Evaluating and Using
Print and Media Resources

Are you beginning to understand what is plagiarism? Another term you need to become familiar with is "paper mill." The University of Alberta Libraries web site defines paper mill as "a term applied to providers of pre-written term papers and other "educational tools" via the Internet. Some web sites offer thousands of papers online."

In this next activity, you will explore paper mill sites and locate a paper that could match a research project of a chosen topic:

Activity Description

1. Select a research topic you want to find a paper for.
2. Visit this site Cheating 101: Paper Mills and You and locate a research paper.
   1. How difficult was it to find a research paper?
   2. Was the paper free or was there a charge?
3. Visit these pages for more information on plagiarism:
   1. plagiarism overview
   2. how to detect plagiarism
   3. combating plagiarism
4. Now download these 2 papers which are about speech abnormalities. One was purchased from a paper mill and the other is a "legitimate" research paper. Can you tell which one is plagiarized work and which one is authentic student work?
   1. paper one
   2. paper two

Now go to Take a Quiz about Plagiarism....