A student contacted me yesterday to ask my advice on the sticky question of self plagiarism. She (let’s call her Cat) was preparing a conference paper, and, like all of us, being time-poor was seeking efficient ways to do the task of reporting on her research in a new context. She only has weeks to get the conference paper together. As a doctoral student nearing the end of her candidature she had written much and presented often on her research. Cat wanted to know if it was okay for her to re-use writing that she had put together for an earlier conference. In that earlier conference paper she had written about the same research project, although with a different slant. For this forthcoming conference she wished again to report on her findings – albeit to a different audience. Cat had never published that previous paper but felt some degree of unease about what was acceptable practice vis a vis reproducing segments of it for this new conference. How much could she reuse from that earlier paper? Could she reproduce the format and the content but simply change the words? Could she keep some, or all of the words? The ‘findings’ would be the same no matter how the words were changed. Is there an acceptable proportion of verbatim reproduction that is permissible? Is the essence of what’s acceptable to do with the words or the ideas being reproduced?
Her query raises some important questions, familiar to doctoral scholars and academics alike. In Cat’s case – in my mind at least – it was pretty straightforward because, although she may have circulated that first paper, it was never ‘published’. In that sense it wasn’t officially in the public domain and as such I felt there was no problem if she reproduced considerable proportions of it. On what basis did I make that judgement? I’m not sure I know. Certainly I am not able to point to a rulebook or a set of universally accepted guidelines or practices. I know there are different views – even within disciplines within the same institution. I know it’s not easy to get guidance from within the academy itself. Try asking your own supervisors, or Grad Schools, about self plagiarism. Try asking your publishers.
My concern is not so much about breaking publisher contracts, or transgressing disciplinary norms or in-house practices; I’m more interested in how we understand and practice ‘good scholarship’.
In a perfect world I think we’d probably all start with a blank page and write beautiful, pristine work on each and every occasion. Certainly I recall as a doctoral student and novice scholar starting every piece of writing anew. I recall being appalled if I found an established scholar had reworked the same ideas in a second publication. Now I’m not so critical – I see the blurring of the boundaries, the way that ideas evolve in small increments rather than in leaps and bounds of unmitigated ‘newness’. Einstein moments are rare. The everyday work of our writing is more often pedestrian; it can be slow – even repetitive and circular. But somewhere there comes a crossing of boundaries. I know as a reader, and as a writer, the displeasure and discomfort of rehashed work that offers nothing new. The line isn’t clear. It isn’t easy to tie down – it’s not simply a matter of saying “you’ll be safe if you only reproduce 20%”, or “it’s a different audience or purpose, so it’s fine”- although I do think proportion, audience and purpose are central to the discussion. Few guidelines exist (eg some publishing companies clarify the situation in regard to copyright issues).
Is self plagiarism a mortal sin, is it unethical – or simply sloppy and lazy? Is it an inevitable by-product of our ‘push to publish’ academic environment? Are there cultural and/disciplinary dimensions we’ve not countenanced? This is a vexed issue and we’d love to generate some discussion of the complexities. Perhaps you’ve had some experiences you could share. We’d love to hear from you.
Best wishes, Claire
Read the thoughts of others by pressing the ‘Comments’ tab above. You can also add comments below.
DoctoralWriting 
Can I put the Cat amongst the pigeons?
Didn’t all the great musical composers of the past quote themselves in their subsequent works? And often to great effect? Hopefully they didn’t thrash themselves to bits too much when they did it.
Well done guys on the site
John
Hey John, thanks for the compliment, and welcome to blogging! Indeed, isn’t appropriation the stuff of creativity?
When I was doing my Master’s degree, my Supervisor was still actively attending conferences and presenting talks (she is now retired), and she had almost always modified a previously given talk to suit the new audience and conference theme.
Now, I don’t see anything wrong with that because she was still the same researcher, and it was still the same (big) project, the only difference was, she would be presenting the results of a different study/experiment. Hence, I could accept “self-plagiarism” in the form of “using similar introduction and methodology.”
But of course, presenting the same study/results many times over is not acceptable.
Just my thoughts 😀
Thanks for sharing these observations. Often we find out what’s acceptable or otherwise by doing just that – by sharing stories of practice. In your account the ‘findings’ altered with the reporting of different aspects of the study, but the Introductions and Methods sections retained commonalities. That’s helpful information especially for newer researchers. I wonder if this is more likely in certain kinds of research/ fields of study than in others? Thanks again for contributing.
Because it’s the question for the self, doesn’t that mean one can answer that question for himself or herself?
Maybe by reusing the previous work, if one can persuade himself or herself that the readers can still get something out of it, it isn’t too bad?
Good point. I like the way you have directed the attention and the responsibility on to the writer.
I agree.
The words belong to you and the findings from your research don’t change therefore you are able to use them again to a different audience and for a paper with a different theme or focus.
Claire’s 20% rule sounds feasible. If your work is too familiar and researchers are following your work, then the risk of losing your new messages amongst the old is greater.
This is an interesting and important issue. We all know academics who frequently re-use material, and they often risk their reputations by doing so. However, I think some of the anxiety about repeating or paraphrasing (oneself or others) might come from a mis-guided notion of knowledge and knowledge-making. Here’s what Bakhtin (1986) has to say on this: “any speaker is himself [sic] a respondent to a greater or lesser degree. He is not, after all, the first speaker, the one who disturbs the eternal silence of the universe. And he presupposes not only the existence of the language system he is using, but also the existence of preceding utterances – his own and others’ – with which his given utterance enters into one kind of relation or another (builds on them, polemicizes with them, or simply presumes that they are already known to the listener). Any utterance is a link in a very complexly organized chain of other utterances” (p.69). The point, I think, is that knowledge is made collaboratively, in an ongoing process of dialogue. Despite the often-heard claim that the dissertation is a “unique contribution to knowledge,” we all build on others’ work, and on our own, as we move toward a greater understanding. I feel like I’ve been paraphrasing myself and others for my whole career; with some additions, perhaps, and new ways of looking or acting, but always as part of a collective and incremental process.
And, as Bakhtin would surely agree, it really isn’t possible to say the same thing twice. You might use the same words, but if you say them to different people, or for different reasons, or in a different context, they aren’t the “same words” anymore.
I’m not recommending verbatim repetition of one’s texts in two or more locations, unless that repetition is acknowledged. It’s only self-plagiarism if you don’t cite it or pass it off as new text. A simple footnote saying something like, “parts of this article first appeared in a paper delivered at the X Conference, etc.” solves the problem. (And now I’m wondering if I haven’t said all of this somewhere else!)
Thank you, Anthony for your contribution. You’ve got to love Bakhtin, don’t you!? His work is so rich with ideas and his writing so lyrical. And Anthony has given us a very practical way to legitimise the discriminate use of ‘self plagiarism’ – ie acknowledge what has appeared previously. (And thank goodness you said what you said, again, for us!)
I completely agree with one of the comments above. In this case, Cat is the one who needs to clarify her situation. More than whoever, she knows her audience and understand the goal or requirements that the forthcoming conference. As it said, she has never published any papers before. Then i think it’s O.K. for her to re-use her previous research. However, as you suggested, she should contact with her supervisor or her department to have more consultancy.
Ultimately, I think if Cat’s confident and knows how to present her paper persuasively, the audience will properly satisfied with the information rather criticize it. That’s why i think it’s important to know the scope of the conference and the academic characteristics of its
I am only a beginner doing research and want to have some personal opinions on this interesting topic.
Hope you will have more sharing and interesting discussions in the future.
Thanks Claire and Good luck Cat 🙂
It’s great to have beginning researchers join us. Welcome Alpahtrang.
You’re suggesting the author is in the best position to make a judgement about how much she will draw on her earlier work for this conference paper: Cat will do so informed by her knowledge of her research, what she’s presented before and her new audience. In other words this new context will surely necessitate some alteration to what she presents. Have you ever noticed how you tell the same story differently, depending on who the audience is (or who’s in the audience!)? And further, in the retelling or altered telling, our sense of who we are, is altered? In other words, what I perhaps provocatively called ‘self plagiarism’ is also tied up with issues of identity – as perceived by oneself and others. In an earlier comment Anthony Paré began by referring to reputation. A (good) academic reputation is a difficult thing to come by, and I guess that’s why there is a valid concern to understand and avoid the kind of plagiarism, and self plagiarism, might affect how we are perceived as scholars. Knowing the norms in our fields, ie ‘how we do things round here’ can help us develop the kind of identity that benefits reputation.
I am not sure if I am being a pedant, but it really isn’t plagiarism, as she is not using someone’s work without attribution. The better question is, “is it academic laziness?” It is on this point I will comment.
I think if you are presenting on a theme, and you can use some previous work to assist in reducing the work load and stress, then why not! My only caveat is she should not use to much, otherwise she will gain a reputation as either a lazy researcher or one with limited ideas. That would be my only concern.
Fair comment Brian. It’s that reputation thing again, which surfaces differing views on what is ‘good scholarship’. And, yes perhaps ‘self plagiarism’ is an oxymoron, and a lazy one at that! Thanks for contributing.
What an interesting discussion, Claire. I think if you are presenting and publishing as you’re writing, you have to be writing about the same project and data most of the time, often at different stages and perspectives, but usually with the same methodology, literature, participants, etc. If you’re writing for conferences, the perspective often changes as you frame the data to address the questions or theme being addressed at the conference. I find it a refreshing was of looking at my research, as it often forces me to re-look at my research from new perspectives I may not have thought of. That said, the foundation of the research hasn’t altered. It is still my work – my research, my findings. I’ve worked hard to code the data and find the themes inherent in it. I’m not going to throw that out just because I’m writing a paper. There may be some quotes from the literature – or my writing – that may be pertinent to the new topic I’m writing the paper for. Now this is where I find this discussion interesting! Does a sentence or two that you’ve written among your writing that you want to RE-use, constitute self-plagiarism? Gosh! I hope not. Dying to hear more thoughts on this, especially if anyone has any learned silly academic quote on this!
Thanks Cathy,
I think the general sentiment expressed here is one of agreement vis a vis your research and presentation of it differently for different purposes/ audiences. In fact you have captured the joy of that reworking, that re-thinking and re-configuring of our work as we mould meaning anew.
Reproducing or re-using sentences verbatim – it’s a matter of degree – and in that regard, I too would welcome some guidance from a quotable source! (Occasional sentence are surely fine and I favour a kind of 20% rule – but that’s just something i feel intuitively as my maximum tolerance level for repetition) Can any one help?
To add another strand to the discussion – in qualitative research when I’m using old data that this been reported on before, I try to go out of my way to find new evidence (usually in the form of interview quotes not previously published) to illustrate a point. Maybe others have developed practices they favour?
I know I have commented, but as I sit here typing away at another assessment piece, I was left wondering – on this theme – if you have used a pearler of a paragraph in one paper (for my MEd) is it wrong to “borrow” it for a doctoral paper?
Hi Brian,
There’s nothing like questions of practical application to ground a theoretical conversation… thank you for doing just this!
If I may summarize the pearls of wisdom shared in this discussion it would seem that firstly; it’s your decision, and secondly; if, even in this different context, you still regard that paragraph as a ‘pearler’ and want to reproduce it – then go ahead and acknowledge it as being from your Masters thesis. Let us know what you decide to do!
Cheers, Claire
As demonstrated by the on-going traffic to this blog, self plagiarism remains a hot topic! Thank you for alerting us to some of the literature in the field. Cally told me of two papers [Paper 1] [Paper 2] on academic self plagiarism written by colleagues at the University of South Australia. They make for interesting reading; extending and elaborating on the themes raised here, including definitions, disciplinary practices and text matching software. Plenty of other scholarly works on academic integrity, plagiarism, textual reuse and self plagiarism can be found in ‘Plagiary’ and ‘Journal of Academic Ethics’. Enjoy!
Thanks for these references. I can’t seem to see what the 2nd one is, but I’ll do a search in the 2 journals and see what I come up with. 🙂
Hi Cathy,
The full details for these texts:
Bretag, T. and S. Carapiet (2007). “A Preliminary Study to Identify the Extent of Self-Plagiarism in Australian Academic Research.” Plagiary: 92-103.
Bretag, T. and S. Mahmud (2009). “Self-Plagiarism or Appropriate Textual Re-use?” Journal of Academic Ethics 7(3): 193-205.
Enjoy,
claire
These are interesting about journal articles and conference papers etc. What about using parts of your completed thesis?
Yes, I have been asked this many times and I’d say it’s another shade of (the same) grey…. That is, I’d say similar guides apply in this regard – ie yes, reproduce from the thesis if, and where necessary, otherwise paraphrase from the thesis – but always acknowledge that the material had its origins in your thesis. That’s my perspective anyway. Why not see what your disciplinary colleagues and/ supervisor think?
all the best with it, Annette. Claire
Thank you for sharing this piece. I had self-plagiarism issue in the first year of my Phd. What I did was quoting a short paragraph verbatim from my master’s thesis -which is unpublished- for an assignment. I was sent a letter and invited to defend myself before committee for plagiarism, and I was rightfully scared about it. When it turned out that that section comes from my own work, they just told me to rephrase so that TurnitIn software does not pick up large portions of it. Apparently people like to avoid getting into lengthy ethical arguments and that was quite an easy solution for me.
Thanks for sharing this anecdote. It raises a dimension that we hadn’t yet broached in this discussion – that is, the policing of plagiarism. Where I work, undergraduate students are expected to put their assignments through Turnitin (a software program that identifies pieces of assignment that match text in the Turnitin database which is comprised of submitted assignments and web-based materials). It can be an intimidating experience to fall foul of the Turnitin police. It’s interesting to hear how your institution resolved the dilemma – by requiring you to rephrase your own work, perhaps their concern was to appease the system rather than engage in the more difficult and murky territory of thinking through issues of scholarship, ownership and writing style.
At this stage there is no requirement for our doctoral students to put their thesis or dissertation through Turnitin before submission. It would be interesting to hear about practices at other institutions.
This is such a troubling issue. I have been recently anxious about conference papers that I wrote during my PhD. I am now a more senior academic and have become absolutely obsessed with not self-plagiarising. The fact is, no matter which way I twist it, I self plagiarised between conference papers during my PhD and also then when I turned them into journal articles. There would be several things I would say in my defence, if required to.
1. It was not a premeditated or malicious thing. It is amazing what one can justify at one point in time. I felt that since I was delivering the papers to diverse academic audiences (from different disciplines) it was okay to use the same quotes from qualitative data several time.
2. I was a student at the time and was learning. I would never blame my mentors and supervisors, but I was literally told “different audience, different paper length, different paper!” Things, I now understand better,, are rarely that simple.
3. There are definitely changes in the papers. No two are the same.
Just in relation to other things mentioned here, I agree that as long as you state in your new writing that you have dealt with these issues previously, you cite yourself and change the words you are not self-plagiarising.
Also, if you have written something that is not published (masters or PhD thesis), it is fair game to use again (I am in sociology).
The idea that we can explore an issue once and never explore it again is absurd. Revisiting is bound to dance with self plagiarism boundaries.
Finally, I want to commend the people here. My feeling is that people who are very concerned with self-plagiarism are probably unlikely to commit full-scale plagiarism by robbing someone else’s work.
Thanks for another thoughtful comment. In particular i am interested in the point you raise about intention and care. I agree these facets are crucial components in the mix…
And so this discussion continues! Thanks for your thoughts, Liam. I’m interested that your increasing concern about self-plagiarism that developed from the publishing of conference papers written during your PhD you’ve since turned into articles. Ah dear! The worry of it all. How much, how little can you write (that is yours, that can be re-used, if any) of your data (I am in humanities).
I like the clear way you’ve summed up many of the arguments and issues writers have put forward so far in the discussion. I particularly like your final comment. I’m not too sure about it, but one would hope that the quest to ensure you had not committed a plagiaristic academic sin of some kind might at least satisfy whatever academic police had accused you of it in the first place!
Where I teach we have strict rules about turning in the same piece of work twice – it’s simply not allowed.
First, it would mean getting two grades for one work. If a paper was already graded, why would it be graded again? X paper got Y grade. The end. The focus, then, is on the actual piece of work being turned in.
Second, there are some courses with only one assignment – a big research essay, for example. In cases like this, students would be getting full credits for two entire courses based on one work.
Thankfully the continuation of previous work(s) is absolutely allowed as long as students discuss their wishes with their professors or advisors AND it isn’t a mere repeat (or exact copy) of an earlier edition.
These guidelines have proved helpful in many ways. It’s clear(er) to both students and educators what is and isn’t allowed, yet there’s room for an extra level of agency/academic exploration on the student side.
Of course, so much of the issues presented here have to do with the larger system of grading in general – among other things. I am curious about something, though. Turning in the same paper twice seems to be acceptable to many, judging by the sources I’ve read – but what about turning it in three times, or four? (Aside from major overlap concerns, that is.)
Thanks for your thoughts – this is a topic that continues to get attention! It would seem you are speaking about submitting papers for marking, say, within a course/ subject as part of a degree. In this case there are usually clear and strict rules against the practice. However when submitting papers to scholarly journals or other kinds of publications, the rules (and rule-keepers) are less clear. Hence the challenges explored in this post and subsequent discussions. And, I do I like your provocation to consider the difference between one and many resubmissions! Best wishes, Claire
Pingback: Writing your thesis (and using your publications) – Writing Analytics