Term Paper Mills

Plagiarism is a profitable online business.

Some students use these companies throughout their academic careers as a way of bypassing writing research papers.

The term "paper mill" is used to describe online databases that offer research papers on thousands of topics. Some paper mills operate via straight exchanges; you give them a paper of yours and they give you a paper in return; others charge by the essay or page; and others offer customized papers.

Many online paper mills claim that their papers are "sold for research and reference purposes only" and that students should not turn the papers in for academic credit, but it is highly unlikely that these web companies have any concern about what students do with the papers after they purchase them.

There are three types of papers available on the Web:

1. Papers "published" by students or instructors as part of classroom assignments or research projects.
2. Papers that can be downloaded for free. These papers can come from a variety of sources like online magazines, papers published by organizations specifically for the Web, or papers published by individuals.
3. Traditional paper mills.

[list adapted from the University of Alberta Libraries'
"Faculty Guide to Cyber-Plagiarism" (http://www.library.ualberta.ca/guides/plagiarism/index.cfm)]

Faculty members may want to use the term paper mill web sites as a way of determining if students have purchased their papers, but be forewarned, many of these web sites are not searchable the way a search engine is. It may cost you to do the searching.

Some of the paper mills operating on the Internet include:

A-1 Termpaper
http://www.a1-termpaper.com/

Academic Term Papers
http://www.academictermpapers.com/

An Evil House of Cheat
http://www.cheathouse.com

Essayworld.com
http://www.essayworld.com

Free Papers
http://www.freepaper.net

Free Student Essays
http://www.freestudentessays.com/

Genius Papers
http://www.geniuspapers.com/

Other People's Papers
http://www.oppapers.com/

School Sucks
http://www.schoolsucks.com/

Term Paper & Research Assistance
http://www.papers-online.com/

Thousands of Papers (T.O.P.)
http://www.termpapers-on-file.com/

Top 100 Term Paper Sites
http://www.top100termpapersites.com/index.php

For a comprehensive list of paper mills, go to Kimbel Library, Coastal Carolina University (http://www.coastal.edu/library/mills2.htm).

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