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Volume 2, Issue 12 ©MetroPress November 28,. 1979
·Term·paper mills ·are declining I
by Karen Br:Slin The once booming term paper mill industry is suffering from the national decline in higher education enrollments; but the term paper-by-mail trade is still profiting due to the large foreign student population in the United States, one term paper service operator said. ''There are between 300-400
foreign students we write every paper for," Phil Posin, of Research Assistants of Los Angeles, said. " ... 75 % of our clientele are-foreign students." The term paper business is illegal in nearly every state, he said. The companies work mostly on a mail order basis by sending out catalogues containing around 10,000 research paper titles. A
You'RE R16HT JOJ.4"1, IT IS A~ fXCfLLE"NT ~ESE~'RCH PAPER IT WAS GOOD WHHJ I RtAO IT . 1"1 'bs, AAD AGArN 1"1 ·--,, A~D (~ '75, AND '"TIME ALSO.
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student may also purchase "We don't give out interviews," customized research papers writ- a researcher said. . ten to student specifications. Collegiate Research Systems in A catalogue from the Seattle- New York advertV;es in Rolling based Pacific Research company Stone magazine. A Collegiate included such titles as "English as Research employee denied the a Male Chauvinist Language.,'' company sold term papers, and ''Drug Addiction Viewed a~ a said their information is used for Form of Exploitation of Black -reference purposes only. Legal pressure is not killing off People,'' or the more traditional "Pacifism During World War I." the term paper companies, accorOrdering a paper from Pacific ding to Posin. A decline in the Research- is as easy as ordering a market (fewer students buying magazine subscription. The en- papers) and high operating costs closed order blank permits the are making the term paper student to charge the paper on business "economically not Visa or Master Charge. viable," he .said. The prices of research papers Posin said the high costs of advary from company to company. vertising, postal rates and paper Pacific charges $3.00 per page for are eroding the profit margin. term papers on file, $7 .50 for inThe Research Assistants writing dividualized research papers. staff receives ''no less than $50 Posin's Research Assistants char- per paper.'' The company makes ge around $40 per paper. Rush or- money when the papers are put on ders or customized research run file and repeatedly resold. higher. Posin said he is proud of the Posin was the only term paper company's term paper quality, mill operator willing to provide in- and its protection of the customer. "We protect our clientele," he formation about the researchpaper industry. His company was said. involved in legal disputes and He said the company will never eventually won_on "free speech" send two term papers to any one grounds. school. And, he said, he'd never Pacific Research follows a heard of his customers being policy of refusing to provide in- caught with a purchased term Continued on page 7 formation.