Term-Paper Company Admits Possible Error

Ward Warren, president of Termpapers Unlimited, the company which sold identical papers to two Harvard students enrolled in the same course, conceded yesterday that Unlimited may have made its "first mistake."

The two students, an undergraduate in Kirkland House and a graduate student with special standing. submitted identical papers on Disraeli to History 142b. "British History Since 1870." taught by Harold J. Hanham, professor of History. The graduate student was suspended for one year while the undergraduate was required to with draw.

Downgrade

The incident may provide Harvard with a test case to challenge the operations of the term-paper companies on the grounds that they downgrade the quality of a Harvard degree, Dean Epps said Tuesday.

According to Warren, Unlimited records the name school. course, and instructor of every customer in order to insure that students do not hand in identical papers to the same professor.

"However." Warren said, "we do a tremendous volume of business with students from every part of the country, and it's possible that in this particular instance, we slipped up and made our first mistake. But I'm not going to say for certain that the whole thing was our fault. because I haven't checked the case that thoroughly yet."

Warren angrily denied a Senior Tutor's claim that Unlimited had willingly given the tutor information regarding the sale of the two papers, including the names of the students involved.

"Our records are completely confidential." Warren, said. "and we would never disclose the name of a customer under any circumstances. What kind of people do you think we are, anyway?" he asked.

'Foolproof'

Two other term-paper services claimed that they had foolproof reference systems which eliminated chances of mistakes. Bab Reth of Quality Bullshit (QBS) said that QBS keeps "detailedrecords of every single transaction."

"Furthermore." Roth added, "we won't even sell papers to students who are in schools which are located in the same area."

The founder of Universal Research, who goes by the name of Mr. Papers, said that his company kept a "triple cross-reference system." According to Mr. Papers, Universal's writers turn in three copies of every paper. Two copies go to the student and one copy goes into Universal's files. "We've never been caught yet." Mr. Papers said proudly.

However, Bill Carmody, the president of International Termpapers, said that his company has frequently sold identical papers to students enrolled in the same course.

"We tell students, of course, that someone else in their class has handed in the same paper they're buying," Carmedy said. "Besides, most of our customers are just buying papers for reference purposes, and they wouldn't hand the papers in anyway."

The three companies emphasized that their records were "absolutely confidential" and they claimed they would never reveal a customer's name "no maker what happened."

Warren. Carmody and Roth all agreed that Harvard "had no grounds whatsoever" on which to sue the term-paper services. "Look," Warren said. "all these companies do is sell students term papers. It's up to the student to decide what to do with a paper, and we can't police every student."