s exploded on the Internet. Perhaps this is due to the “Term Paper Blues” ads that are being run in the back of Rolling Stone magazine by “Research Assistance” (Wice). This new way to take credit for someone else’s work is particularly alarming because of the ease of which they can be obtained (Byrd). There is a rapid growth of sites operated by money-hungry entrepreneurs willing to make a quick buck by promoting plagiarism. Countless sites offer papers from anywhere from no cost to as high as $100 for a custom written paper complete with bibliography (Raphael). Unfortunately, the experience gained from the struggle to research and write a well-developed paper is an extremely valuable component of a solid education and is lost when obtaining papers from the Internet. Students who submit recycled papers are not only plagiarizing the words and ideas of others, but they are also robbing themselves of their own intellect. In the long run, those who choose the more challenging path will reap the greater reward.Even a superficial search of the Internet reveals dozens of sites that offer “term paper assistance” (Byrd). It was alarming to see how many paper plagiarism sites were found within just a few short minutes of searching through google.com. Sites like “papersunlimited.com”, “cheater.com”, and “screwschool.com” offer easy-to-download papers on thousands of research topics (google.com). Chuck Mullins, chief executive officer and creator of CollegeTermPapers.com which launched in 1999, has reported that his site receives approximately 175,000 hits per day (Cina). This is an astonishing figure.A major problem is that anyone with a major credit card can access and download research papers. They’re so easily available. For a reasonable price, they can buy a paper, revise it to fit their own needs and turn it in as their own. It’s a natural ...
