Mike s days of writing papers for others ended when one of his clients was suspected for using a paper written by someone else. The teacher wanted to see photocopies of the sources and the client was worried about getting kicked out of school, and could have tried to get Mike thrown out as well. Since the paper in question was based on a high school term paper, Mike called his father back home and had photocopies of the source articles sent to Tucson. His father bailed him out by completing the task, but Mike vowed never to sell papers again. Not only do some students make money assisting others, but small businesses also do that task.
Professors are weary of services that assist students in cheating or plagiarizing.
Classified advertisements pitch catalogs full of term papers which students can try to pass off as their own. One such classified advertisement recently printed in the Arizona Daily Wildcat was from a company called Berkeley Research, which sends out a catalog of 29,000 term papers. Students can order papers over the phone and have them delivered by the next day. Another flier circulated locally offers students the service of having a substitute attend their class and take their exam for them. Associate Dean Hernandez said steps have been taken to investigate such local services, but he would not elaborate.