Shirk Grifter vs. Paragraph Doctor: Episode 2

Notorious villain Shirk Grifter, deplored world-wide for despicable crimes against grammar, usage, punctuation, mechanics, and the writing process, pens a research essay under the cloak of night—an essay that’s due in the morning!

“Bah!” he scowls, muttering to himself. “Research shmeesearch! There’s plenty of stuff on Wikipedia I can copy/paste to fulfill the word count!”

Just then, Shirk receives a call from none other than... The Paragraph Doctor!

“Wassup, Shirkster? Wanna go catch the midnight showing of that Rushdie documentary?”

“Shut up, broseph! I’m writing an essay. And NO, I don’t need your blasted help. All I need is a D, so keep the pedantry to yourself!”

“Hey, whatevs, that’s cool. What sources are you using? You remember your JSTOR password, right? Oh, wait, let me guess—you’re plagiarizing Wikipedia again?”

“I’m not plagiarizing! It’s all common knowledge anyway!”

“Then why do you need it at all?”

“Well, I… oh, fine, I’ll cite it properly in APB form, or… PBJ or… whatever it’s called. Happy now?”

“Good. I’m sure your professor will love that. They’re super impressed when students cite nothing but an online encyclopedia written by anyone with a Yahoo email account rather than using primary sources and up-to-date peer-reviewed scholarship by experts.”

“I told you to shut up! Go watch your stupid documentary—be sure to wear your most pretentious tweed sportcoat. There’s nothing wrong with Wikipedia!”

“I love Wikipedia! But if you’re supposed to be making an insightful intellectual inquiry into a subject, how can Wikipedia—or any encyclopedia—be expected to give you anything more than the most general and already well-known facts about a subject? Shouldn’t you go into more depth than that? Shouldn’t you offer something more detailed than info any fourth grader can look up in a few seconds on a smart phone?”

“Damn you! Just shut your mouth! I was almost finished and you’re ruining it!”

“Almost finished regurgitating an encyclopedia article? Great. But you know, it wouldn’t be that hard to follow links to the sources the Wikipedia article used. Or to search online databases through your library account. I mean, you don’t have time to go to the library or speak with a librarian at this point, but hey, scholar.google.com is still open. As is Lexis Nexis, Academic Search Premier, and a bajillion other databases. Hundreds of full-text articles are a few clicks away.”

“Gah! Fine. Send me a link?”

“No.”

“FINE! OK… thanks. Again. I guess. Oh, look, here’s an article from U Cal about applications of gravity duality. Sweet! Gotta go. Laterz!”

And thus, another trainwreck of an essay was rescued by our valiant hero, THE PARAGRAPH DOCTOR!