "dumb."

Diploma Mills

Diploma mills are an excellent example of how the internet can make us "dumb." People who have not obtained a college degree actively seek out ways to obtain a "life experience" degree. While some colleges that offer credit for life experience are not necessarily scams, any "college" that grants a degree strictly based on life experience is a scam. Millions of students have obtained fake diplomas for the purposes of career advancement . Students are willing to pay thousands of dollars for these phony academic degrees which are not worth the paper they are printed on. This is another example of the internet creating "dumb" people.

The example above has far more serious consequences depending on what the "student" chooses as his or her major. Imagine going to a doctor who has purchased a medical degree over the internet; that would make the patient "dumb." How would the client feel if he or she discovered the lawyer representing him or her had a phony Juris Doctorate degree? The answer is, "dumb."

Separating Fact from Fiction

The old saying that "you cannot believe everything you read in the newspaper" can be translated into modern terms as "you cannot believed everything you see or read on the internet." Browsing the internet is like going to your favorite flea market. There are numerous vendors selling a diverse variety of opinions, beliefs, products, or politicians. People tend to approach the internet cafeteria style. They pick and choose what they want to view and ignore topics in which they are not interested.

Therefore, separating fact from fiction is not the first priority when someone logs onto the internet. Most people surf the internet for a specific topic that they are researching or a topic in which they are interested. They are looking for information on their favorite sports team, a religious organization, a political candidate, recent breaking news, prices on vacation packages, or whatever strikes their fancy that day.

Partisan Internet Radio

People are looking to justify their own personal opinions, and tend to gravitate toward those websites that reflect those opinions. Therefore, the person is only interested in one side of a particular issue. In order to be a well rounded citizen, for example, a person must understand alternative political viewpoints. It serves him or her will when it is time to defend his or her position on a particular matter. If that person cannot explain his viewpoint to someone with a different political view on a given subject, he or she may appear biased and ignorant. Anyone who adopts an attitude that his ideology is the only point of view that matters could be considered "dumb."

Internet radio stations prey on these types of ideologues. Internet talk show hosts draw listeners mainly from an audience that shares their political or religious views. The Fox News internet news stream attracts conservative listeners and MSNBC has a much more liberal audience . Prominent conservative and liberal figures are often guests on these internet stations. Listeners who are only interested in tuning into internet radio stations that espouse their brand of political ideology could be considered "dumb."

Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and MySpace

The dangers of placing the intimate details on one's personal life cannot be emphasized enough. There have been a large number of people who have had their identity stolen, experienced bullying, been victims of brutal crimes, and some have been murdered . This is because the criminal was able to obtain all the information he needed from the actual person that he or she intended to victimize . These crimes have been made public by news media outlets both on the internet and on mainstream television . In reference to the topic of this paper, not only can the internet make people "dumb," the consequences of indiscriminately posting personal information on the world wide web can be fatal.

Internet Dating Sites

In a time when the internet is used for just about every activity one can imagine, why not try to find your future soul mate online? Match is an excellent example of how desperate people search for love in all the wrong places. People who join Match however, do have a valid point. Many people live in areas where it is difficult to meet other people that share their interests. These people resort to the internet as a means to connect with likeminded individuals who are seeking romance. As in all other topics of interest on the internet, the Match customer is able to choose his or her mate cafeteria style.

They build their profiles in order to put themselves in the best possible light. In some cases, they completely fabricate their information in order to attract that perfect person or they put up a profile picture that was taken many years ago . After numerous emails and phone conversations with the perspective "match" the two agree to meet in person. The person that they are trying to impress may be very disappointed on the first date. The person that he is meeting in person in no way reflects the person he has been corresponding with for weeks or months. In this sense, both the person who posted the pseudo profile and the person who assumed that the person was genuine end up feeling "dumb."

Conclusion

It could be safely concluded, that the question, does the web make us dumber, could be answered with resounding yes. People must learn to be discriminating when searching the internet for subjects of interest. The subject of interest may range from sharing political ideologies to searching for the perfect, romantic "match." It is imperative that internet users approach anything that they read on the internet with skepticism. Doing so will make them a well-rounded individual and could possibly save their lives.

College is the most important investment that a young American can make regarding his future, at least, that is how it used to be. Within the modern climate, a college degree does not guarantee employment or opportunities that are able to levy the high accumulated costs of student loans and debt accumulated during the entire studying phase. The amounts due to young learners ready to break into the working class world are left with little options. These high levels are very concerning for the federal reserve system.

There are more 44 million borrowers in the United States with 1.3 trillion in the student debt alone. (racocksy). This high statistic is very concerning based on the fact that the numbers are continuing to rise, without the value of salaries increasing with it. Students are loaning high amounts of money to pay for a degree that is not highly rewarded in the labor market. This is concerning due to the fact this hinders the youth from being able to focus their monetary efforts towards saving for emergencies, retirement and the general long term. The starting block is set forward before they can even begin.

When they suffer an economic downturn, it will not end directly in bankruptcy. For example 4.2 millions of debtors did not pay towards their debts for at least 9 months, this is concerning due to the fact this means statistically, 1 out every 10 students are not paying their debts owed timeously. (busca una source).

According to an article by CNBC entitled "Student debt could hold back economic growth"; gives rise to the fact that students who are not able to pay off their student loans, directly affects their credit ratings before they even begin to ever consider buying home or applying for a bond. "It hurts their credit rating, it impacts the entire half of their economic life."

The pressures of this may be off-putting to some students to even begin considering studying and may look towards just trying to penetrate the job market right out of high-school, as to avoid having to loan and pay of debt and instead try build capital towards their future, which for some, may appear to be the end-goal of life after studying or not. According to the article, the New York Fed reports that education debt grew to $1.38 trillion at the end of 2017, with 11 percent of those students owing money behind on their payment. As this grows every year, long term solutions have not yet been created.

Student loan debt is a fascinating prospect, because not only does it affect every young student who enters the tertiary market and the economy, it also can have physical and mental repercussions that inadvertently, affects the economy too.

According to an article by "The Atlantic"- The University of South Carolina that financial strain can have direct negative effects on overall physical and mental health. In the broader spectrum, there are a multitude of students who are not even able to afford studying and have to work part-time jobs around their studies to afford paying off debt, in which some may find to be an extremely taxing experience, robbing them of their apparent "youth" and opportunity to enjoy the constructs centered around socialising, or even simply being able to enjoy their free time and focus on investing in a hobby or sport. There becomes a paradigm centered around not being able to do anything else, almost being confined to a system that some may not want to adhere to.

The pressures of having to pay off student loans while having to focus and perform in their studies, can be extremely taxing resulting in high levels of physical and mental stress, which greatly affect depression and anxiety levels within the youth, who may or may not have adequate support structures or resources in order to cope with these increasing demands. Students studying direct qualifications end up working or getting jobs completely unrelated to their speciality or field of study due to the desperation of having to make monetary ends meet.

Some may argue that the infrastructure of colleges aren't giving students enough support structures in order to cope with these demands, thus resulting in the notion that colleges are based around business-like structures, that are institutionalized to profit and built around brands, with funding directed at marketing and appeal to gain new students, and acting as direct opposition to other college institutions; instead of directing attention and focus towards building structures for the current students to meet their demands and pressures, and given adequate tutoring on how to deal with their adversity within the education system.

In 2015 Barack Obama proposed that all the community college will be free, this was called the "Tennessee program model". In order for students to qualify for this, they must maintain a 2.0 grade point average. Another proposal came by the democrat Bernie Sanders who thought that every student deserves a college education , even if their parents cannot afford it.

He proposed the "college for all act", in which congress will give $47 billion a year to eliminate fees and tuition. This means that the federal government will cover 67% of the cost of school, where the state will only cover the remaining 33% of the cost. This would help a lot of students to go to college, but there is also some complications. This will only apply to public schools, also there will not be housing and food included, that in some cases, costs more than their college tuition. This would give a lot more opportunities to students, but still would not cover every single facet of the impending costs related to education. Some students would still need to work part-time or find other ways of income in order to cover residential costs and living expenses.

In order for funding to be sufficient to cover the free educational programs, governmental funding may directly impact the economy by increasing taxes on different financial brackets. To find solutions that will holistically serve the economy positively and give students a viable avenue in order to meet their financial demands, government will have to look to improving their current infrastructures, as with the current economic climate, some students may even look to apply for education abroad in different countries, who may offer bursaries to foreign students to improve their countries infrastructure and demographic by incorporating skilled people from different parts of the world. As the economy fluctuates and the national debt increases, the problem will only persist until the global entity look to resolve this issue concurrently, as the same educational systems may repeat themselves in other countries that follow these patterns.

Works Cited

The Atlantic: The Mental and Physical Toll of Student Loans.

The Guardian: The harsh truth: US colleges are businesses, and student loans pay the bills.

CNBC: Student debt could hold back economic growth, should be discharged in bankruptcy.

Problem Identification

This paper will concern the intersection between business and government and the rise of the for-profit education sector. While education for elementary and secondary students is generally thought of as a right in the United States, the general consensus regarding higher education is something different. Americans aiming for a college degree are on their own to a certain extent, but are also eligible through a variety of government-backed loans and grants, especially at the federal level. How and where these loans and grants can be used, however, opens up an interesting area for consideration.

Federal funding follows the students in the United States, so where grants and loans are spent is determined by the type of school a student chooses to attend. Generally, the school is either a state school and therefore non-profit and run by the state, or a private school, most of which are non-profit though operated by private entities. But there is a third class of school: private for-profit schools. It is this type of school, involving for-profit education that will be examined in this paper.

Brief Topic Description

Public funds, in the form of grants and loans, can be spent by American students to pay for college educations at for-profit colleges and universities. This is a situation with which many Americans are unfamiliar, but it is nevertheless the case, and has been for decades. This situation sets up an area of intersection between business and government that opens up a host of public policy questions.

More specifically, this paper will look at the shift that has occurred over the course of the past few years. During the presidential administration of Barack Obama, the U.S.

Department of Education began a concerted effort to rein in the flow of money to for-profit colleges, while at the same time increasing funding and shoring up the infrastructure in place for the nation's community colleges. But with the advent of the Trump administration, the official policy of the federal government has done a complete about-face with respect to federal funding and for-profit education, and Trump even went so far as to appoint Betsy DeVos, a fervent proponent of for-profit education, as the Secretary of Education.

Research Questions

The research questions this paper will try to answer will be in regard to this shift in education priorities with the change in administration. The Obama administration's crackdown on the for-profit industry was for several reasons, but one of the crucial ones was in consideration of student loan repayment rates at for-profit colleges, which were significantly worse than for comparable repayment rates for students of public and non-profit private colleges.

So one of the first questions to address will be:

1. Whether student loans repayment rates have perceptibly shifted over the past several years, how they have fluctuated, and what these fluctuations may mean in relation to the diametrically-opposite policies of the changing administrations?

Moreover, this paper will seek to determine whether the Trump's administrations change towards the for-profit education industry has been beneficial for this industry:

2. Have for-profit education companies seen a rise in profits given the favorable change in terms of regulatory emphasis?

Finally, this paper will also consider another area related to these questions:

3. What, if any, unintentional consequences have resulted in response to policies aimed at the for-profit education sector?

Hypotheses

This paper will lay down two hypotheses that the above-mentioned research questions will attempt to answer. The first hypothesis will be regarding student loan repayment rates. This hypothesis will state that student loan repayment rates at for-profit colleges will have seen a small drop during the Obama years, but no discernible change so far during the Trump administration from the previous trend.

The second hypothesis will focus on profits and the for-profit college industry. This hypothesis will hold that the for-profit sector is currently in the midst of a boom, thanks to the deregulatory policies of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Detailed Topic Description

For-profit colleges, also known as proprietary institutions, contain some of the largest and smallest colleges and universities by enrollment in the United States (Deming, Golding, Katz, 2013). Although enrollments are high in these big institutions such as The University of Phoenix, the median enrollment rate in all for-profit institutions that were eligible to accept federal funding under Title IV of the Higher Education Funding Act (HEA) was just 172 students (Deming, Golding, Katz, 2013).

The HEA was passed in and signed into US State Law at Texas State University on November 8th, 1965. The law was designed to assist students by providing educational resources to colleges and universities along with financial assistance for students who were wishing to attend or attending post-secondary and higher education. The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs (GEAR UP) was authorized under HEA in 1998. Also in 1998, another amendment to the HEA was the Aid Elimination Provision that prevents individuals with drug charges from getting federal financial assistance.

In 2003, a large portion of the HEA was set to expire, which caused a large uprising in support groups across the nation. Among groups included: the American Indian Higher Education Consortium, the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, and the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education. Even though these groups collectively voiced many recommendations for the Higher Education Act, in 2008 the actual HEA was not reauthorized, but instead many sections of the act were renewed. Currently the HEA addresses: Title I: Provides funding for extension and continuing education programs, Title II: Allocates money to enhance library collections, Title III: Provisions for strengthening developing institutions, Title IV: Provides student assistance through scholarships, low-interest loans, and work-study programs, Title V: Provisions for improving the quality of teaching and Title VI: Provisions for improving undergraduate instruction (U.S. Department of Education). The HEA provides students with grants, subsidized student loans and unsubsidized student loans.

The federal government has expanded the funding of student aid under Title IV tremendously to increase access to postsecondary education. From 2000-01 to 2010-11, real federal expenditures on the Pell Grant program more than tripled from $10 billion to $35 billion (in 2010 dollars) and real Stafford Loan volumes more than doubled from $37 billion to $86 billion. In contrast, from 2000 to 2010, state tax appropriations for higher education increased by only about 5 percent in real terms, with zero real growth since 2007. (Deming, Golding, Katz, 2013) Therefore it is possible to conclude that the large recent increase in federal higher education spending has coincided with a tightening of state budgets.

While society experienced zero to no growth in state funding for public institutions, for-profit colleges have grown rapidly to meet demand and have taken advantage of expanded federal student aid. For-profit colleges and universities have increased their share of the total fall enrollment in Title IV-eligible institutions from about 4% in 2000 to almost 11% in 2009. (Deming, Golding, Katz, 2013).

For-profit colleges experienced a substantial and lucrative boom during the recession, but this boom period coincided with the beginning of the Obama administration, which quickly brought about a major effort to scrutinize various industry practices at these schools, involving "allegations of predatory sales techniques and poor outcomes that left thousands of students drowning in debt, while the schools raked in billions from federal student loans and grants" (Stratford). The Obama administration attempted to bring this perceived bad actor to heel for these alleged transgressions, but also with respect to the high student loan default rate, since this was perceived as having a harmful effect on the pool of money available to students at other more traditional types of colleges and universities. Obama, for instance, as a candidate and as president, repeatedly called for and implemented policies that would strengthen community colleges across the country, hoping to stop the trend toward more money flowing to for-profits colleges.

And this avalanche of allegations and bad news, combined with the regulatory burdens of the Obama administration, had a visible and obvious impact on the sector as a whole. This could be seen from the fall from grace of the biggest and most reputable of the for-profit sector, the University of Phoenix and its parent company, the Apollo Group. For this company was so big and successful that it was publicly traded as well as listed on the S&P 500 (Apollo 33, 58). But in 2012, after being hammered by lawsuits as well as an increasing regulatory burden under President Obama's Education Department, Apollo stock dropped precipitously in 2012, hitting an 11-year low, and earning itself a rating that year of the worst-performing stock on the the S&P 500 for that year (Hechinger)--a dismal performance that translated into the cutting of more than 800 jobs and the closure of 115 University of Phoenix campuses in a desperate attempt to recoup roughly $300 million (Apollo).

But that trend gave the appearance of changing, given the composition and disposition of the incoming administration and its education secretary. For instance, for-profit colleges hired Newt Gingrich, a Trump booster, as a lobbyist to help them win a major shift in policy from the Department of Education (Stratford). Moreover, DeVos openly worked to reverse Obama-era rules that would have prevented the worst of the for-profits from getting federal funds, whether loans or grants through its students (Stratford).

DeVos also appointed a former dean of DeVry University--one of the schools accused of fraud that paid $100 million to settle such claims--to oversee departmental efforts to police for-profit schools, while at the same time shutting off the mechanism that allowed students at for-profits to submit claims of fraud against these schools (Stratford). So this looks like bonanza time for the for-profit sector. But is that actually the case?

Regarding student loan repayment versus defaults, the trend identified by recent studies is one of increasing default, especially for students of for-profit schools and even more so among black students who attend such schools (Scott-Clayton 1). But whether or not such trends can be measured; any recent policy changes is impossible to glean from the data accumulated and presented so far, given the longitudinal aspect of such studies, and data being derived from cohorts who graduated years if not decades ago (Scott-Clayton). Yet the trend is unmistakable as well as disturbing: using data from the Department of Education current as of October 2017, the Brookings study found that, of two college-graduate cohorts, one taken from the graduating year 1996 and the other from the year 2004, a full 23 percent of the 1996 cohorts defaulted on their loans versus 43 percent of the 2004 cohort-or close to that of double the rate of the earlier cohort (Scott-Clayton 2). Yet despite this shocking disparity, for-profit schools continue to receive funding from the federal government, when other options exist for the flow of this funding, namely to more traditional-type schools such as public and non-profit private colleges and universities. Yet still, the reason such funding was ever allowed to go to these schools in the first place was because they serve "nontraditional" students-older students, or students lacking academic qualifications (Simon). Students attending such schools are "more likely to be first-generation, low-income students" (Simon). In other words, these schools tend to service underserved populations. Yet at the same time, the clear trend appears to show these students being locked into a financial situation that is beyond what their education prepares them to deal with after graduation.

Detailed Outcome Description

Ultimately the trend is toward higher and higher rates of loan default, and the identifiable trend, again, is among students at for-profit colleges and for black students (Scott-Clayton). Nevertheless, given the shocking rise in these default numbers, the Trump administration has begun to implement a major rollback of the Obama administration's regulatory efforts regarding the for-profit sector. This appears to be setting up a situation is which student loan repayment rates are likely to worsen, given the identified trend regarding the for-profit sector.

Regarding profits for such businesses, the outcome would appear to be highly favorable. The Trump administration is in this area is as bent on deregulation as it is in other sectors, and so the trend would appear to support increasing profits, for such schools and for the sector as a whole.

Yet so far this does not seem to be the case, despite fears to the contrary on the part of for-profit critics (Simon). For despite the focus on relieving the sector of its Obama-era regulatory burdens, the for-profit sector has still been unable to shake off the reputational and legal damage that occurred over the past decade (Simon). Some of the worst actors of this sector failed to survive, and Corinthian Colleges was a major example of a school engaged in fraudulent practices that was punished with its dissolution, and another, smaller school that could also be pointed to as of a shady nature being Trump University, which never admitted to the charges of fraud leveled against it but instead settled out of court with aggrieved students (Simon).

Analysis

With respect to the first two hypotheses, the data available does not yet allow any definite conclusions to be drawn. It is simply too soon to say whether the student loan default rate will increase as a result of Trump administration policy changes. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to assume that this trend will, in fact, get worse, given the data that is available regarding the worsening of this trend. It has been argued on the libertarian right, namely by the Cato Institute, that student loan default rates are increasing across the board, and the conclusion they draw from this is not that for-profit schools are the problems, but that schools in general are creating the problem in that they are graduating students who are unequipped to have the earning potential necessary to pay off the loans they have incurred (Simon). Analysts for the libertarian American Enterprise Institute also contend that for-profit colleges make up a small fraction (roughly nine percent) of the overall student population, and that these sheer numbers conceal the fact that public schools and non-profit private schools also have high rates of student loan default (Delisle and Cooper).

Yet what these analysts fail to address is the nature of for-profit model. After all, these school operate in order to generate a profit. That sounds like a tautology, but it is necessary to make clear the motive behind the operation of these schools. While libertarians may counter that this does not matter if they are able to use that profit motive to deliver a better "product" to "consumers." Yet the recent history of the for-profit sectors shows such abuse that reforms were clearly required.

Also, the for-profit sector currently operates under restrictions regarding federal funding, or the so-called 90-10 rule, which requires that for-profit schools get no more than 90 percent of their funding from the federal government (Delisle and Cooper). The Obama administration attempted but failed to change this ratio in order to be more restrictive with respect to for-profit schools. That administration did succeed, however, in implementing "gainful employment" rules, regarding the outcomes for graduates of for-profits with respect to paying jobs and loans repayment rates (Delisle and Cooper). Libertarian critics, however, are correct to point out that similar stringent standards are not applied to nonprofit schools, whether public or private, and that these schools also generate loan defaulters, in fact the overwhelming majority of such loan defaults (Delisle and Cooper).

While the question, though, of shifts in loan defaults for the for-profit sector cannot be judged regarding relatively recent policy shifts, regarding the hypothesis of profits coming to the sector in the Trump era, this would appear to be an area of indisputable growth. And yet that cannot be clearly said to be the case, as in fact in some cases, quite the opposite appears to be true, as the sector "has struggled with years of severe declines in revenue and enrollments" (Fain).

So this second hypothesis also has been shot down by the data currently available.

Which leaves us with a final question to answer: Have there been unintended consequences to the regulatory practices of the Department of Education?

The answer, in a word, would seem to be yes. And that unintended consequence has led several for-profit schools (with more in the offing) of attempting to convert from for-profit status to non-profit (Fain). While critics dismiss these efforts as bald-faced attempts to do an end-run around federal regulations, the fact cannot be disputed that this shift is currently underway and obvious enough to constitute a major trend (Fain). Example abound: Bridgepoint Education is currently trying to merge the University of the Rockies with Ashford University, and then shift the merged entity from the for-profit to the non-profit sector (Fain). Grand Canyon University has also been trying to do this, as well as Kaplan University (which was acquired by Purdue University and seeks to rebrand it as a non-profit) (Fain). This was clearly not the apparent intention of the Department of Education under either Obama or Trump, and yet this is the direction that many of these schools are moving in.

Lastly, we must consider the societal impact of the changes to HEA and its impact on for-profit schools. The small amount of evidence that is available on the subject suggest that the economic returns to students who attend for-profit colleges are lower than those for public and nonprofit colleges. Moreover, default rates on student loans for for-profit colleges and universities greatly exceed those of other institutions. For-profit colleges have had strong financial incentives to innovate in ways that increase enrollments, however, the rapid growth of the sector may have decreased the program quality that the students are experiencing (Deming, Golding, Katz). All of these factors point in one direction: a large negative impact directly on individuals who are seeking convenient higher education; a population that is already at a disadvantage to their peers.

It is greatly urged that federal regulations of the for-profit sector should have goals that are centered on design incentives for improved quality, while still preserving access for students from disadvantaged and nontraditional backgrounds (Deming, Golding, Katz). Education and the nature of education, how it is funded, and how funding is advanced in the years to come will directly impact the future leaders of our society. If default rates continue on an increasing trend due to lack of knowledge and the highly aggressive recruiting techniques used by for-profit colleges and universities, audits will continue to demonstrate evidence of borderline fraudulence (Deming, Golding, Katz). Advancements in the HEA movement and regulations of for-profit schools should be made and advocated by society to support the future of our citizens.

Conclusion

For-profit college and universities are probably not the smartest solution to our nation's higher education problems and seems to be having a negative impact on society as evidenced by increasing default trends. It stands to reason that schools with a profit motive trying to cram warm bodies into classrooms will be more likely to run up higher student loan default rates. Yet critics of these schools often fail to realize the similar problem that also exists at public and nonprofit private schools. The answer has been regulation tailored to punish the for-profits and basically to push them out of the federal funding trough. This appears to be happening, though not in the manner that was intended.

Moreover, these for-profit educations companies do not appear to be racking up record profits, despite the deregulatory glee of the Trump administration.

Instead, something stranger is taking place. For-profits schools, while lobbying the Trump administration for breaks favorable to their sector, also at the same time are racing each other to the exit, and trying to convert themselves to non-profit status.

This is one of the unintended consequences that libertarians are always warning about with respect to government intervention, but at this point it is too soon to say what exactly this trend means. It could turn out that, though this is the type of unexpected outcome predicted by libertarians, it may actually be more in keeping with the ideological interests of the government regulators who pushed these companies in the non-profit direction. For if the Obama-era regulatory burdens goad these companies to reform as more respectable and educational beneficial institutions, then their original intent will have been achieved, though not in a way they would have expected.

It still remains to be seen, though, whether there will be positives outcomes from this shift, or even whether government regulators will allow it (so far Grand Canyon University has been unsuccessful in obtaining approval) (Fain). If these companies merely make this shift to escape regulation, then the Obama-era regulations will have done more harm than good. At this point, however, it is simply impossible to tell how the for-profit sector will fare in the long run, and what this will mean for student loan repayment.

References

Apollo Group. (2013.) Apollo Group 2013 Form 10-k.

Deming, David, Goldin, Claudia, and Katz, Lawerence (2013). "For-profit colleges."

DeLisle, Jason and Cooper, Preston. (20 March 2018.) "Scrutinize All Colleges, Not Just Non-Profits." National Review.

Fain, Paul. (13 March 2018.) "Ashford Seeks to Become a Non-Profit." Inside Higher Ed.

Hechinger, John. Oct 17, 2012. "Apollo Group Falls Most in Two Years on Sales Forecast." Bloomberg News.

Scott-Clayton, Judith. "The looming student loan default crisis is worse than we thought." Evidence Speaks Reports, 2(34).The Brookings Institute. Web.

Simon, Caroline. (19 March 2018.) "For-Profit Colleges' Teachable Moment: 'Terrible Outcomes Are Very Profitable." Forbes.

Stratford, Michael. (31 August 2017.) "Trump and DeVos fuel a for-profit college comeback." Politico.

Strauss, Valerie. (11 December 2017.) "For-profit colleges may be headed for a new boom cycle--thanks to the Trump administration." The Washington Post. Web.

Dear Sir or Madam:

It is with great pleasure that I submit my application for entry into the Childhood Education Program (grades 1-6) at College at University of Michigan.

I believe that the Childhood Education degree offered at University of Michigan will offer me the greatest opportunity to expand my education and obtain the degree necessary to become a successful special education teacher. I understand that University of Michigan is well known for having a practical approach to education and is committed to excellence in the areas of teaching, curriculum relevance, and service to the community that I wish to extend my skills within.

I find it inspiring that University of Michigan allows students to be exposed to public classrooms from the beginning until the end of the degree program rather than solely at the end. I believe this is important in developing the experience and communication skills necessary to succeed as an educator. I believe student teaching is an integral part of developing interactive skills and communication models with children and I feel this is available to me through University of Michigan's program.

Each course in the curriculum appears relevant to my career goals and I commit myself fully to obtaining my degree in Childhood Education. The dual certification major is particularly attractive as well as program affordability, accessibility, University of Michigan's accreditation and beautiful campus. I also appreciate that there is a wide array of student organizations available including councils and Greek organizations.

I want to express my appreciation for taking the time to review my application and consider my acceptance to the program. I look forward to meeting you during the scheduled interview.

Respectfully,

Prospective Student

As an essay writer, if your schedule is tight and there's too much work, the first thing you have to do is learn time management. You could be a professional essay writer or writing essay for the first time for school work. Whatever the case, you will need essay writing and time management skills to write an essay fast within a specified period of time. The most essential ingredient of time management would be your ability to adhere to a schedule. There's an essay to write or possibly several essays to write and your first focus must be to manage your time in a way that helps you to sustain or increase your productivity. What type of time management skills would help you to improve or increase your productivity, so that you can complete big projects within the shortest period of time? Productivity and time management must be linked in a way so that one can be correlated to the other.

You must learn time management by keeping a watch, clock, your phone or timer in front of you. Also draw up a schedule or timetable on how long you think you would need to write a full length, essay, project or dissertation. Draw up an outline of the essay or project and for each stage or phase of the essay or project, determine how long you will take to write each of these parts. Now suppose you are writing a 3000-word regular analytical essay with an introduction, three or four sections and a conclusion and recommendation, you must plan how long you will take to write the introduction, the three sections, the conclusion and the recommendation. Suppose, you have a six-hour schedule to write your essay, you must determine how much time you will need for the introduction, body sections and the conclusion, recommendation. If there are six sections in total as in this case, you have one hour for each section. So, you must keep your timer in front of you on the table and time each section and that's how you'll be able to write an essay fast and also develop your time management skills, because you will know exactly how much time you can spend on each section.

Thus, suppose there are six sections in an essay- you need one hour to write each section and you sit down to write these, you must time your paper in a specific way. For each section, make a list of points that you will cover, and determine how long you will take to write each of these points. If you want to tackle 10 points in a paragraph or a section, and you have one hour to do it, you possibly have six minutes to write each point. So, once you have the breakdown of points and you know exactly what points you will add to your essay or how you will finally weave the essay to come up with a comprehensive coherent essay, you tie up all your ideas and write an essay within a certain period of time.

To complete your essay within the time you originally planned, all the points that you will include in your essay must be available to you before you begin writing. So time management for an essay involves planning the essay - not just planning the time you can allocate for each section but also planning what points you must include in each part and how you'll integrate these points to write the complete essay. The essay has to be timed, the parts of the essay have to be timed, the ideas that have to be included within the essay in general and the different section must also be listed and when you have these four elements in front of you, you can sit down to actually write your essay. These four elements will help with you time management, so it's necessary to first create an outline and determine what points you will include in the essay and how much time you will spend on each section. Once you have that, you can easily move on to looking for extra information or references to finally come up with a complete and comprehensive essay.

So, there are essentially five steps to time management while writing an essay:

1. Create an outline of the essay or thesis.

2. List the points to be included in each part of the thesis or outline.

3. Note the time you will require to write each point in the outline.

4. List the overall issues you will include in the essay.

5. Note the time you will need to write each section and the overall essay.

These are the five points you must remember for time management in essay writing. Once you have a clear idea on how much time your essay sections could take approximately, you will be able to manage your time better and knowing your essay points, your time limits and your ideas and how you'll integrate these, are crucial to writing the best essay within a short period of time. Time management of an essay essentially means that you must focus on the schedule and the content and you must learn how to balance these two factors to write the essay that will depend both on your scheduling skills and your content usage skills. You will have to manage the content or points and the time to include each of these points in a way that you can come up with the most effective time management techniques to write your essay.

If you are a first time writer and writing your last minute essay, these points in this blog could be especially useful to you, so plan your essay, the points, the time, the schedule and the content the way it is given here But if you do start panicking about your last-minute writing assignment and you think you won't be able to handle the essay even with scheduling and content management, you can definitely contact an essay writer on websites like GraduateWriter.com by contacting a freelance writer: truewriter4life@gmail.com (Sarah)

Why I'm Not an "Ethical" Person

Thinking about it now, I find it hard to believe that I am the person who falsified a medical excuse to avoid classwork. I do not say this as a way of evading my own sense of responsibility, or to claim that there was some kind of "altered state" that led me to take the steps I did. I simply mean that it is hard to understand, looking back, how I became so caught up in a logic that made it seem reasonable to do such a strange and clearly unethical thing. There are many lessons I take away from this incident, but the overarching one is that, when pressures mount to "fix" a situation, it is critical to sit back and take time to reflect on who you are and how you want to fix it-because there is always more than one way to face a tough situation.

At the time NST 10 was coming to a close, I knew that I would not make through the course. I was struggling with the coursework, but more importantly, I was struggling with college, with finding my place and with understanding how to live a more independent life. I am not sure if I was clinically depressed...I know that I felt unwell, all the time. I felt tired, stressed, unsure how to get up in the mornings and unsure how I should go through the day. I was eating all the wrong foods, gave up the sports I really love, and stopped going to social activities-except for the kind I would get dragged into late at night (which is almost always the wrong kind of social activity).

As the semester was drawing to a close I began to panic. I first got the idea of getting a doctor's excuse from a rumor that circulated around my circle of friends of a doctor who would hand out excuses for a fee. I remember the first time I heard it thinking that this was a crazy thing to do-why would you seek a false doctor's excuse for a course that you were paying to take? But the thought reemerged one night when I was inebriated, depressed and panicked. It began to seem to me that somehow this was actually a "real" way out because the truth was that I wasn't feeling well. My logic seemed to be that all a doctor's excuse would do is reflect how I really was feeling-that it wasn't a "lie" in this sense. Again, looking back, this seems like very bizarre and distorted logic. But at the time it felt like very sound logic, that I was really just taking matters into my own hands to give myself the excuse I needed and felt I somehow deserved. I was far too ashamed and embarrassed to track down the source of the rumors-this alone should have been enough to signal to me that what I was doing was way out of the bounds of ethical behavior. Instead it just began to feel clearer and clearer in my own mind that I needed to make my own document in order to represent to the University something that I believed was real and true.

There are, of course, so many other courses of action I could have taken. I could have gotten actual help, for one. I believe that had I seen a doctor or a therapist, I might have benefited from anti-depressants or at least from therapy. That way, ironically, I would not simply have had an "excuse"-I would have had the help I needed that might have allowed me to actually finish the course with at least a passing grade. However, this course of action did not feel feasible to me at the time. Instead, deep down it felt to me that I had created this problem by not eating right, not exercising, not managing my time, and that I needed to "fix" the problem that I had created and then, with the time it bought me, just pick up the pieces and force myself to do better next time.

Another obvious course of action would have been to consult the professor early in the term and explain how much I was struggling and the fact that I felt I would never make it through the course. I had an inking very early on that I was "in way over my head." However, one thing that happens when you are not doing well in college-at least it seems to me-is that you think you need to bluff your way through until everything falls into place. Sometimes in class I felt like I was on the moon, like nothing made sense and that it couldn't be making sense to anyone. I took notes in a rote way, just expecting that if I went through the motions eventually a light would shine and everything would click into place. It honestly never occurred to me that the thing to do would be to admit I was struggling and seek out guidance and help. As the semester wore on things became worse and worse; because I did not understand the fundamentals, I could not understand anything that built on the fundamentals. By the time I realized that the light was never going to suddenly shine on me, it seemed excruciatingly embarrassing to go back and admit to anyone I had been lost from the very beginning.

If I did not consult a doctor/therapist or the professor, at very least, I know now that I could have gone to any number of other sources of support that exist at Berkeley-peer tutoring groups, resident assistants in the dorms, or even a campus chaplain. I suspect now that if I had consulted any of these sources of support, I would have been led to the same kinds of answers: encouragement to seek medical and therapeutic advice; encouragement to understand that I was not the only student who hits rough patches; guidance on managing my time and friendships more wisely. I believe the University does a very impressive job of trying to make us aware of these various sources of support, but it always felt to me that these sources existed for "other" students. I think I was blocked from seeking help in that respect not just by embarrassment-but by pride.

It would be hard to overstate the discomfort that my choices eventually did cause. When I first was called in to explain the documents, everything felt surreal. I shrugged it off to my roommate and just said there must be some misunderstanding. At first I did not own up to anyone that I had done anything wrong. I kept telling people that I was caught up in some crazy bureaucratic nightmare that would soon be resolved. Friends gave me support and understanding.

When finally I started to tell a few people what I had done, I had this somewhat delusional idea that they would laugh it off-as if everyone cuts corners in this way sometimes. Instead, it was like a wall of silence went up. I think it was shock on their part, combined with extreme discomfort. There was nothing comforting they could say to me-no one could look me in the eye and say, "that's all right, we all do stupid things." Because they all felt that what I had done went way beyond stupid. It was stupid and also unethical. More than this perhaps, it violated their sense that they had to struggle with the same pressures but they did not take shortcuts like this. This is also an issue I did not understand or appreciate before this incident: that college is a community. It is something different than just a bunch of friends and acquaintances who also happen to go to class. Everyone finds it tough at some point, but there are expectations concerning how you deal with it when things are tough. Cheating makes other people feel that you think you live outside the rules that they have to obey, and this is hard for people to get past. What I experienced, I am starting to understand, was a kind of community censure-and it was not comfortable.

If I am able to stay in school, I look forward more than I can say to starting over. I think it will truly have to be a total start from scratch. I will have to find new friends and new activities, and have to approach everything I do in a new way. I am determined to make a fresh start by instituting a schedule for myself that includes a good diet and regular exercise so that I keep my body healthy while I push my mind. I have discovered that studying late at night, like most students do, does not work for me. My mind operates best in the early morning; moreover, at night, there are too many temptations to go and have a beer or sit and just talk and goof off. Therefore, my goal is to begin getting up early every morning-something I do very naturally when I am feeling healthy-and put in a couple of hours of study before I really even get going with my day.

Beyond this plan, I know now that if I start to fall behind-either in a specific class or in college in general-I need to seek help. This entire episode has caused me to reassess why I feel pride at certain things and not others. I felt too much pride to seek help, but I did not feel too proud to take such a stupid action? It is very strange to me that my pride could operate this way, but now I feel very aware of it, and aware that I need to ask myself very consciously about when I need help and why I might be avoiding seeking it.

Academic integrity can feel like a slogan, detached from the course of every day life. My guess is that this is true for many ethical principles in life. One of the reasons that it can be easy to act in an unethical way, I believe, is that once you have convinced yourself you are an "ethical" person, deviations from ethical behavior feel less bad, as if they were just minor detours you were taking on an essentially well-intentioned journey. What I understand now is that ethical principles like this are meant to be guides for daily decision- making. It is particularly important to consider the nature of integrity and ethics when you are feeling most pressured and most like there are no good ways out, because that is when you are most likely to delude yourself and make haphazard decisions without thinking through their meaning.

Therefore, if there is one overarching lesson I take from this incident, it is that if I want to be an ethical person going forward, I have to stop and ask myself tough questions every time I am faced with a potential shortcut. The fact that I would never have told someone else what I was doing should have been a warning bell telling me that what I was doing was wrong. Instead I got caught up in a logic that told me I was a "good" student who was just using a handy shortcut to help represent what felt like the truth: that I was not well and not coping. I think and very much hope that this entire incident has given me a new way of thinking about things, so that if ever such a suspect kind of logic begins to look persuasive again, I will stop and ask myself tough questions about who I am and what an ethical choice would look like. I cannot promise that I will always be successful, at every stage of life, in making just the right ethical choice. But I can certainly promise that I will never, ever cheat in a class again.

High functioning study groups help to navigate the academics of the Executive MBA program. Students are placed in groups of four to six students, each with a diverse mix of professional backgrounds and skill sets.

Question 1: What role(s) do you see yourself playing within your study group?

Answer

Group study is integral to the success of a student as the sharing of ideas, the solving of problems and the reinforcement of lively discussion are essential tools in not just learning the material, but in gaining a true understanding of what is presented and how it applies to real business. In a study group, I see myself as being not only a leader of discussion because of my natural ability to organize and guide a group, but also to facilitate the assistance of the other students.

I think that facilitation is the key to a successful group - it involves not only learning what the needs are of the other members, but actively seeking ways in which these needs can be met. This may involve coming to understand the different learning styles of the members of group - whether some are readers, audio learners, kinesthetic, and so on, and deciding on formats in which to manage these needs. Perhaps a kinesthetic learner would profit more from a hands-on model or a visit to a business, while readers may benefit from transcribing notes.

In addition, I have over twelve years of finance experience to bring to the table and share with my peers, and I am excited at the prospect of being able to share my experiences and prior learning with my study-mates. With this experience is also an ability to mediate and direct conflict into a positive outcome, which is always useful in a group situation as well.

Question 2: What is the ONE most unique personal or professional characteristic that you have that will benefit your group?

Answer

Although I offer a diverse array of personal and professional experience, a specific and unique personal characteristic that would benefit the group is my charismatic personality. Charisma is a vital pillar of leadership - it is the ability to encourage a group to achieve monumental things using personal energy, positive reinforcement and a vibrant energy as well as understand the needs of the group and the individuals that make up the group. It has been said that great leaders such as Ronald Reagan were able to climb to the peak of success using charisma as their primary strength in communicating with people.

This trait gives me the ability to make a group feel comfortable and at the same time, relaxed and ready to work as a cohesive unit. I have encountered situations in my professional career in which a group of employees were at odds with each other and feeling very negatively about other members of the group. The productivity of the group had come to a halt and a project was at risk because of it. Using my charisma and my ability to understand the needs of the individuals, I was able to turn that situation around into a productive and unified group. They moved on from their differences and were able to overcome the obstacles that had blocked them from moving forward after I was assigned to the group to help them mediate amongst themselves.

This is an ability, or a skillset, if you will, that my employer genuinely cherishes, and I believe it will serve me well both in my studies, in my relationships with other students and my professional life as it unfolds, as interpersonal skills are highly valuable in any industry.

QUESTION I - How many sources?

I am doing research for my MA thesis (100pp) and really don't know how many sources are appropriate for a document this long. I have never written anything more than 20pp before, so this is uncharted water for me. Is there some acceptable range that I just don't know about?

Answer

Ah, you have come upon one of the most important principles of academic writing: for every formal written rule, there are two informal unwritten ones that are just as important! It is obviously very important to take the guidelines you have been given by your school very seriously - they may be called guidelines, but they are actually rules which, should you dare to break them, will cause you to fail, or at least rewrite your thesis. However, there is a huge mass of understood assumption which forms the bedrock of all academia, theses included.

One of these unstated but certainly understood assumptions is that you should have a given number of sources in a document of a given size. The number is not written in stone anywhere, which would actually be nice, so you have to take your best guess. Let's look at things in the small scale for a moment. How many sources would you include in a 10 page research paper? At any advanced level, especially at the graduate level, you wouldn't want to hand this paper in with fewer than 10 sources, taking both primary and secondary into account. On the upper end, 20 would be at the high end of acceptable. If you go below the bottom value, your paper can seem poorly researched, and if you go over the high end, it can seem wholly unoriginal. Simple multiplication would suggest that a 100 page thesis should therefore have from 100 to 200 sources, and this isn't a terrible range to work with. However, keep in mind that this paper should not look like 10 different papers piled into the same binding, but rather a series of interconnected chapters devoted to the same purpose. As a result, you will have more opportunity to follow a given secondary argument for a greater period of time, meaning you will not have to provide as many new sources. Also, when you consider that the number of primary sources you are using will remain relatively constant regardless of the length of your paper, you can see that 100-200 sources becomes an exaggerated figure. So, depending on your topic and the available materials, as well as your approach, a number between 50 and 125 sources should mark the effective range.

QUESTION II - Project already done

I have been researching my topic for three months and I just found a study that I had never heard of that does exactly what I was planning on doing! I feel like I have wasted all this time, and I have no idea where to go from here.

Answer

While this isn't every graduate student's worst nightmare (that would be getting up to perform your defense and realizing you are naked), it is certainly in the top 10. I know this must be disappointing, because originality means so much in contemporary academics, but there is definitely a bright side to this, and a reason to press forward. My own students often ask me what the purpose of academic research is, and I always respond to them that it is two-fold. First, you want to see what people are talking about in the discipline, and where the arguments are, to give yourself some direction and inspiration. Second, you want to make sure that your best and brightest ideas haven't already been done, and done better, by someone who has come before you. The academic community thrives on interesting overlap, but what value is there in doing work that has already been done, and saying precisely what has been said already? Not much.

Your research has run you into an unexpected wall, but it has allowed you to become aware of problem two listed above, and to correct it before your project begins in earnest. Imagine how you would feel if you were defending your research, only to have an examiner ask you how your study is different from study X, which is actually identical? You would then have wasted 4-5 years, and felt (understandably!) much worse. Now you are in a relatively enviable position. First, consider how nice it is that you have independently arrived at ideas which have been validated by a professional in the field. Also, the fact that neither your supervisor nor your committee members knew of the work puts you in a position of superior knowledge: you can now use this relatively unknown but related work as a platform from which to launch your own investigations. You must have had some idea about what your original research could be used to find after it was established - go to that next level and count yourself lucky to have given yourself this opportunity! You now get to fast-forward through the research path you had projected, something few students get a chance to do.

Answers by Sarah, truewriter4life@gmail.com

QUESTION I - Too many applications!

Right now I am working like mad to finish all of my grad school applications and it feels like it is never going to end. I have almost everything filled out but the admission essays are killing me. All of the schools are asking for different length essays with different details. Is there any way to speed this up? I have five of these things due soon.

Answer

The best advice I can give you now is to relax, take a deep breath, and focus on what you need to do. The question you ask is one I hear all the time when it comes to graduate admissions, and I am pleased to tell you that there are some excellent strategies for minimizing your workload while maximizing your chances of getting accepted. First of all, graduate schools are well aware that most applicants apply to five to ten other schools, and that there is a tremendous amount of repetition involved in this process. Therefore, although each school wants something slightly different, they do not check whether you have used the same essay, or pieces of the same essay, in your application to other schools. This means that you are free to cut, paste, and synthesize anything you use in any of your essays for inclusion in any other.

As you pointed out, schools ask for different things, but in the many applications you will find yourself doing, you will notice yourself saying the same phrases time and again, repeating information, and answering questions that, while different, require the same responses. The best way to start is to locate which school wants the longest, most completely thorough essay, and finish this. Then, complete the next most demanding essay, pasting in as many elements as you can from the first. Repeating this process for every essay, always using the relevant material from your previous essays, will make your later essays speed past faster than you thought possible. This cascading method of writing allows you to avoid the tedium of redundancy, while minimizing the time you have to spend. By the time you get to the final few, you will be doing almost no writing at all, merely cutting, pasting, and integrating existing materials.

Under no circumstances should you even consider submitting one essay to all of the schools to which you will be applying! Since they are subtly different, you will either not be addressing the important questions, or you will be providing far too much information in an attempt to answer every question asked by every school! Using the customized cascading approach provides you with the benefits of contemplating without losing the personalized flavor of each different essay.'

QUESTION II - Dropping names

I am arguing with my friend that who you know is more important than what you know for getting into grad school. She doesn't want to put in the fact that she knows profs from other schools to her admissions essay but I am trying to tell her it only makes sense. Its like anything else in life, if you know people you have a better chance.

Answer

Ahh, this is an argument that goes back a long way, and is about a lot more than just graduate admissions essays, but it certainly is a relevant one to have in this context. First of all, let me say that I DO NOT agree that "who you know" is more important that "what you know" when it comes to graduate admissions. You could be the daughter of the department head or the son of the dean, but if you don't have the required grades and research background, all of your connections will not amount to anything. Merit is still vitally important, and without it, even the president (of the school, or even of the country!) would have a hard time getting you in.

That being said, I do agree that knowing someone in the school to which you will be applying is a definite advantage, and if you have such an association, this is something which MUST be included in your application essay. People are often reluctant to do this kind of "name-dropping" because they feel it is unfair, or they want to succeed on their own merits, rather than because of a connection they are lucky enough to have made. However, when it comes to the dog-eat-dog process of applying to graduate school, please remember that students are striving for every single edge they can get, and that not taking advantage of any angle is a recipe for disaster.

Think of it like this. You are choosing someone to work for your business, and you have a list of hundreds of applications to choose from. All of them could do the job, and even after you have trimmed the pile by increasing the minimum qualifications, you still have more than a quarter of the applicants remaining. At this point, your choice becomes almost arbitrary; you could pick names from a hat and still get a very strong employee. However, you go through the pile and realize you have been corresponding with one of the applicants, and that this person seems quite personable and interested in your company. I don't think it would be a mistake to choose this person for the position; you know them already to some degree, and you know you are getting someone you will get along with. If you know someone you would like to work with at a given school, make sure to include this in your admissions essay. It gives you a face in a sea of anonymity, which may be the factor which allows you to rise to the top.

Answers by Rose, graduateediting@gmail.com

Question about a nursing research paper and privacy

I am a nurse, in graduate school, and trying to get everything ready to write my thesis. I need patient data, but my hospital's Ethics Committee has refused my application. They say my research would impinge on the privacy of their patients. I have already written over 40 pages of Literature Review, but my professor says I should not have even begun to write until I had their permission to conduct the study. What can I do?

Answer

There are a number of things you can do, in a situation like this. Time is valuable and I know you do not want to throw away over 40 pages of Literature Review. The easiest thing to do is tweak the manner in which you conduct your writing study and research. The Information Management Department of every hospital is going to be the best friend of any graduate student, whether he or she is in nursing, or in any of the Allied Health fields. Instead of collecting data from individual patients, have the Information Management collect your data for you. They can run a computer search for any parameters you need, and can get that information, sans names, for as many years as you need your study to cover.

They are an overlooked treasure that can even produce your graphs and, in some cases, your tables. Think about your study and see if there is any way you can change your research design to ex post facto. If not, and you need actual patients to interview, you may have to go to a large clinic, rather than a hospital, to find patients. As long as you fully document how you intend to protect human beings in research, the Ethics Committee of the hospital should accept it.

Once that is done, you will still have to get through the Ethics Committee of your graduate school, but they usually accept the decision of a hospital. The main thing here is to document document document, in your thesis, every step you have taken to protect your subjects.

Answers by Rose, graduateediting@gmail.com

QUESTION I - Ethical dilemma

I am working on my MBA and my professor has a problem with the person who is doing my data entry and analysis because she is a family member. He is making noises about it being unethical to utilize data she generates because she could skew it in favor of my thesis. Now, he is suggesting that I pay a student in the Computer Science Department to do my stats. I need that data for my thesis and I need it yesterday! What do I do?

Answer

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is "it depends." Why are you using a family member to run your statistics? What are her qualifications to do this type of work? What program is she using? Does the software have built-in protections to prevent alterations in data generation? For that matter, are the qualifications of the suggested "student in the Computer Science Department" any better than those of your family member? This is an important question because your findings must be without question. If your family member has no knowledge of statistics, then you might actually be able to turn that into a plus. You can put, in your thesis, that she was simply a data entry worker. The computer program generated the data and you did the analysis. On the other hand, if she is a leading authority on some obscure topic, such as state sales and tax use, and your thesis just happens to be on state sales and tax use; then your professor may, just may, have a point. If you look at your thesis as a springboard to an eventual dissertation, you really do not want to introduce any hint that you might have cut corners along the way. Think about his suggestion. If he has good reason for it, consider hiring the student. If there is no reason for it, document the capacity in which she did the work, her experience, or lack of same, in the field, and respectfully decline his suggestion. As always, document document document.

QUESTION II - My thesis advisor should retire

My thesis advisor is an elderly lady who should have retired years ago. Over the course of the past two decades, business practices, especially in the international market, have changed considerably. She has not kept up with the times and is making "minor changes" to my thesis that would get me laughed out of my committee. She does not know the laws that support my thesis and is unwilling to learn. What can I do?

Answer

You have one of the toughest questions there is to answer for business graduate students. In your profession, the law is paramount, especially in light of such situations as Enron and WorldCom. As an MBA student, you cannot afford to ignore the law, especially with the advent of the Internet and the globalization of the marketplace. If your thesis advisor is really that far out of touch, it sounds to me as if you need to make a change. I would advise you to speak, privately of course, with the other members of your committee. It may be that one of them is especially interested in your topic and would be willing to take you under their wing. This could be explained to your present advisor in just those terms. It is not unusual for MBA students to change thesis advisors when they discover someone else on their committee who is interested in, and knowledgeable about, their topic. Remember, your problem thesis advisor will still be on your committee, so best not to leave her with hard feelings. Be polite and show excitement about having "accidentally found" someone who is so "perfect" for you and your topic. This should smooth things over and make it much easier for you to make the transition away from your former advisor.

QUESTION III - Patient Confidentiality

I have to write an essay on one aspect of why respecting patient confidentiality is important. I need to pick one these four reasons: Respect for patient autonomy; implied promise; virtue ethics; or consequentialism. Which one would be easier to write on?

Answer

All four of the reasons you cite are very important grounds for protecting patient confidentiality. However, I am not sure you only want to concentrate on one that is 'easier' to write on. While that may indeed make the writing process more enjoyable for you, you may also want to consider which of the four is more important to the patient - or even to your professor. Hopefully you have developed some understanding of what your instructor values in this regard or maybe you personally have stronger feelings about one of these concepts that another.

For example, which is more important: the protection of patient rights; protection of the hospital; or possibly maintaining your own high ethical standards? I would suggest that you decide where you stand on this issue and write from the angle that is closest to your personal value system. If you do not have strong feelings one way or the other, then you could choose to write from whatever aspect has been highlighted most in your classes or text books. Regardless, you do not want to get into the bad habit of only writing what is 'easiest', as this will only hurt you in the long run.

QUESTION IV - Case Study

I wanted to use a case study method to complete an assignment in my class on business ethics, but my instructor says that he wants me to pick a different method. He says I won't learn as much from case studies. Do you have any idea what he is talking about?

Answer

I am sure your instructor would be happy to explain his reasoning if asked, but I will attempt to provide some possible explanations. Despite the importance of case studies in teaching business ethics, they tend to be narrowly focused and require little accountability on the students' part. Students may suggest solutions to an ethical issue that are unrealistic for realities of organizational life, including political maneuvering, power relationships, and profit concerns.

It has also been noted that the case study method is deficient in promoting character development and often misses the affective aspect of learning altogether. In addition, while dispassionate critiques make for excellent critical thinking skills, they may not engage the personal values and convictions of the student. This is perceived as being particularly counterproductive when, as is often the case, multiple ethical systems are being used simultaneously. Therefore, the case method approach runs the risk of valuing the thinking process so highly that content, virtuous attitudes, and conduct may be given less attention than they deserve.

Answered by Sarah, truewriter4life@gmail.com

QUESTION I - Laid back speeches

My speech teacher says my speeches are too "laid back" and that I do not take my topics seriously enough. I write the way I talk and do not know how to change that. What do I do?

Answer

It looks to me as if you may have forgotten at least one the two cardinal rules of speech writing.

First, know your topic. Second, remember to whom you are speaking. It is not enough to simply know your topic. If you do not create a speech that is appropriate for the audience and situation, then all is lost. If you know your topic, and know it well, there should be no difficulty in gathering enough material to fill the time you have been allotted. If you are a class clown, leave the humor alone. Simply stick to the topic you have been assigned. This is not to say that you have to slick back your hair, wear horned-rimmed glasses, and present your topic as if it were a funeral dirge. It just means stick to the topic and deliver a speech that is appropriate for the audience you have been given. Your own character traits are not even an issue. This is an assignment, and you must think of it that way, not as an "on stage" opportunity for you to "talk." Be of good cheer. There are assignments, in speech writing, in which you can play and have a good time. It is just that, for every assignment, you must consider the audience that will be receiving your speech and the reason they would want to hear it. If it is inappropriate to "tell it the way you talk," then try another technique. Write the speech as if you are writing it for someone else to present. That might help you to keep some of your own "laid back" personality out of the text.

QUESTION II - Too little time to speak?

My speech teacher has assigned me a huge topic and has given me only 5 minutes to speak. What do I do?

Answer

That is really not a tough question. In these cases, read all you can about your topic and jot down major points as you read. Then, put the reading away and number your major points, in order of importance. Include only the top five points in your speech and you will be just fine. This situation is becoming more and more common as we get farther and farther into the Information Age. Some have termed this "Information Overload." Access to the Internet has made it possible to run a search on any topic and gather current research from around the world. The research often includes huge studies on every minute detail of the topic. It is impossible to put all of this information into a five minute speech. What you can do, and this is highly recommended, is create a handout for your audience. Both MS-Word and PowerPoint have the capability to produce very nice handouts, including graphics. If you are not familiar with them, the time it takes you to learn will be well spent. Your handout can include web addresses to relevant research for each of the major points about a topic, not just the five or so you chose for your speech. The preparation of such a handout speaks to professionalism and will result in your earning more points toward your grade for this speech. So, never let the magnitude of a topic dissuade you from writing your speech. Simply take that as an opportunity to showcase your professionalism by creating collateral reading lists. Your audience and your teacher will all appreciate your efforts and your grade will reflect it.

QUESTION III - Kinds of speeches

I have heard of different kinds of speeches, and I am just wondering what the main types are and what is the difference between them? Are informal and formal different kinds of speeches? What about informational and educational?

Answer

Your question is a good one, and should help to clarify this issue for many people confused by the multitude of divisions that can be made in the world of speeches. If you search the web, you will find hundreds of different kinds of speeches, ranging from the toast to the hour-long lecture. By looking at the most basic categories, we can apply some order to this seemingly chaotic field.

The four major divisions into which almost all of the smaller speech-types can be placed are informative, persuasive, entertaining, and narrative. The informative speech involves the presentation of information in as objective a way as possible. Explaining how lightning is generated, or how the structure of government works, are both good examples. A persuasive speech deals with some issue and argues for a certain position or perspective, with the goal of convincing people to adopt the same position. A speech which extols everyone to vote for the Republicans would certainly be an example of a persuasive speech. An entertaining speech can be based on almost anything, but should come off sounding more like an extended stand-up comedy routine than anything else, because the purpose is to delight the audience, not to teach or convince them. The final type, the narrative speech, tells a story, and often takes the form of an extended anecdote or even an oral short-story.

It is important to keep in mind that aspects of one kind of speech can appear in another; your persuasive speech can have entertaining elements, as well as informative. These categories are most helpful when you are first writing your speech, because they help you to underline the speech's main purpose. Do you need people to understand something, or do you need them to believe your position? Are they expecting a captivating story, or do they want to be amused by your speech? After deciding on the basic speech type, other categories can be considered: should it be written in a formal or informal style? How long should it be? Should it be entirely prepared, based on basic notes, or presented off-the-cuff? The answers to all of these questions depend on two major factors, the first of which is your audience, and the second of which is yourself! Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will help you to mould a speech that you will feel comfortable giving, and that others will enjoy hearing.

QUESTION IV - Starting my speech

I am having a really hard time with the start of my speech. I have looked at different ways to start and there seems to be a lot of options. What do you think?

Response: Sometimes having too many choices is more difficult than having too few, and this is definitely one of those times. There are so many different ways to begin a speech, and so much "common wisdom" about the best way to do it, that everything you hear seems to contradict everything else: Start by introducing yourself and greeting the audience; save the introductions for later and start with a joke; begin with a little piece of a suspenseful story to hook your audience; start with a famous quote or dictionary definition to ground your speech in authority.... All of these options are widely recommended, but they are also all mutually exclusive! I am pleased to say that each one has its proper place, and that knowing which one is best for your situation is key to hitting the right tone with your opening.

The traditional opening for a speech runs something like "Ladies and gentlemen..." appended to whoever else happens to be in attendance, which may include judges, teachers, fellow students, and important individuals. After this you introduce yourself, your topic, and then start in on the content of your speech proper. There are times when this opening is appropriate, especially in the case where you are saying all of this to show that you know the proper conventions of greeting and address, like in a contest or in a class. However, notice how formal this is, and how repetitive it can be when a succession of speakers all uses it. If the situation permits using another opening, I would highly recommend it, since this one is so predictable and relatively empty.

Leading with a joke, or a funny story, is a great idea of your speech is on a light topic, or any topic that you plan to treat lightly. However, don't begin a deathly serious speech with a one-liner; if you plan to tell a sad story about how your best friend died of cancer, nothing will work against the rest of your speech like a funny opening. Starting with a quotation can be useful in a persuasive speech, especially if it comes from a notable figure speaking on your topic, whether for or against your point of view. However, make sure to avoid the common trap of using the most overdone quotations. "I have a dream" was a fantastically effective line in Martin Luther King, Junior's famous speech, but it has appeared in so many speeches since that it has lost its rhetorical power. A quotation from a dictionary to define a term is often a strong way to begin an informative speech, but you have to be certain the term you choose is not so complex as to lose listeners from the beginning, and no so easy that it really didn't need to be defined at all. As is the case with most aspects of speech writing, context is the key, and knowing what you are trying to accomplish will provide a good guide to what device you will use to begin.

Answers by Academic Eve, academiceve92@gmail.com

QUESTION I - Elizabethan English

I wrote an analysis of a poem and my teacher gave me a grade of 75, with the comment "Elizabethan English is Dead - Second warning" in big red letters at the top of the first page. I am not certain she even read what I wrote. What can I do?

Answer

Yours is a common problem. As a teacher, it is beyond me why otherwise intelligent individuals will sit down to write about poetry and, automatically, begin to speak in Elizabethan English. I have seen their other work. They do not write this way, in my class, unless the topic is poetry. I find the same problem in students who are writing in business. Sometimes, the plethora of heretofores, untowards, and neverthelesses sends me into gales of laughter but, sometimes, it is simply irritating and, of course, that is reflected in the grade I ultimately give the student. What I recommend is that you take your papers to your teacher. Tell her you understand that you have a very bad habit, especially when writing about poetry, and ask if she will allow you to edit the two papers into Standard English. Ask her if she would be willing to make a grade adjustment for you, if you are successful and if you never write in Elizabethan English again. I know that sounds like a simple fix but, if you do not break yourself of this habit, it can carry over into your other writing and could affect your financial future. No one wants to hire someone who writes in a manner that is inappropriate for the 21st Century. You are early in your college career. If you do not break this habit now, I can promise you that your professors in your major will not be as forgiving as a freshman English teacher will be.

QUESTION II - Poem analysis confusion

I have to do an analysis of a poem but, when I sat down to write, I looked at my class notes and they make no sense at all. The teacher either did not explain fully, or was talking so fast that I didn't get all the notes, or I was not in class when she did give the notes. Now, I am lost. What can I do?

Answer

It sounds to me as if you waited until the last minute to make sure your notes were in good order; but that is the answer to more than a few other questions. We need to address your immediate problem. I am assuming that your teacher gave you a list of points to cover in your analysis of this poem. You have access to the Internet, or you could not have sent this question. What you need to do, right now, is a search for "poetry analysis" (not in quotes on google). You should get enough hits on the very first page of returns to complete your paper. There are excellent online guides from major universities around the world that will assist you in understanding everything you need to know about analyzing a poem, from title, to historical context, to the actual mechanical techniques used by the poem's author. However, the first thing you need to do is calm down and know that help is there, in print, online. You are not "lost" so badly that you cannot find your way. Take some time, read through the web sites, and match what you find there with the criteria your teacher has given in her outline. You will be just fine. From now on, let me suggest that you keep up with your notes on a daily basis. If there is something you are missing, or do not understand, better to fix it daily than end up "lost" and in a panic again.

QUESTION III - Rhyming poem

I am really bad a writing poems and I have to pass in one tomorrow in English class but I am really nervous. It is supposed to have a rhyme scheme and I don't really know what that is and it is too late to ask the teacher. Could someone tell me what it is? And give me an example? The longer example the better!

Answer

You have asked a question that will help a lot of people, I think, when it comes to writing and understanding poetry. Whenever most people think of poems, they think of rhyming right away, and you can't really understand poetry, let alone write your own, unless you know how to order your rhymes. Of course, some people will complain to me that poetry doesn't have to rhyme, but I will say that, while this is true, knowing rhyme scheme is still very, very important for any poet. As you can see, from the question, you never know when you will have to make up a rhyming poem on short notice!

Thankfully, almost everyone knows how to rhyme, and which words rhyme with which other ones, so I can skip explaining that (but if you aren't sure, you need to get this explained to you immediately!). However, knowing how to put rhymes into a given pattern according to a poetic structure or form is not something that comes nearly as naturally, which is why it is something that has to be taught later on in school, whereas rhyme is something most children pick up before they even start kindergarten. There are many ways to arrange your rhymes in a poem, but I will focus on the two most popular ways to make things easy.

In this example, the four lines (separated by a /) have the rhyme scheme AABB: "The little dog/ Inside his log/ Rolled round and round/ Till he was found." The first two lines rhyme with each other, and the second two rhyme with each other, which is what AABB indicates. You can go through a whole poem repeating this kind of rhyming, and it will sound just fine. Another popular way of arranging rhymes is ABAB, which can look something like this: "I drove my car to school/ But didn't check the gas./ I feel like a fool/ Because I'm late for class!" The first line rhymes with the third line, and the second line rhymes with the fourth line, which makes the ABAB structure. Using either of these rhyme schemes can lead you to a good poem. Now, it is up to you to write it!

QUESTION IV - Shakespeare plays

I just had a class where a student said that all of Shakespeare's plays are actually poems. But aren't plays and poems different kinds of writing? Novels tell stories on paper in regular language. Plays tell stories on stage in regular language. Poems don't tell stories and they rhyme, which Shakespeare usually doesn't. So how are his plays poems? Do they mean that they sound poetic or something? I am finding this confusing.

Answer

Although it seems hard to believe, your classmate is correct about Shakespeare. All of his plays are actually composed in verse, or poetic form, and so they are all technically poems. Your confusion, though, is completely understandable, and I think it is based on the ideas of poems, plays, and novels that we have in modern society. The definition of a poem, or poetry in general, goes a lot further than many of us today might think.

If an author needs to tell a story today, he or she will usually put it into novel form, or the form of a play. Poems are usually short works that express something emotional, and have an engaging meaning, but which do not tell a series of connected events. However, if we go back into the distant (and not too distant) past, we find that people used poetry to tell stories even more often than they used prose (or regular language). A poem does not have to be short, and it certainly does not have to rhyme, so this leaves Shakespeare's plays possible candidates for inclusion under the label of poetry. Poetry is highly structured language, and although rhyme is the most usual arranging feature, there are many others.

In the case of Shakespeare, looking at any single line of his poetry, we notice that a definite pattern emerges, even though it is not obvious at first. Take any line from any of his plays, and count how many syllables it has. Compare this to any other lines, before it, after it, or even in another play entirely. Notice anything? That's right, they almost always have ten syllables! This might come as quite a surprise, but that is only the beginning. Read any of those lines you have chosen, and then another from somewhere else, and then another. Do you find yourself falling into a kind of sing-song way of reading them, with every second word seeming to come out with more importance or stress than the others? Believe it or not, this is completely intentional, and this is the structure that binds all of Shakespeare's plays together. This regular pattern of stresses is called poetic meter, and whenever you see (or hear) it, it is a sure sign that what you are reading is certainly poetry.

QUESTION V - Are female feminists?

Can it be said that all female poets are in some sense writers of feminist poetry?

Answer

No, I do not think that statement is based on the facts. While women poets in general have written on a wide variety of subjects, many (if not most) focus on and appeal to a general audience, both male and female. Feminist poets, on the other hand, have based their poetry on the experiences of women, and developed a formal reorientation based in a feminist consciousness. As women writing with the interests of other women in mind, these women have developed a poetics grounded in women's individual experiences, geared toward women's liberation from gender oppression, and therefore involving the need for both subjective and collective expression. As a result, they have combined older formal strategies with newer ones.

Rooted in the revolutions in American poetry that occurred in the 1960s, feminist poets have produced interesting formal innovations. They have begun to merge the lyric and the narrative to produce a hybrid form; they have used and revised prose poems because of the widespread need to tell individual women's stories and the histories of whole cultural groups of women; and they have used elements of various literary forms from non-Western cultures together with Western ideas about poetry.

QUESTION VI - The difference between the American and European poetry

Our class has been given an assignment to identify an important difference between American poetry and European poetry and write an essay about it. We have been given a lot of leeway for this paper, but I am not sure whether to talk about some specific style difference or maybe the history. Any suggestions?

Answer

Honestly, much depends on what your instructor may be looking for. But, not having that information, I would suggest avoiding simply writing about style differences since every other student will probably be doing that. Taking a unique angle may serve you well, such as the fact that poetry in America has rarely been granted the cultural importance it enjoys in countries such as England, France, and Germany. Since poetry in America does not have the lengthy history that it does in Europe, Americans have tended to view the novel, rather than poetry, as the literary genre best suited to the experience of a newer, more pragmatically minded nation. In American literary life, novelists are the celebrated stars of the profession while poets are too often relegated to the cultural sidelines.

Speaking from experience, this is the type of essay that I would have looked for when I was teaching. It does not simply address the obvious - but seeks to explore the topic from a different perspective. But, maybe your instructor is a more 'by the book' type, and in that case you might want to reconsider this line of advice. You may also seek research advice from professional essay writers on a message board.

Answers by Academic Eve, academiceve92@gmail.com

As grammar school students, the rudiments of writing are provided as story telling lessons. "How Did You Spend Your Summer?" being one of the common story topics that seem like a rite of passage for students learning to write. The instructions are simple. Write 5 sentences in 5 paragraphs. Describe your summer in no more than 250 words. 5 paragraphs, 250 words - these are the basis for essay writing. What's wrong with that? Uniformity has its benefits. It keeps the guesswork out of writing. The students need instructions to learn how to do something right, that includes essay writing. Well, as an educator, I don't really believe in the 5-paragraph essay. Why? Let's consider several reasons, which, I am sure you will agree with as students.

I. Formulaic writing only works for beginner.

When I first started writing essays as a child, I knew very little about the world around me and could not write anything beyond what happened to me at school during the day. Having these preset instructions to follow helped me get my homework done. I knew that if I wrote 5 sentences and formatted it to look like a paragraph, I would have met the most basic requirements of my teacher. Whether I wrote anything of value or not at this point was not an issue. I just needed to remember the format for future use. As I advanced academically though, I began to find that the 5-paragraph essay was become increasingly difficult to stick to.

II. 5 Paragraphs only starts the discussion.

For high school students who have the gift of gab or a love of research, the 5-paragraph essay won't do them much good. 5 paragraphs will only help them introduce and discuss one topic in relation to a given instruction. The one topic per paragraph requirement that worked early on will no longer cut it. The student needs more space to let his knowledge and understanding flow. The student will have worked himself up to at least a 10-paragraph essay by that point.

III. 5 paragraphs don't prove the student learned about the discussion topic.

If a teacher or professor really wants to discover the student is paying attention in class, he needs to assign more than a 5-paragraph, 250 word essay. That is because the more the student must write, the more evidence of learning will be produced through the essay. What and how the student understands the lesson can be discovered by the amount of useful and authoritative information the student can include in an essay.

IV. 5 paragraph writing stifles the thinking process.

If a student is to become intellectually mature, observational, and inquisitive, more room must be provided for this type of development in essay writing. This requires more words to be written, more paragraphs to be developed, and more probing prompts to be provided. Things that a 5-paragraph essay will not provide due to the limited discussion space allotted.

V. Short essay writing does not prepare the student for college.

College essay papers are normally research papers of no less than 5 pages. Professors require the students to be able to write clear and well-structured essays that show an advanced writing skill. Since the students are used to writing only short essays, they come to college ill prepared for the rigorous and demanding research papers for their subjects.

It is imperative that the thinking process of a student be developed in preparation for college as soon as he starts learning to write essays. Encouraging the student to write more analytical pieces, filled with clear and informative paragraphs will best prepare him for the writing requirements of his eventual college course and will lessen his need to require writing help as a college student.

As an academic consultant, one of the major problems that I come across when assisting college students in the development of their paper is the creation of their bibliography page. Due to having several writing styles available, each of which have a different in-text citation presentation, the students tend to get confused as to how to properly format the bibliography listing as well. While I do my best to help them properly format the paper, the fact that most of them use the internet for information to use in their paper proves to be a problem. They usually cannot find complete publication information online to use in their bibliography.

Then, I discovered that the internet is fast turning into a highly helpful place for students to work on their bibliography page. Without making any reference to a particular service, I referred my students to these so-called online citation generators. They came back to me to thank them for giving them the magical tool to creating a properly formatted source page for their research papers. I was ecstatic at the results as my job also became easier when it came to my having to assist the students with their writing requirements.

By using the online citation generator, the students did not need to bother with the details of the publication, which are difficult to source when the published work is years old. Using the online citation generator, the student no longer needed to have direct access to the publication information of their source material. The online app did it for them. All they had to do, was chose the correct writing style from the list, input some partial information and hit Create. The rest was done for them. All the student needed to know, was the kind of paper he was writing. The system required them to know if they needed the reference list in MLA, Chicago, APA, Turabian, Harvard, or what. Yep, it is the lazy student's friend. All they need to know, is how to cut and paste the information into their word document.

The reason why I recommend that students use citation generators is because they should be focusing on developing their research content and polishing their discussion. They should not be focused on getting publication information because that takes away too much time from the more important work of finalizing their content.

I also noticed a definite change in the students coming to me for assistance. They began to learn the citation differences because of the online tool. They could easily identify the type of research that was written based on the citation style presented for the source materials. It also made them more conscious of the publication information for their sources. Eventually, I came to learn that most of them had stopped using the generator tool because they felt confident enough to make the bibliography page from scratch already. Having learned the proper method of formatting it from the software. In my book, anything that helps a student to learn how to properly do something academic will never be bad.

Is a citation generation a cheating tool? I don't think so. Rather, I believe that this is an academic short-cut meant to help the student focus on what matters the most in his paper, its content.

It's that time of the year again. When Senior high school students begin the scary process of filling out college applications. Answering the basic application form is simple, writing the common app essays, not so much. College applicants consider this part of the application the most dreadful part because they have no idea where to begin, how to find interesting topic ideas, and how to present these in a clear manner. In other words, they don't have fun when it comes to writing these essays due to a lack of ideas and imaginative skills. There must surely be a way to conquer this problem, right? Right! How? Remember the following information as you brainstorm for your common app essay ideas.

It's a Personal Interview

Remember that these essays are always aimed at helping you introduce yourself to the reviewer and (hopefully) the admissions committee. A personal touch is therefore required to make the essay interesting and informative. Base your essay on a personal experience. That way, the essay takes on an introductory tone. Don't be afraid to let your hair down. Let the reviewer get to know you, warts and all (as they say). Be vulnerable if the topic you chose requires you to be. This is your one chance to use the drama, adventures, and life experiences that you have to your advantage.

Do Something Relaxing

Clear your mind of the cobwebs that are preventing your creative juices from flowing. Do something that you normally do just for the heck of it. If you're lucky, it will result in a spur of the moment inspiration and create a highly engaging essay. Go ahead and procrastinate. Work that PlayStation, jump into the swimming pool and do laps, shoot a few hoops, watch YouTube all day. Whatever it is you choose to do to help you relax, it will most certainly help your brain develop essay ideas in the background.

Immerse Yourself in the Professional Research World

If you want to become a lawyer, ask to shadow a lawyer for a month. If you want to become a doctor, ask to assist in a clinic for a specific amount of time. If you want to become an accountant... You get the picture. By placing yourself in the thick of action in relation to your chosen college major, you will be able to develop clear ideas as to why you would develop a solid interest in a profession. Learn the basics and then base your application essay on that information, portraying it as your inspiration for pursuing the degree.

These are some of the basic ways that a college applicant can seek that elusive inspiration for his common app essay responses. Writing the response essays should not be a stressful situation, it should only be a light and easy way of writing where a student doesn't need to pound the pavement, wear out the carpet, or drive family and friends up the wall as the college applicant tries to find the right topic to write about for the application essays.

The foundation of proper college academic writing is built during the High School years of a student. The early seeds of research skills, analytical thinking, and proper academic writing are developed through opinion essays and simple research topics in the Social Sciences, History, and World History classes. While research papers are assigned, there are no real lessons being taught that would prepare a student for the college counterpart of his high school research tasks. That is why freshman college students needs to be given some guidelines to help them deal with the sudden change in writing style and research expectations. There are several steps that students need to follow to achieve the collegiate level of research writing. Let's have a look at the steps that students need to take to develop a college appropriate writing level.

Brainstorm and Outline: Plan the Approach

The professor will cast a wide net when assigning a research topic. It is up to the student to narrow down the topic into a doable essay Consider the required information for the research paper. Develop a research outline that you feel your professor will approve. Make sure it still ties in directly with the original topic to a certain extent otherwise the approval will not be forthcoming. Learn to expect the unexpected. Pre-empt the questions your professor might have about your research proposal and prepare a possible response. Lack of planning results in a scattered research paper. It won't be coherent because it won't have cohesive content.

When Doing Research, Take Specific Notes

Class lectures haphazardly typed on your laptop in an almost alien language may work for you but it most certainly won't work in a research paper. Don't use spelling shortcuts that create sentences even you won't be able to decipher when doing research. Remember the specific information you note from other sources will be pivotal in the development of your research. So, no text-speak, no emojis. Spell it out in complete sentences.

Make Sure the Writing is Informative

A research paper is meant to add to the knowledge of others in terms of additional or the most current information regarding specific topics. The reason students are assigned research papers is because the professor wishes to have the student become familiar with proper self -study techniques and, allow the student to learn how to differentiate between factual and assumed information. The difference? Factual information is based on reliable and verifiable information. Assumed information, is information a student takes as fact from sources like Wikipedia.

Read, Revise, Edit, Repeat

Read the information you have collated and turned into the research paper. Compare it with the brainstorming notes and outline. Make sure nothing has been missed from the list in the research. When that has been perfected. Move on the to checking of spelling, sentence development, and punctuation. Hammer those little mistakes down then review the content again. Look for areas that can be improved of portions where information can be added. Repeat the process. Once the student is satisfied that all the I's have been dotted and the T's crossed, the research paper is ready to go.

Writing the perfect research paper isn't difficult. The student just needs to build upon the research and writing skills that were developed in high school. Adding patience and attention to detail to the mix will result in a very well developed and executed research paper.

During one of the IELTS review classes that I conducted, I decided to allow the students to write the Task 1 essay in any way they saw fit. My reason for doing this was that the class was bragging about having done a tremendous amount of self-studying and internet-based essay writing review. That led me to wonder, do the students really learn the proper way to write these essays on their own, based solely on internet examples? I wasn't surprised by the results I received, none of them knew how to write a Task 1 essay. Not without an example to mimic their work after.

What could the students have done so badly that their inaccurate writing gave away their lack of familiarity with the various IELTS essay types? There were several students in the class who wrote concluding statements for their Task 1 analysis test. Which, as any IELTS tutor knows, is not done because the essay is not an opinion essay. Yet, these students were insisting that they did right because they saw it on the internet. I told them what they saw was the equivalent of fake news in an IELTS test. Then I proceed to explain why they were mistaken in their belief.

I started off by showing them the illustration connected with the task. I pointed out all of the required information that they needed to present in the essay. I reminded them that they only had to explain the data and make comparisons when required in the presentation to write an accurate report analysis for the essay.

The information is already there. There is no need to analyze and conclude because it was not the task of the Task 1 essay to offer an opinion. Instead, it was required to present an analysis and explanation of previously presented information. The job of the essay is to inform, not opinionate.

Needless to say, the smarty pants students tried to argue it out with me. So I decided to spend the rest of the class time having them write variations of the Task 1 essay. Eventually, the same students came up to me and asked, "How do I conclude this?" When the essay information so obviously did not need it and there were no references in the illustration that could have helped to create a concluding statement. My response was simple, "You don't. Do you understand now why the conclusion isn't necessary?" I explained to them that the equivalent of the conclusion in the Task 1 essay is the trending statement and that, is placed at the end of the opening paragraph because it is part of the summarized information presentation that is required in the Task 1 essay presentation.

The moral of the story? Self-study works only if you still refer to a higher authority on the subject matter for a final explanation and confirmation of previous information. Be willing to admit you are wrong and that, just like everything else on the internet, mistakes in online lessons abound just as much as Fake News does. So always take the word of the instructor over the word of a generic internet IELTS website.

Students who are preparing for their IELTS tests get easily confused by the proper format for their discussion presentations. Those who have been studying for months with other tutors and feel frustrated about their lessons oftentimes come to me as a last resort a month or two before they take the actual test. These students almost always have the same question for me. "How can I write 3 body of paragraphs when there are only 2 points of view presented?" My response never wavers in this instance. I always try to explain, in language that they understand, that the original prompt always provides the 3 body paragraph discussion topics, even when only 2 points of view are presented.

An example of this problematic prompt can be found below:

In many cities, the population is increasing. Some say that the urbanization process denies us knowing our neighbors, and this causes a loss of community sense. What is the main problem with this? What measures can be taken to overcome this?

The 3 body of paragraphs, based upon the original prompt is as follows:

1. An explanation of how urbanization has made prevented people from creating a sense of community.

2. One expanded discussion of an urbanization discussion.

3. Solutions to the problem.

These are the reasons why a 2 point of view essay can always be discussed with 3 body paragraphs or a complete 5 paragraph essay. The student needs to focus less on the number of questions and instead, look for the topics for discussion instead. Once students get beyond the two points of view, the essay will basically write itself.

I would like to point out however, that the above discussion only works for the direct question essay. In an opinion essay, the format will always be:

1. Opening paraphrase.

2. Point of view 1.

3. Point of view 2.

4. Personal point of view.

5. Concluding paragraph.

This is the preset requirement for the discussion and the outline provided in the outline of the discussion already. So discussing the relevant information becomes easier to develop and present.

There will never be an opinion essay that will not help the student write a 3-body paragraph essay. The original IELTS writing prompt practically assures this by providing the relevant discussion flow in its writer destiny. That is why the original prompt practically outlines the discussion points for the body of paragraph , making sure that no relevant discussion topic is omitted from the discussion within the paragraph body.

The English language is unique in the sense that the writing rules are stringent and unbending. The rules have practically been set in stone for centuries. English as a Second Language learners have some difficulty when it comes to adhering to these rules. Due to the advent of Spellcheck in the document programs, the students become lax and truly careless when they write because the program will automatically correct any spelling or capitalization errors they might make during their writing. That is why I was not surprised when I received the following inquiry from one of my students:

I heard that it is not important to capitalize letters in IELTS exam, is that wrong?

The reason this student was asking me about this was because he had written all his essay in lower case letters. Yes, even the proper nouns were written in lower case. I was astonished at his question because it showed how lacking the formal IELTS and TOEFL exam review centers are when it comes to accurately training their students for the test.

In response to his question, I ended up having to give him a grammar lesson regarding English words. While it is easier, in the age of text messaging and made up spelling of words to simply tap on the keys to get the words out as fast as possible, that also makes the words difficult to read and the sentences, more difficult to follow. That is why the punctuation marks and capitalization rules were set into place.

Sure, the period signifies the end of a sentence. So, it should not be important to capitalize the next letter. Wrong. The period and the capital letter work hand in hand to trigger visual signals to the reader regarding the end and start of presentations. If you neglect to see the period, you will not miss the capital letter that kicks off the next sentence. It makes it easier to keep track of the conversation. That is why it is a conventional rule. The grammar rule still stands today even though some people cannot be bothered with capitalizing the letters in the manner required.

Think of it this way, in a civilized society, we know that people can choose not to wear clothes when they are out in public. However, as a sign of being an urbanized population, we all wear clothes no matter where we go. It is the respectful thing to do. It is what is expected of you as a writer. As a literate person, it is best for you to follow the norms set forth by those who helped create the language. It doesn't hurt to follow the rules in this instance. If you don't, then expect major points deductions in the Grammar Range and Accuracy scoring portion of the IELTS test.

I received an interesting query from one of my very confused new IELTS reviewees. He wanted to know, "What is an original prompt requirement?" and, in relation to the prompt requirement, "What exactly is a Discussion Style?" That when it became clear to me that his IELTS tutor was not doing a very good job of informing the reviewees about the most essential points of the test, English Comprehension Skills. I felt so sorry for the reviewee that I actually let him have a free review session so I could take the time to properly explain the meaning and importance of those two aspects of the prompt to him. I had no choice. If he did not understand why these were important, he was sure to not make the passing cut on test day. I now feel compelled to share the information about the importance of recognizing these two terms among the IELTS reviewees.

THE ORIGINAL PROMPT REQUIREMENT

The Original Prompt Requirement encompasses the full prompt presentation at the start of the test. This is composed of the topic introduction, the basis for the discussion and the discussion style. Let me break this down for you for a better understanding.

Here is the original prompt requirement / presentation:

Some people say that advertising encourages us to buy things we really do not need. Others say that advertisements tell us about new products that may improve our lives. Which viewpoint do you agree with? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

THE BREAKDOWN

Topic Introduction: Some people say that advertising encourages us to buy things we really do not need.

Basis for Discussion: Others say that advertisements tell us about new products that may improve our lives.

Discussion Style: Which viewpoint do you agree with? Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

Using the above breakdown, one thing becomes clear to the student, that the original prompt already gives instructions regarding how to discuss the essay. The outline is spoon-fed to them. All they must do is do their best to understand the original prompt instructions so that they can offer a proper personal explanation of how they understand the prompt requirement.

If they understand the prompt requirements properly, they will most certainly pass the test because the Task Accuracy score, which is based on the opening paraphrase, will get a high score. As a 50 % representative of the overall score, knowing what the original prompt requirements are and how it is to be discussed will mean that the student will have passed half the test and overcome the most difficult hurdle for them.

Therefore, I always focus on the student's English comprehension skills during the review process. Whenever possible, I spend one week simply on English comprehension exercises so that they can at least be assured of getting a passing score in the Task Accuracy section which can help them get at least a passing score when overall considerations to the score are combined.

Based on my experience, once the reviewee understands what the original prompt topic and discussion style requirements are, they find it easier to write their body of paragraphs. They also have a stronger sense of accomplishment and confidence when they know that they are capable of understanding what the practice essay requirements are. These elements add up to a higher than average passing score on the exam day itself.