Comments on: The Too Slow Edition

By: Zac

Zac — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 16:26:24 +0000

Mr Cheap,

Very interesting comments re: academic proofreading.

There are a couple other services that are doing it in the way you describe. I think American Journal Experts and Editage probably fall into this bracket.

I run my own proofreading website targeted at ESL students. The challenge is to make it affordable yet profitable. A tough task if you consider it is a highly skilled, technical task that takes a lot of time!

Cheers,
Zac.

By: Peter

Peter — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:10:50 +0000

You’re spot on with the proofreading idea. For better or for worse, English is the modern learned language. Students and professional academics alike need proofreading services in order to communicate their work with more clarity and concision.

At MadProofingSkillz.com, this is exactly what we try to do. Our proofreaders not only suggest helpful emendations to the text, they point out the author’s common mistakes and bad habits so that the author can actually improve their own skills. It’s fascinating for us to see what kinds of errors writers of different native languages are most prone to.

Granted, our marketing is aimed at graduate and undergraduate students. The editorial specialization needed to properly serve professional academics writing on niche topics is an area we hope to grow into. Nonetheless, we think that helping students improve their writing skills ultimately leads to professional academics with improved writing skills.

(Long-time lurker, first-time poster. Thanks for your excellent blog!)

By: Potato

Potato — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:09:56 +0000

I actually was (technically, still am, though I haven’t taken an assignment in years) a Brainmass TA, but after a year or two I became disillusioned with it. It does work fairly well for what it was designed for: a help and proof-reading service. Officially it is not a homework solving service — the TAs are expected to help with explanations, but not just give the final answer; and students are expected to explain where they’re having difficultly, and not just ask for the answer. Unfortunately the students don’t seem to care about the policy, and I got tired of reading through a hundred postings of students just wanting answers to find the one where a student actually wanted an explanation and some back-and-forth.

By: Mr. Cheap

Mr. Cheap — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:52:52 +0000

Potato: Yeah, gelatin is the problem. 10 calories *IS* pretty c lose to zero, but I love the idea of something I can eat disgusting quantities of (and keep my self-hatred to a minimum . Anal leakage is to be avoided for sure. Cellulose and sweet taste is exactly what I was thinking off (yum).

Brainmass seems to target students… Thanks for the link though, interesting to check them out. Would you ever be tempted to sign up as an online TA?

By: Potato

Potato — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 16:47:36 +0000

For proof-reading services there's also Brainmass... For zero-calorie food, the problem is that while we have a number of artificial sweeteners, there are no complex carbohydrate/protein/fat replacements (well, there's Olestra, but who needs the anal leakage?). So you're basically left trying to build something out of cellulose and a sweet taste. And there is diet Jell-O available (the gelatin has some calories, so the package says it's 10, but that's close enough to zero for me).