A Brief Paper Mill Tour

Below is a small sampling of some term paper Web sites which vary in fee, services and tone. You may want to visit some of these sites to see how they operate and see what kinds of papers may be available in your subject area.

Straightforward Cheats

These are stereotypical sites which announce their intentions loud and clear.

• www.serve.com/doctor ("The Doctor")
• www.cheathouse.com ("Evil House of Cheat")
• www.schoolsucks.com

Pretensions of Class

These sites often market themselves as "research services" or "writing services," often with an emphasis on "quality." Although some sites have disclaimers that the material is only for study or research purposes, the intent is still fairly clear.

• custom-dissertations.net (custom essays, "100% non-plagiarized")
• www.essayfinder.com
  ("designed only to assist students in the preparation of their own work")
• www.essaytown.com ("Beware of Foreign Sites")

Custom Shops

Sometimes you can find entire essay sites devoted to just one topic, exactly what a busy plagiarist needs. As you can see, few disciplines are immune.

• www.academicmythology.com
• www.death-of-a-salesman-essays.com
• www.education-majors.com/
• www.mathreports.com/
• www.nursingpapers.com
• www.vietnam-war-papers.com/
• www.womensissues.org
• Other Topics listed at Coastal Carolina
  

Web 2.0 "Study Circles"

A new trend is to create a Facebook like site where users share study materials including essays, homework solutions and old exams (with answer key). In some cases, membership is free, but you must upload a series of files in order to join.

• www.coursehero.com (social "study guide" site with exam solutions posted)

Any More?

The above is just the tip of the iceberg, You can see Costal Carolina University for a complete set of term paper sites.

A Google Search for "essays" or "research papers" in your topic is also recommended. Students may be doing something similar themselves.

Other sources

In addition to online paper mills, students may be able plagiarizing from these sources.

1. Papers from previous years (it may be wise to make copies of student papers so you can compare them to suspicious papers in future semesters).
2. Online encyclopedias (both general and specialized). Some examples:
   • Wikipedia - a decent place to begin some research topics, but also a source for cutting and pasting
   • www.britannica.com
   • encarta.msn.com
   • www.encyclopedia.com
3. CD-ROM encyclopedias and references, including Microsoft Encarta.
4. It is also possible to link to research databases, such as ERIC, which contain full text articles.