Ah Ghostwriting. At first, I was all for the ghostwriting experience, and I was even thinking about creative ways I could be a nurse and a ghostwriter on the side since writing is enjoyable to me. After completing this assignment however, I have a few more ethical concerns about this subject. I ghostwrote some essays for Justinn (talked about in the previous blog) for medical school applications. While writing these types of essays and personal statements is generally difficult when they are your own, I assumed writing Justinn's would be easier since I am not afraid to talk him up. Quite the opposite seemed to be true however.
Justinn gave me some notes on specific experiences he wanted to talk about, and I pretty much filled in the rest according to the specifications of the essay. Justinn had much say in revising these essays since I had a hard time writing about some of his experiences such as biochemical research. This involvement from him was rather unexpected, because I just always assumed that ghostwriters write the work, then the person who is claiming authorship reviews it, only fixing major concepts that are not aligned with their personal views. Perhaps it was different in my case because of the nature of the essays, and the fact that they were all rather short made it easier to be picky about certain sentences and words. All this being said, the overall experience was interesting, and I ended up feeling just the opposite about ghostwriting than I thought I would; I cannot help but feel guilty or just not right in general. However, if I was getting paid and there were contracts signed etc. I think I would feel better about it.
Overall this assignment did not change my relationship with the author, if anything, it improved the relationship because I learned more about him and his life experiences leading him to a medical profession.
Also, I do not think I changed who I am as an author. Again, because of the nature of these essays, and the fact that they contain a completely different style of writing than formal papers, I think my perceptions of myself remained constant. However, it was interesting in class to hear other people realizing they have their own personal style to writing; this is something I would be interested to know about myself.
1 comment:
i also had a lot of involvement from the client in my piece. i can say that was an experience because mostly the only people who have really worked with me on papers were the professors, so that was different. also i thought i knew this person well, but then i am thrown back into reality. there are way to many factors to know someone inside out and even have their exact mindset.
Post a Comment