With dozens of online term paper mills appearing on the Internet,
professors and institutions are imposing new strategies to deter
students from using them
Dr. Harryette Mullen worries that the Internet is making it too
easy for students to cheat themselves out of an education. Mullen, an
associate professor of English at the University of California-Los
Angeles, says the growing presence of “term paper mill” Web sites on
the Internet is a cause for great concern.
“I look for new information on the Internet, and then you stumble
across these sites,” Mullen says. “I’m concerned that students are
robbing themselves because they aren’t learning critical skills.”
For years, desperate students have turned to illicit means to
procure term papers, subsequently submitting them as their own work.
Colleges and universities have long enforced bans on this form of
cheating.
The Internet — with its capacity to allow the electronic
downloading of documents to desktop computers — has ushered in a whole
new and menacing era in the realm of cheating.
There are dozens of companies with Web sites that advertise
services for providing customers with “models” of research papers. The
company Web sites have names — such as “Evil House of Cheat,” “Term
Papers 911,” and “Genius Papers” — that feature downloadable papers on
thousands of topics that can be purchased by anyone with a credit card.
Some of the sites charge no fee at all for research papers.
“This is a very important issue because it speaks to the academic
integrity of an institution,” says Sheila Trice Bell, executive
director of the Washington, D.C.-based National Association of College
and University Attorneys.
