Now, see, that's what I meant that time when I told you the basest, most sadistic urges can be turned to the cause of good.

Wait a minute...this is a Google trap. I misunderstood. Hooboy are they in trouble.

I don't think I can stop laughing. Hooo.....need.....to....breathe....

Okay, ya got me. What's a Google trap, and why does it mean they're in trouble?

Is a Google trap one of those things that tells you it can sell you whatever it is you're looking for, even if it's the Holy Grail?

Um, it's not a term in general use. I was using it to mean more or less what you said. Google SELLS the top spot in the search results, and if you type in "atlanta nights" "term papers" this is the top site you get.

There's probably a real name for that. I just called it a Google trap.

They're "in trouble" because writing term papers on Atlanta Nights could be a losing proposition in many, many ways.

I was thinking more in terms of false advertising, if they're claiming they've had AN experts since 1998.

Xopher, when I did search implementation for another search engine, I believe the term was 'Sponsored Links' or 'Sold Feature Sites'. I think your 'googletrap' is much more colourful, though, and I may have to steal it.

I am most impressed to learn that their experts have been providing research on this subject since 1998. How many scholars do analysis of books so long before their publication?

Is anyone else tempted to *buy* an Atlanta Nights term paper, just to see what it says?

Google doesn't sell the top spot in the search results - they sell the sponsored thingy above it. If you google "atlanta nights term papers" you get a couple of links for term paper sales sites up above the actual search results. The gag post isn't one of the sponsored links; it's a regular link.

As a test, I googled "Mary Dell 3d," and one of my articles on 3d graphics popped up in the top spot. I didn't pay anyone for that. Likewise, googling "canary3d" brings up my website first. Etc.

I've been known to do it, but not because I'm selling term papers.

I have this horrifying vision that AN is destined to be one of those oh, so significant works despite the attempt to be completely insignificant. Papers and entire dissertations will be based upon the lack of narrative structure (or even punctuation)...
It may be a sign of the Apocalypse.

Well, clearly this page is one of a family of pages that was automatically generated to direct people using search engines to search for essays or papers on some topic to this site.

That someone willing to facilitate academic fraud for hire should also stoop to filling search engines with crap (google's response to this has traditionally been to smack the entire site with some amazingly negative pagerank) doesn't really surprise me. What I do wonder about is where they get their list of topics.

One possibility is that they're scraping topic headings from Wikipedia. Atlanta Nights has a wikipedia entry, as does one of the other obscure topics I also managed to find on the essaytown.com site.

On second thought, after trying a few other words, maybe they have a different topic source. ("burlington resources inc" has a page a essaytown.com, but no corresponding wikipedia entry).

Of course, what I wonder is why these pages aren't dynamically generated - then they could literally have a page for any topic at all so long as they got google to visit it.

I'm kind of boggling at what exactly PhD-level Atlanta Nights research would be. I mean, there can't be much of a body of critical literature.

Jennie, there are some long threads on Making Light.

The would mean that nobody has published on this yet which means new knowledge.

But Atlanta Nights is surely worth a D.Litt

Good God. The noise you hear is the sound of my mind boggling. I was curious enough to type in Point of Honour to see if they had any papers available on my work. They don't appear to (a sigh of relief is heard) although they did suggest a variety of papers on what they perceived to be related topics. The best of which, I think, was:

Term Paper #56068 : Grade Inflation . This paper is a research proposal to evaluate if grade inflation, an increase in grade point average without a corresponding increase in achievement, does exist. 1,350 words (approx. 5.4 pages), 18 sources, MLA, $ 46.95

Someone's irony filter was not turned on.

Bill Higgins-- Beam Jockey,

True enough, and some of the comments are highly critical.

Dave Bell,

I did not spatter coffee over my keyboard, because I know better than to drink while reading these threads.

I nearly choked on an M&M.

Incidentally, wondering whether there's an approved citation style for blog comments, I just discovered that indeed there is. Golly! The things I learn here!

ROFLMAO

I am very happy I was neither eating nor drinking anything to choke on....

Y'all have no idea how tempted I am to order up a book report on Atlanta Nights just to learn the plot and the characters.

The "since 1998" is a nice touch. I would love to have read one of their papers on the book that year.

TNH...

You folks ought to put your Tom Friedman hats on, write "Bangalore Nights", and submit it to Harvard Business School press...

Someone should *order* a paper on Atlanta Nights.

That'd show 'em. Their heads would explode.

I wonder if some of the folks from Publish America are secretly running this website. :)

Oh... my... God...

[fx: Julia laughs so hard she nearly falls off the chair]

I tried typing in Pratchett. They've got one. I think it's been lifted from a "please do my homework" parody site...

I wish I had $27.99. If I did, I'd order one of these fine dissertations, complete with its 100% satisfaction-guaranteed seal of approval. Then I'd put myself forward to write the piece under a nom-de-plume (R. Sole?), with a bunch of wonderfully fabricated qualifications that proved I was the only party worthy of doing justice to it.

Thinks: How much of my $27.99 would I get back for reading Travis Tea's travesty cover-to-cover and writing a report on it within 24 hours? Ten bucks? And if I were prepared to do something so degrading for so little, would I respect myself in the morning?

Why bless their little cotton socks: they've got a comprehensive list of unscrupulous essay mills to avoid, at http://www.essaytown.com/warning.html

I feel safer already.

I sent TNH an e-mail about this, but since this thread has opened up...
Has everyone already seen the article in the NYT about "self-publishing"?
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/24/books/review/24GLAZERL.html
The author seems disturbingly sympathetic, although PublishAmerica doesn't come off particularly well. I can just see a bunch of aspiring authors saying, "Well, it worked for Amy Fisher!"

I note, with great disappointment, that despite their advertising page which is linked to above, searching for "+atlanta +nights" on their term paper search engine confirms that they do not indeed have any ready-made papers on Atlanta Nights.

"Well, it worked for Amy Fisher!"

Step one: Shoot your boyfriend's wife in the head.

In light of discovering the edges of how much "news" is really submitted by PR flacks and such, I'm wondering if the initial source/inspiration for that piece was a distributed bit of news...

Off-topic but important: I see you liked to the Twisted Toyfare Theater stuff on the side. That's cool, but it's not really made by the guy who owns the site. He just scanned pages from installments of the regular TTT feature from Toyfare Magazine. So it's kinda illegal sharing of copyrighted material. Not blaming you, because I've seen a lot of people make this mistake since the site went up.

I purchased a copy of Atlanta Nights from lulu.com for the express reason that our host wrote a chapter. My logic was that in the event I ever submit a "doorstop length work of fantastic fiction" I would have and example of everything I should NOT do wrapped up in one tidy place.

(Un)fortunately my younger, college age brother discovered said article of "fiction". Younger brother took it home with him after discovering its back-story on the web. Younger brother wrote a term paper for his 300 series composition class at the University of Washington BASED on said piece of "fiction". Paper was titled "The Best Analysis of the Worst Book Ever Written (Grammatical Ambiguity Intended)".

Younger brother received an A grade for his work.

I have just realized that Travis Tea (et all) would probably like a copy of said paper, if only for the mind boggling fact that Atlanta Nights is now the subject of scholarly attention.

Julia: I tried typing in Pratchett. They've got one. I think it's been lifted from a "please do my homework" parody site...

The book synopses I saw on that Pratchett site were real. Maybe I didn't read enough of them?

Speaking of everything-in-one.... Jon Carrol's latest column combines the three most annoying forms of prose in one giant "solicitation letter": http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/28/DDGTFCFN8H1.DTL&type=printable

*Very* funny!

Aconite: If you're referring to the essays at http://www.kew1.demon.co.uk/homework/guide.html,
they're more subtly off than the Tolkien ones. There are no actual factual errors, it's merely that the interpretation is ever so slightly skewed. The submission guidelines make it a bit clearer what's going on.

Julia: Thank you. I shall now go and thwok my forehead repeatedly. I can't believe I missed that.

You know, someone could get a scholarly paper out of comparing the prose styles of, say, Atlanta Nights and Naked Came the Stranger. [runs for cover]

OOOOHHH Demus, that is just wonderful! There, see, everybody? There IS research being done!
Now, what I'd like to see is an open competition, in the style of the Bulwer-Lytton contest. An annual Atlanta Nights Fiction Contest on a topic chosen by one or more of the authors of the original. Judges appointed by them, too (hey, they're working authors, no time for this nonsense).
Heck I'd volunteer to judge the first one!

Bob Highland writes: "How much of my $27.99 would I get back for reading Travis Tea's travesty cover-to-cover and writing a report on it within 24 hours? Ten bucks? And if I were prepared to do something so degrading for so little, would I respect myself in the morning?"

Seems to me that a paper on Atlanta Nights ought to be a group effort written in the same spirit.

Emma:

"Yog" (If I may address him so informally) has already contacted me to ask for a copy "at large".

I personally found the paper to be well written and humorous (but then, I am a bit biased). Section titles such as "No I'm not making this up" and "It hurts to read" used in a serious analysis entertained me more than it probably should have.

I must admit that when I spoke to my brother this morning and explained why I wanted a copy he was more than a little reluctant. But not to worry, if he resists too much I will resort to the methods that worked so well when we were younger: I will sit on him and give him "nuggies" until he gives in.

Yup, that's my plan...

Ooo, maybe Yog will post it! I'd love to read it too...tell your brother "nice going" from me.

Demus: Tell your brother it's okay, they're nice people and will take it in the spirit it's intended. Most will probably be too busy falling off chairs laughing to do much of anything else.

MKK

I expected Yog to post it...and that is where my brother gets a little nervous.

As far as a collective paper on Atlanta Nights, well I think he thought of that. But frankly, convincing 15 or so English majors to put their collective butts (in the form of GPA) on the line for the sake of symmetry just didn't cut it.

While I, you and perhaps the people involved with Atlanta Nights might find such a paper amusing; one humorless professor could turn the whole thing from classically funny to classically stupid with the stroke of a pen.

The risk vs. glory equation balanced out to a "one person job".

OTOH, I doubt a truly humorless professor would have given him an A on the paper he did write.

(Not that I disagree with his decision. I'd have done the same; it's only prudent.)

Speaking of dubious publishing opportunities, check out this Craigslist post: http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/wrg/70601939.html

Since this is DC, we must ask 'who is up to what?' with this sort of thing. LaRouche? Humanity's Savior Rev. Moon?

Attention!

Have YOU ever been injured due to an ATLANTA NIGHTS' negligence?

Has an ATLANTA NIGHTS' misdiagnosis, delayed treatment, or incompetence caused pain, suffering or even death to yourself or a loved one?

If so, then the law offices of Jacobsen & Hufnagel are here to get YOU the money that YOU deserve. Don't let ATLANTA NIGHTS' negotiators push YOU around. Our attorneys -- many of them former ATLANTA NIGHTS negotiators themselves -- will relentlessly pursue YOUR rights against ATLANTA NIGHTS until ATLANTA NIGHTS agrees to a settlement on YOUR terms. And you don't owe us a penny until ATLANTA NIGHTS pays.

Send a powerful message to ATLANTA NIGHTS that ATLANTA NIGHTS won't forget: call the 800-number TODAY.

Aconite: don't worry about missing the Pratchett homework gag the first time, it's very deliberately subtle. It's obvious to me because I was there when the plot was hatched. :-)

Is it wrong for me to laugh at the fact that when I tried to click the link, my company's "Websense" program blocked it on the grounds it was "illegal or questionable"?

I would never post the paper without its author's permission.

But golly do I want to read it.

--------

Oh -- Atlanta Nights has been spotted on the shelf in Barnes & Noble in Pittsfield, MA, and Tampa, FL.

looked it up at Barnes & Noble.com just now.

and these suggestions.

"People who bought this book also bought:
•Can You Keep a Secret? Sophie Kinsella
•Confessions of a Shopaholic Sophie Kinsella
•Skipping Christmas John Grisham
•Metro Girl Janet Evanovich
•Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination Helen Fielding"

Yikes. (tee hee)

A friend once told me he had written a school essay on Mahler's Violin Concerto, and that it had fooled his music teacher.

Now it seems that someone else has had the same idea.

I find a paper all too imaginable: "Travis Tea's Travesty: Atlanta Nights and the Appearance of Meaning." Give me another six or eight hours trying not to think about it, and I'll probably know what it's about.

Meanwhile, it's Nebula weekend in Chicago. Last night, after the pizza-and-desserts reception, we noticed that we had a nice function space, a live mike, a willing audience, and several copies of Atlanta Nights. I started by reading part of Chapter 2, which went over fairly well (if vengeful-sounding cries of "author!" and "who wrote that thing?!" count). Sean Fodera followed, knocking me out of my chair and onto the floor by reading the "penguins of the Sahara" sequence. Peter Heck went third, reading from his own chapter, and then Jody Lynn Nye (who's not a Travis, just game) cold-read Chapter 7.

Big fun.

Make that "Travis Tea's Travesty: Atlanta Nights and the Superficial Appearance of Meaning."

You've got to throw a critical school or catchphrase in there somewhere too -- "The Irrelevance of Authorial Intent in Travis Tea's Travesty: Atlanta Nights and the Superficial Appearance of Meaning".

Do You Type with Your Eyes Closed? The Architectonics of Darkness Metaphors in Milton, Joyce, and Travis Teas's Atlanta Nights

Claude Shannon's Channel Capacity in a Noisy Channel: Entropy in Thomas Pynchon and Travis Tea

Where is the Knowledge We Have Lost in Information? T. S. Eliot and the Hollow Men of Atlanta Nights

Lehman, Daniel. "'Split Flee Hide Vanish Disintegrate': Tom Wolfe, Travis Tea, and the Arrest of New Journalism." Prospects 21 (1996): 397-34.

Masters, Joshua. "Race and the Infernal City in Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities and Travis Tea's Atlanta Nights." Journal of Narrative Theory 29.2 (Sprg 1999): 208-27.

The Worm in Peachtree Plaza: Sociodynamics in Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full" versus Travis Tea's "Atlanta Nights"

Georgia on My Mind: Historicomusical Motifs in Tobacco Road, Robert Coram's Four Police Novels based in Atlanta, and Travis Tea's "Atlanta Nights"

JVP, those are so good, there's almost no need to read the actual papers. If there's ever a sequel, you should write a chapter.

Jimcat Kasprzak:

You sayin' I'm Bad? Oh yeah: Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know.

My sense of irony encouraged me to get technical degrees after my Mathematics B.S., but not beyond my English Literature B.S. Math and Physics papers can be more-or-less objectively verified; English Lit Criticism is a castle of mirrors built on sand. I'm not even approaching the deliberately bizarre titles of any recent MLA; a sort of academic Con for English Professors to out-baffle each other with chimera of jargon and pop culture.

Thank you! I do keep a mental list Stories of Mine Which Should Have Been Included in Theme-specific Anthologies, as a unifying principle for a collection of rejected stories.

In fairness to editors, although some vaguely remember that I have been widely published, and have appeared in a Nebula Awards Anthology, I haven't published science fiction recently. Hence my name doesn't spring to mind when solicitations go out for original anthologies.

As you like those pseudobibliographic references, you might wonder if I've salted my magicdragon.com web pages with a few such spuriousities among the 20,000 or so authors cited. It's a tricky way to enforce Intellectual Property Rights, as dictionaries each customarily include a few fake words, as used to detect wholesale illegal copying.

"That Burning Sensation: Motifs of Atlanta-based Conflagratory Symbolism in Gone with the Wind and Atlanta Nights"

"The Multi-Body Problem in Atlanta Nights and The Floating Admiral"

But JVP, I bow to your superior academico-obfuscatory skills. I am a mere amateur, a dilletante, unworthy to shine your socks.

Anyone know where I can get a copy of Cliff Notes for Atlanta Nights? If that's not available, how about Atlanta Nights for Dummies?

"From Blank to Blank, Colon, Blank: (Meta-)Narrativity, Multilingual Pun(e)s, and Cross-Dressing in the Work of Travis Tea."

Our hostess writes:

Meanwhile, it's Nebula weekend in Chicago.

So near, and yet so far. Would love to converse with you. I wish I could attend, but we are deeply immersed in my wife's office renovation and move, which will likely soak up all our time this weekend.

I did conduct a tour of the lab for a fun-loving SFWA group today. But that may be as close as I get to the Nebula festivities.

Atlanta Nights is going to be mentioned on the radio tomorrow, Sunday, 01 May 05. You can listen on the Web.

The URL is www.am990.com. The show is broadcast live at noon Central time in Memphis and Atlanta, and over the Net.

Expect about twenty minutes in the show's second hour.

"They have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps." --
William Shakespeare, "Love's Labour's Lost"

Correct link: http://www.am990.com/listen/.

Breaking the bonds of textual linearity through auctorial collectivism in Atlanta Nights: a structural exegesis

Perhaps a Travis Tea festschrift in time for Worldcon?

Sense/Non-Sense/Anti-Sense: Unsignifying Signifiers in Modern American Literature.

Trav[is]ersal: Beyond Authorial Intent in Atlanta Nights

Anthologies, Round-Robins, Shared-Worlds, Collaborations, and Their End Result: What Atlanta Nights Tells Us About "Authorship"

Demus,

Do you think your brother is concerned that finding his paper on the net might lead to the school assuming he was not the author and fail him for the assignment?

Count me in as one who would love to read it.

Danger!

An imaginary “scandal”
by Theodore Dalrymple

"... The personal identity of the author thus came to be all-important just at the very moment when, elsewhere in the literary world, the death of the author was being confidently announced. ..."

What can happen when a small press finds out that the author is not whom he says he is. A cautionary tale with Feminist overtones. Literary Fraud, or a bunch of nonsense?

regarding essaytown.com and their sister websites, *-* beware *-*...

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/ripoff121866.htm

http://www.ripoffreport.com/results.asp?q1=ALL&q5=essay&submit2=Search%21&q4=&q6=&q3=&q2=&q7=&searchtype=0

.

[posted from 71.32.241.252]

Weird in the way that it seems to have been written by a human. Spam nonetheless. Begone!

Needing homework done,
The student's query refines
But why can't anyone
Read between the lines?

abi... Read between the lines?

I have often wondered. If you read between the lines, you wind up with sublines. Can you then read between the sublines? Then between the subsublines, all the way to the quantum level beyond which one can read no further?

From the subline to the ridiculous...

Abi... Don't you mean "from the subline to the readicule'?

From the sunshine to the reticule.

From the shoeshine to the pedicure.

This looks like it was one of those "penny a post" human-placed spams.

From the sternum to the pedicle.

From the septum to the sneeze...

# Alienating Race: Imperialist Subtext in Travis Tea's Atlanta Nights
# Responsive Madness and the Dissection of Primal Promiscuities in Travis Tea's Atlanta Nights
# Multiculturalism and Subjectivity in Atlanta Nights: Travis Tea Deflowering Sexual Borderlines
# Travis Tea's Troubling Poetics: Atlanta Nights and the Vision of Margins
# Travis Tea Producing Production: Atlanta Nights and the Community of Notions

Thanks to the The Amazing and Incredible, Only-slightly-Laughable
Politically Unassailable, PoMo English
Title Generator