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July 03, 2006, 12:55 PM ET
'Exciting Careers in Academic Misconduct!'
How do online term-paper mills recruit people willing to write scholarly work on demand? Sometimes, it’s as simple as posting an ad on a college’s Web site.
John Purvis, a student at the University of Wollongong, in Australia, tells The Sydney Morning Herald that he spotted a promising appeal for a "freelance writer/researcher" on the university’s career-services site. But after digging for details on the company that posted the ad, Deveraux & Deloitte, he decided to take a pass. On its Web site, the company bills itself as "the world’s first fully versatile research service"—a phrase that Mr. Purvis interpreted as a euphemism for something unethical.
Wollongong officials pulled the ad from their Web site after Mr. Purvis alerted them to it, but Deveraux & Deloitte managed to temporarily run a similar ad on at least one other college’s site. The company is located in Britain, but it has made a point to recruit Australian researchers for its Australian customers—perhaps, one copyright expert suggests, because professors can usually figure out when a paper has been written by someone in another country. —Brock Read
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