"dear," I absolutely hate this type of essay order

I absolutely hate this type of order, and I've been seeing a lot of them. if you are placing this type of order, or you're a writer, please pay attention!

"Harvard
Language Style: English (U.S.)
Grade: n/a
Pages: 3
Sources: 20"

the customer expected a "brief" literature review encompassing those 20 sources. anyway, I should have known to stay away, and I do now, but these orders are a type-- I've seen at least 2 more since. be careful!

this type of customer (who knows, maybe it's the same person) actually wants 7-10 pages, and has mistakenly ordered 3. they address everyone as "dear..." if you are a writer, just move on; don't take the order.

if you are a customer, or this customer, remarkably, somehow, please listen: dissertation proposals and literature reviews require a realistic number of pages, based on how many sources you need. when you place an order, if you don't want trouble, be realistic about your page count. I am going to win my dispute on your order with my company, and take your money.

Real nice attitude. I prefer to just contact the customer directly to ask whether they want to order more pages or choose fewer sources before I write the paper. Most of the time they end up thanking me for letting them know it was a problem and they order more pages for the order. That makes more sense to me than "winning" an avoidable argument and probably losing the customer for the company.

RustyWriter is as crooked and vile as they come. You're not surprised by his attitude, are you?

neither of you power tools has any background re: this order.


I gave this client plenty of caution, to which they responded with increasingly voluble encouragement. through it all, and despite my protests, they held the blind faith that I would be able to shoehorn 20 sources into 3 pages.

FW, since you responded, I was thinking: it's too bad that your "writing career" is completely anonymous. you don't get to see any professors' comments about how weak and boring your style is. have you considered going back to school?


thanks for the superlative; I'm afraid I can't return it in kind.

i know what you mean about the 'dear' comments. i got one of those from an incompetent customer who wrote the wrong instructions and was trying to get me to 'edit' an entirely new paper. not happening.

Hey.. don't diss the "dear" guys/gals. I have a couple of them and they're very good customers.

where are they from? I have only had 1 good one.

and, yes, I will dis them. wtf? it's some kind of intrinsic global error that doesn't mesh with standard English, and comes off making them look funny and awkward. people dis things for a reason.

Not a bad proposition if you are dealing with a genuinely confused customer, as the case is most of the times. Things are much more different if you have a customer hellbent on getting value that is triple what they paid for.

They will use all manner of tricks and woe unto you if the company in question is one of those less than honest companies. You will get a heavy fine (probably 200%) and the client will be asked to stop making unreasonable demands. Do the math. If the client had paid $100 for the three pages and the writer was getting $20, the company will end up making $100+$40 (200% fine). The writer might get fired, but the client will be promised a 5% discount on future orders, which is ridiculous.

We had one of those. Take a look at the My experience with thessayist thread. Tried to game the system, rob the writer and when he failed, went ballistic.

I hope you did not make a kill out of it.

forumregulator
Writer provided him with exactly what he wanted but he wanted something else - to cheat the system. No, we won't side with a lying customer over a good writer.


Says it all ...

sure does.

Well ... the deceitful poster you sided with tried to scam and abuse one of our writers - someone right here on this board. Now, according to your earlier position, AR should side with the customer and penalise you. If not, they are nothing but crooks "and not very slick ones at that." Make up your mind ...

WRT, it's great chatting over like 4 threads with you, but please stay topical-- do you have something to say about our "dears?"

Get a life loser. BTW - only a moron like you would fall for that crap.

WRT is upset because I insulted their sainted mother. don't worry, WRT. sticks and stones, you know? lighten up a little.

You're a "professional" writer? F?*king moron . . . .

oh great, the cavalry's here.

hey WB-- do you remember what I said before about prescriptive grammar snoots usually being unintelligent? you and your pet hen here are both living proof.

now, go look up "prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar," and don't bother me again until you have.

OK. Will stick to the topic: only a moron would pick up orders he purportedly 'hates.' Why did you take the order in the first place? It wasn't shoved down your throat, was it? Were you forced to take it at gunpoint? NO. You willingly and voluntarily picked it up. So ... don't come here crying like a baby.

Seriously ... you are a loser.

I hate these orders now, after an instructive, negative experience (see above). I'm trying not to... wait, did I really just have to explain that to you? cause ---> effect, WRT. it's not that complicated.


this is the second or third time you've asked me that, and the answer is still yes. pay attention, please. it's a sort of telling question, too... anyway, here's one for you: do you feel superior to black people because you speak middle-class English?

Stupid as they come ... a 3 page order with a 20 sources requirement and you just picked it up :) Face it ... you are not very bright :)

'Instructive experience' implies that you actually learned something. You, Rusty, are immune to learning. So, don't fool yourself and others with this 'instructive experience' talk.

I've picked up orders like this before, Chicken Little. they're do-able, with a client who can be reasoned with. "my dear" was not that kind of client.

and I don't have to be bright, when I'm this pretty.

There are "black people" in my family, so FU.

As much as you'd like to make it a race issue, it's not. It's a state-of-mind issue. Blacks and whites alike staunchly opposed Ebonics, which is why it failed. Educators should not dumb-down, REWARD ignorance, and/or justify poor performance by leaning on students' imaginary crutches! Moronic "educators" like you make certain students feel that they are NOT equal and do NOT have the inherent ability to perform and succeed. You breed failure.

I just pictured you ... hate to tell you but almost scratched my eyes out - absolutely horrifying! But, as long as you believe you're pretty, that's all that matters. Believe in yourself and you may, one day, overcome your paralysing sense of incompetence and become a semi-loser (as opposed to the full-blown one you currently are).

Wasn't the Ebonics debate settled? Rusty, must you always side with ignorance? Do you also support Pidgin and Gibberish?

uh-huh... and, wtf do you know? my teaching is about empowerment, high expectations, and multiple theories of intelligence... not everyone has the same tool kit.

and speaking of tool kits,


haha! things are getting a little weird, aren't they?

Terrifyingly so ...

To be fair, I could shoeshorn 20 sources into 3 pages using block cites or using footnotes ;) . Yes, the customer was probably being silly, but it may have been a single vs. double-spaced confusion and it doesn't matter since they are the customer. You do your best...


Ummmmm, this is an abusive and inaccurate statement. American English from the perspective of the Brits is "dumb[ed]-down". There is healthy disagreement among educators and cultural anthropologists as to the value of Ebonics and "black English". Certainly, it is a discrete cultural form that has existed for centuries and impacted conventional language.

Ummmm, keep your abrasive, incendiary opinions to yourself.

Anyone who thinks that Ebonics has "value" is an idiot. Tell me-if a kid grows up speaking Klingon in his/her household, should he/she be coddled by his/her teachers and told that his/her ignorant, uneducated form of communication is acceptable in the business world and professional life?

Yes. Accusations of "abrasiveness" followed by the word "idiot", when the correction itself was very respectful and not personal. Perhaps a review of "ad hominem" is in order.

Tell me: If a kid grows up speaking Yiddish in his/her household, should they be told their ignorance should be replaced by German?

Yiddish is now accepted thanks only to the passage of time. Ebonics isn't. The difference is solely due to the social power and acceptance of those communities.

Nor am I saying, as you vigorously beat a strawman I did not argue (made easy by incomplete quotation), that Ebonics should be INSTEAD of English. If I'm asked to write an essay in American English, writing it in British English is inappropriate, even though British English is an absolutely legitimate dialect. The same thing is true of Ebonics, and in fact many Afro-American scholars have argued that it is MORE so. Black students should learn how to write in the dominant language of the culture, but even that is a demand that is based on the capacity of the dominant culture to DEMAND it. That doesn't make their language, the way they talk to each other, any less valid. As the famous "Language Mavens" article argued, it is arbitrary power that makes people insist that "ain't" isn't grammatical or "proper English", not linguistic necessity.

Documenting the language and syntax of a people who have been here for centuries is definitional historical and linguistic work, for people who haven't had their eyes blinded by bias.

Respectful? Yeah, OK . . . . Perhaps a review of the definition of "respectful" is in order?


That's a smartass, incendiary comment.


WRONG. Thank goodness that you're not teaching my kids. My kids actually have standards and aspirations above and beyond mediocrity. Your approach explains why the American educational system has become a joke.


Any credibility that you had just flew out of the window. The correctness of "ain't" is arbitrary? Funny-I'll give you that much. However, I'm also going to have to ask you to prove your assertion. For what words is "ain't" a contraction?

Your argument is actually far more indicative for why the American educational system is ostensibly a joke. Racist, classist pablum lets politicians blame schools or teachers or teacher unions, as if those things, isolated from everything else, could possibly explain the problem. The American educational system sucks because we instead spend our money on a world-conquest military. It's especially silly to blame Ebonics for the problem facing black students in particular. Where do you think Ebonics CAME from? Read your Steinberg.

In any respect, that's not what I said. And you probably won't teach your kids much, no offense. I don't mean that you are unintelligent or are incapable, but rather that peer groups are far more connected to the way people learn language. My argument is that a language form, a dialect, that is perfectly coherent to the people who speak it, and is different from another language, is clearly a fully-formed dialect. This is the simple DEFINITION of a dialect. You may have your own value judgments about whether or not that language is GOOD, but then I have to wonder: How is that different from saying that Yiddish isn't okay, or Arabic, or whatever else? Yes, people should learn a "common" language, a shared way of communicating. The Chinese have done this for millennia by having "dialects" that are really different languages but a shared written script. We can do this here by having a shared language, which is a median of all the regional dialects (Brooklyn, Boston, Southern, black, Californian, etc.), and then letting people speak to each other as they want.

This is how languages evolve. Slang, borrowing from other languages... "Dude" and "yo" are part of the common lexicon now. That's just what happens.

You just say "WRONG" with all caps then make unsupported arguments then talk about mediocrity? Unbelievable.

In any case, it is still incontrovertibly true that your initital statement that Ebonic was abandoned "because" of X or Y is an ASSERTION and an argument, not an obvious fact, because there is substantial disagreement.

Most importantly, all of this is basically moot to the point of this forum...


None. Who cares? Exclamation points in African names emphasize a sound, not an exclamation point. "Ain't" or "aint", however you wish to spell it, is a perfectly legitimate word that is entirely sensible to those who say it. It's been established for about a century. Again, read the Language Mavens. The same thing goes for "I could care less". Pedants point out that it should be "I couldn't care less". But "I could care less" has sarcastic bite, and should be said with the emphasis on "could". (This is the type of argument you rely on? Nice).

I also find it hilarious that you think that disagreeing with you about something, whether it be Ebonics or something else, destroys credibility. It is really sad and abusive. I have been polite and you have been rude. THAT destroys credibility. Not honest disagreement.

(Not to mention that, in terms of citing ARGUMENT, you know, authorities and citations, etc., and quoting entire posts, I have been following the standard and you've been behaving like a forum troll).

When a customer orders a professional paper in the English language from who he/she is led to believe is a qualified, native English-speaking writer with a degree from an American university, the issue is black and white. There is no gray area in formal academics. There is correct and there is incorrect-period. Your assertions about matters not directly tied to the essay industry have no place in-or relevance to-this forum.


We're not dealing with schoolyard slang. This is a forum about formal, professional, academic writing.


What's your business URL again? I'm sure that customers will just love your stance.


LMAO! You showed up here and immediately began s-i*ting all over many different members in multiple threads. Wake up-you're the 20-post TROLL.

Unless you have something of value or substance to state about the professional essay industry, I'm not going to waste my time.

Yes. Like your original argument. You had made a claim that Ebonics had been abandoned, then continued to discuss it when I brought up a difference of opinion. I mentioned that it was irrelevant last post. Of course you shouldn't write in black English for an assignment that asks for conventional American English; the same is true, as I noted to no reply, of someone who writes a British English paper for an American English client. This does not mean that British English is an illegitimate dialect, clearly. Same thing for Ebonics. In any respect, I think I've made my point clear.


I agree. That was my point two posts ago.

Nice double post.


amon.katserv.net.

Oh, and for the sake of potential customers: I will never use the word "ain't" except in a relevant quotation.

Oh right, but that would be if this was relevant. Which it isn't. Apparently, you cannot construct an actual non-strawman argument to save your life.

VERY nice triple post, by the way.


You mean, AFTER I made a correction to a point, you rose to what I guess you thought as bait and made terrible arguments, and I undermined the arguments?

I did not use ad hominem arguments until you did. I still am avoiding discussing your merits as a person or as a writer and only discussing the argument. I have "s-i*" over no one, merely discussing arguments. And, of course, it is the height of hilarity to hear you of all people mention attacking people. I wonder if you are at all aware of that wonderful hypocrisy...

Oh, and by the way, I said your behavior was LIKE a general forum troll. Mine isn't, unless you think merely having few posts alone qualifies you for trolling. I dare you to find a definition that supports this silly definition, without which your implicit argument is moot, and all that's left is abusive insults. But, again, this is something you'd know if you quoted entire posts. Honestly.

Nice quadruple post, by the way.

I seriously recommend you take some kind of tranquilizer or calming agent...

Ebonics is an ignorant, illegitimate form of English that has absolutely NO place in either academia or the professional/corporate world. That is a fact.


Really? Why are you now making that distinction when your personal cash flow is on the line? In case you've forgotten your own quote, here it is:


If it is a "perfectly legitimate word," why would you only use it when/if quoting someone else? Why do you go out of your way to avoid using perfectly legitimate words?


You made no correction. In order for one to have made a correction, one must have made an opposing statement that is, indeed, correct. You did not do so. What you made is a calculated, "ummmmm-based," smartass, wholly incorrect attack on both my personal view and that of the overwhelming majority of Americans.

Why, by the way, do you feel the need to manually delete the username from quotes? Like your introduction to this forum, that's a little rude and controlling of you, isn't it?



Are you trying to make some sort of point? It's a forum, control freak.


I seriously recommend that you f off. You're going to love my review of your half-ass site (backed by your ignorant assertions in this thread, of course).

What does "fact" mean? Since you're putting a value judgment upon it, by definition that's an OPINION, at least the "ignorant, illegitimate" part. It only has no place in the professional/corporate world because of broad consensus otherwise. And in the academic world, it DOES have a place: For some English assignments and stories, in some Afro-American studies classes, etc. Trust me, I've done assignments in and about Ebonics. Just like it's highly unlikely you'll be writing high-level corporate papers in an obscure tribal language only found in the Amazon, but that doesn't make it any less of a language...

In any respect, you are still incapable of replying to my ARGUMENT, which is that Ebonics is still clearly a FORM OF ENGLISH. You have conceded this. "Ignorant" and "illegitimate" are silly value judgments not made by actual linguists. As I've pointed out many times, Yiddish would have fallen under this rubric too, yet that would be offensive to say now. That's only because of time, legitimacy and the power of the communities in question. Your initial argument did NOT say what you're saying now, so you've essentially conceded my point. I think we can both agree we're done here.


Because your idea of "perfectly legitimate word" and a linguists' idea of "perfectly legitimate word" differs sharply, and the fact that you are unaware of this, apparently, seems to suggest to me that you have at least one major domain of academia that you are completely unaware of.

To a linguist (again, check out the Language Mavens, great introductory piece on this that makes this exact argument), "ain't" is a legitimate word because it is used with full clarity and understanding among an entire dialect. It is LINGUISTICALLY legitimate.

It is not SOCIALLY legitimate because of arbitrary reasons having almost entirely to do with keeping power and privilege among a tiny sect. You understand ain't. I understand it. So why can't it belong in an essay? Because some "people" think it's not "real English". That is a linguistic absurdity. There IS no "real English" or professional English or corporate English or whatever ASIDE FROM WHAT PEOPLE NATURALLY SPEAK. Limitations on the language are overwhelmingly designed to let the dominant group remain comfortable and control the racial, ethnic and class makeup of their little club.

So, in any essay, I wouldn't use the word "ain't" unless in quotes, ironically, or in a short story, because there is a consensus in academia that it's not a "real word". But that CONSENSUS is arbitrary.

This is Linguistics 1 here.


My point as stated, that in fact many scholars DON'T agree with you so your point as originally stated deserved a CORRECTION, a caveat. HONEST people (and no, I'm not saying you're dishonest, you might have been unaware, done some of your homework but not all of it, or - most likely - didn't mention the people who disagreed with you for polemical and brevity reasons) would, after dropping the bomb you did, note that there is some disagreement, cite that disagreement, then rebut it and move on. That's what I did. You continue to not be able to wrap your head around it, so I increasingly wonder if you are AWARE that there is an entire linguistic school that argues in the way I am. I can send you articles, if you'd like...

I don't manually delete the username from quotes. I Ctrl-C and manually type in quote /quote in brackets. The forum should do its job in terms of citing for me in that respect. This is pretty standard forum etiquette. I take it you don't frequent other forums often? (No disrespect, it just would explain the double posting, this, etc.)

Your capacity to simultaneously think that everyone else's behavior is rude and controlling, while calling people morons and idiots and threatening their business, is startling. Miss, please find some medication. Or have someone read a cross-section of posts back to you, name removed, from some time ago and see if you can't see why what you just said is the utmost of hypocrisy.


Yes. And in most forums, double posting is being a jerk. Apparently the etiquette here is different, but hey, apparently you have no problem with people imposing their arbitrary etiquette upon a community, right?

It is generally best for forum clutter concerns to simply post what you're going to post, then if you have something else to say, add it later.

This has gotten nasty and deeply unprofessional. I mean no disrespect to you or to your business. I have a difference of opinion. If you can't explain your disagreement respectfully, like I have, I recommend you simply don't voice such differences of opinion at all.


You are an idiot. I am sorry that I have to resort to that, but there is nothing else I can say in response to your failure to get this distinction. Please educate yourself.


Wonderful. I would respond about your preferred businesses, of course, but it's deeply unprofessional. I will simply reply to your review by noting that it is based wholly on your deeply unprofessional incapacity to distinguish differences from opinion from personal attack and let the record stand for itself. Any legitimate criticism, I'll have my site manager fix.

Oh, and by the way: I wouldn't bother trying to use my "ignorant assertions" in this thread as evidence AGAINST me. Since I've been explaining my points, using arguments and citations, while you've been beating up strawmen while behaving like a raving lunatic, I'm going to come off as professional. Another layer of irony.

How can anyone be so unstable? I disagree with you in a thread and you want to scuttle my business? I've certainly proven I'm not here for five posts to PM people. I've proven that I'm not ESL, am perfectly capable of expressing an argument, and have some degree of academic knowledge under my belt. Why in God's name would you want to direct traffic AWAY from me and, almost by definition, TOWARDS, say, essaywriters.net? You have no evidence that I have bad business practices, or rip off my customers, so your review would NOT be about Essay SCAMS but about your own personal vendetta. Please, seek professional help.

AmonsEssays, like the dozens of newbies before you who thought it a good idea to sign-up just attack others (including me), you will soon find out that you made quite a bad decision.

As opposed to oldbies who decided to attack others?

I signed up to see what scams there were and to offer my criticisms. I have never mentioned anything specific about a PERSON, or even really a business, until you decided to respond to A DEBATE ABOUT EBONICS with personal attacks and threats on my business.

You're attacking someone who you have no reason to believe isn't honest, capable, judicious, etc. on a forum about BONA FIDE SCAMMERS because they disagreed with you. You attack others. No reasonable outside observer could conclude that your behavior is ANY better than mine, and indeed it is clearly quite a bit worse.

I'm not going to be threatened. I have behaved entirely according to the rules of this forum. You have decided to turn a personal vendetta into a business one. You are discrediting yourself, anyone who chooses to employ you, and this forum. I'm going to ask you one more time to back off, and I will avoid saying anything critical about you, ever, given that you are transparently incapable of taking any disagreement.

No wonder companies like EW.net are still in business: People like you are willing to waste their time turning feuds into attacks on honest businesses.

Oh, and by the way: The claim that I signed up "just" to attack others is transparently and definitionally wrong. Take this post I made.

No personal attacks. No insults to specific businesses. Nothing but positive support. I've looked over thousands of your posts and can't see anything remotely so helpful. Talk about the pot calling the picket fence black.

Stop playing the victim card. You attacked me first. I invite anyone who actually cares to review the history of this thread.


LMAO! I've done more to clean up this industry than ANYONE on the face of the planet. You don't have a clue. People who have been in the industry for more than 10 minutes, unlike you, greatly appreciate my efforts.


1. You're a liar. You've read nothing. If you had, you'd know that you're statement is the spouting of an absolutely clueless idiot.

2. You've bitten off more than you can chew, which will soon become very apparent to you.

3. You have publicly stated that "ain't" is a "perfectly acceptable word."

4. You know nothing about the essay industry.

5. You know nothing about running a successful business.

6. You know nothing about my contributions to cleaning up the academic research industry.

7. You make ignorant claims that you cannot prove.

8. You think that Ebonics is a legitimate language in and of itself.

I could go on and on, but I'll stop here-for now. I will give you one opportunity to shut your trap and stay out of my business.

You're kidding, right? You said something, confidently and arrogantly in a post FILLED with abuse, that was wrong. I said the ARGUMENT was problematic. Not you, not your behavior, NOTHING. This is NOT a personal attack. More importantly, you not only immediately escalated and at every step I did not further escalate, I also offered you a mutual truce. I apologize if you viewed this as an "attack": That was not my intention. But I still find it hypocritical, respectfully, for you to talk about personal attacks given this thread alone...


Then keep working on that. If you have time to persecute me, you have time to go after them too.

Not used to people being able to reply to your non sequiturs, ad hominems and abuse?

1. You parrot arguments that you have been beaten soundly in over and over again, without taking the time to reply to points.

2. You dishonestly take arguments out of context.

3. You are abusive.

4. You think ad hominem arguments are legitimate arguments.

5. You state opinions that cannot be supported by evidence you don't supply, while not acknowledging that there is disagreement in the fields you are citing.

6. You resurrect issues that you have dropped.

7. You double-post until you're called on it.

8. You are unhinged and show signs of severe psychiatric problems.

9. You are unprofessional.

10. You escalate personal conflicts into character assassination.

I can go on. You also have no evidence of me lying. If you did, you probably would have included it in your little character assassination blurb.

Dear GOD, is this how you treat your friends? Family? Children? Clients? This level of narcissism is already pretty bad on the Internet; I wonder if this is a release valve for your bad behavior or not. I thought that your attacks on people like EW Writer had to do with your honest belief that they were scammers and you just couldn't control your temper, justifiably so, against such people. But in this case? I've had to revise my beliefs.

You should have seized this opportunity.