Typists Help Tardy Students Make the Grade : Education: The keyboard wizards are deluged with pleas, sob stories and bribes when deadlines for term papers arrive. Many say the cash is worth the long hours.

At about 5 p.m., a Cal State Northridge student in his early 20s asked Catherine Patton to type his political science term paper. He had not begun writing it, but it was due in class that day--at 7 p.m.

Patton agreed.

But then she and other typists are accustomed to handling a stream of frantic pleas for whirlwind term paper jobs at this time of year. Like tax preparers before April 15, professional typists during the month of final exams, especially those who live near college campuses, are deluged with sob stories, desperate pleas and sometimes bribes to type term papers, theses, doctoral dissertations and scripts--many of which were due the day before.

Long hours, seclusion from family and friends and the pressure to meet the students’ deadlines, along with the 90% increase in income during finals and the convenience of working at home, fuel the love-hate relationship they have with their seasonal line of work.

“This is my bread and butter,” said Maureen Bratman, who does temporary legal secretarial work and types term papers in the evenings and on weekends.

But at times the pressure can be intense.

For instance, with a two-hour lead time, Patton typed the frantic CSUN student’s political science paper as he sat in his car outside her home and wrote it longhand, running the pages inside one at a time.

She finished typing the 20-page paper at 9 p.m. and the student turned it in to the instructor as class ended that night.

“And that’s pretty typical,” she said, although she admits this was an extreme example.

But she would not trade it for another line of work right now, she said.

Typing term papers for students enables Patton to take care of her two small children while she is earning money at home. She has been typing professionally for three years, she said.

Lori Da’Vol began typing in her home in Arleta for the same reason--to stay at home with her daughter.

But her 4-year-old daughter hates this time of year.

“She doesn’t like me to work. She’ll try to distract me and say things like ‘Mommy don’t type. Come on, tell your students not to come,’ ” Da’Vol said. And all her husband usually sees of her for weeks in the spring is the back of her head as she sits at her computer terminal late into the night.

In spite of her daughter’s pleas, for Da’Vol professional typing is the best of both worlds.

She has a chance to tutor her child between papers, Da’Vol said. “Or she sits next to me and watches television or plays.”

Da’Vol has been in the professional typing business for almost two years and says she has never turned down a typing job because she could not read the writing. Some handwritten papers have given her headaches though.

“Sometimes I can’t tell one letter from another, an ‘r’ from an ‘n’ or a ‘t’ from an ‘h’ and I get cross-eyed trying to figure out what they mean. When I go to type, I have to keep stopping, so it takes forever,” she said.

She said one student’s writing was so bad that she charged her double because it took twice as long to type the paper. When they sat down to edit, the student could not read her own writing, Da’Vol said.

Some students have asked Da’Vol to plagiarize--type 15 pages directly out of a textbook so they can turn it in as their own work.

“It bothers me, but not enough to turn it down, because I need the work,” Da’Vol said. She said she would never write a paper for a student, though she has been asked.

Her husband’s work is sporadic also, so her typing assignments help ease the financial crunch.

“This has been great because my husband was out of work. At Christmas, typing paid our property taxes and took the burden off him,” she said.

Her other seasonal jobs include bookkeeping and preparing taxes, she said.

For Sherri Martin, independence is why she has remained a professional typist for 11 years.

“I’m my own boss. I really enjoy that,” she said. But it has had an effect on her family.

“At this time of year, we don’t eat as many home-prepared meals. We eat out maybe three times a week as opposed to once,” she said. “Sometimes I start typing at 6 a.m. and end around 9 p.m.”

One day, Martin started typing at 5 a.m., had 18 students come in and out of the house throughout the day and stopped typing at 11 p.m., she said.

It can be very hectic, she said, but she never works through the night, although students would like her to.

“They just want their work really, really soon. They say it was due yesterday, but usually that doesn’t work with me,” she said.

Patton too said her clients sometimes make unreasonable demands.

“They don’t understand. They figure, ‘If I drop it off, can I pick it up in two hours?’ But I have two screaming babies,” she said. Her children are 1 and 5 years old.

Professional typists said they have heard it all: from students who complain that their mothers had suddenly refused to type more of their papers, to students who pleaded that their college diploma hung on having a particular paper typed immediately.

“I think this is just the way they do things and they don’t think it’s unusual. For the people who usually use these services, this is how they run their lives,” Patton said.