Academic sources

Burke, M. (2004). Deterring plagiarism: A new role for librarians. Library Philosophy and Practice, 6(2), http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/~mbolin/lppv6n2.htm

Royce, J. (2003). Has turnitin.com got it all wrapped up? Teacher Librarian, 30(4) pp. 26-31. (this is available through our library and on-line through the articles indexes>Library and Information Science>CBCA education and searching by title or author.)

To quickly summarize them, Turnitin.com is part of the solution but by no means all of the solution. They also both argue that Turnitin.com is the best of the presently available anti-plagiarism programs. Royce makes the important point that programs like Turnitin.com will inevitably result in reactions to it by students who plagiarize and by the plagiarism industry (and it is an industry).

Plagiarism 'community' and business sources

Plagiarizm.com describes itself as "The good, the bad, and the ugly on anything and everything about plagiarism, dowloading term papers, and research services!" and is a good introduction to the culture and community of plagiarists. Is it legit? It may make little sense to ask that question in the world of plagiarism, though in many respects that applies to the internet as a whole. While it may just be a venue for pushing Dr. Herbert Ulysses Quickwit's book Plagiarizm: How Profs Spot a Cheat (a book that, if bought in ebook form, cannot be copied, cut and pasted from, or printed, so clearly the author understands at least that about plagiarizing, but he clearly understands a lot more), the site also presents an interesting picture of the culture of plagiarism. It includes a suggested readings list. Worth noting is that its Affilate Links include amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.

What does plagiarizm.com think of turnitin.com?

Turnitin.com bills itself as "the standard in online plagiarism prevention" with a system which "instantly identifies papers containing unoriginal material" to bust students who use cheatsites. Actually, Turnitin is not too far off the mark in saying that. More dangerous yet, Turnitin.com is going to integrate their software with Blackboard for detecting plagiarism in any papers submitted by students to their prof's Blackboard drop-box. pligiarizm.com

If you still have doubts about the idea of a plagiarism industry, do a Google search for term paper. On the left you will find sites that, mostly, show students how to write a term paper and often how not to plagiarize. But note the services on the right advertizing papers for sale, they pay to put their advertising on Google (that is how Google survives).

You might also want to look at an "Established Term Papers & Essay Website Business" for sale on, eBay and, perhaps go the the actual business www.subjectpapers.com. As you can see from both, this is not an amateur opperation, yet it is not even listed on Plagiarizm.com's Papers & Essay page.