Dear Johann,
I wrote you a private note, direct and off-list. The reason I wrote in private was to avoid embarrassing you. This was my private comment — I wasn’t taking you to task in public.
It’s my view that when people give references, they base their argumentation on external evidence. In that case, providing the evidence for the argument is not simply a matter of politeness. If you had simply made your claims in your own name, that’s an argument. When you base your argument — even in part — on something that someone else says, I want to be able to read it for myself.
The complaints to which I refer are complaints that you have addressed to me in private correspondence. We’ve had a lot of correspondence on the issue of self-plagiarism over the past two years. I’ve got copies of several dozen different emails that we’ve exchanged.
Since I didn’t discuss these complaints in a post to the list, there’s no point going further. I wrote to you personally, off-list. The only reason I answer here is that you posted a reply to the list rather than replying to my private, personal note with a private, personal response.
I’m sorry if you have avoided posting because of what you view as list trolls, but it’s not my responsibility to take anyone to task. When something bugs me, I post. Other times, I let things go and simply scroll on by. If someone has been guilty of trolling you, it’s up to you to complain — either by posting to the list, or else by taking the matter to the list owner. I am not the list owner. That’s David Durling.
You’ve gone on to discuss the issue of self-plagiarism, but you haven’t summarised our two-year conversation, so it’s probably a bit opaque to the other list members. If you want to launch a thread to explain yourself, please do. I’m not answering your post in depth. I am merely trying to provide some context to people who may be mystified by a reply to things I did not write on the list.
I will say one thing to place your complaints about the issue of self-plagiarism in context. When you wrote to me about the matter, in private, I took your query seriously. I gathered and read the relevant sections of 31 books on plagiarism. I also located and read around 150 articles on plagiarism and self-plagiarism. At that time — back in 2019 — I reached a different conclusion that you did. Self-plagiarism involves REUSING ONE’S OWN WORDS without citing them to the original published source. As I understand your view, this is something of a sin. The way you have described it, self-plagiarism is nearly as bad as plagiarism — USING SOMEONE ELSE’S WORDS AND WORK WITHOUT ATTRIBUTION.
As I told you back in 2019, I think that Blaise Cronin (2013) got it right in an editorial that he wrote in an editorial for the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. It’s bad for an author to re-use text without proper attribution, but it’s not a form of plagiarism and people shouldn’t get as upset about it as some folks do. [Cronin’s editorial is attached, below.]
You disagreed, so I invited you to write an article on the topic for She Ji. I even provided you with digital copies of 31 books and around 150 articles. You had some health problems at the time, and then you moved house, so you haven’t yet written the article.
To our fellow list members, I apologise for bothering you with this reply to Johann. Since he posted a public reply on these issues, I thought I should answer in public. I wrote to Johann in private, and I regret the fact that he decided to bring everyone into a private correspondence, especially one that dates back for over two years worth of private email exchanges.
Yours,
Ken
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Reference
Cronin, Blaise. 2013. “Editorial. Self-plagiarism: An Odious Oxymoron.” Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Vol. 64, No. 5, p. 873. DOI: 10.1002/asi.22966
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Ken Friedman, Ph.D., D.Sc. (hc), FDRS | Editor-in-Chief | 设计 She Ji. The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation | Published by Tongji University in Cooperation with Elsevier | URL: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/she-ji-the-journal-of-design-economics-and-innovation/
Chair Professor of Design Innovation Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai, China ||| Visiting Professor | Faculty of Engineering | Lund University ||| Email [log in to unmask] | Academia https://tongji.academia.edu/KenFriedman | D&I http://tjdi.tongji.edu.cn
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