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I've found that explaining it to students using terms like "recycling" works better than talking about "self-plagiarism" - as then they understand that the issue is (as Polly says) about trying to get credit twice for one bit of work. Cheers, Sarah Good Practice Adviser Learning Enhancement and Academic Development Service (LEADS) The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401 Tel: +44 (0)141 330 3026 @NomadWarMachine From: learning development in higher education network [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Polly Flinders Sent: 11 May 2017 14:34 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Pat Thomson on 'self plagiarism' Dear all I can see that a research paper might comment on and build on previous work by the author, and would not view that as self-plagiarism, but in this case large chunks of material whether data or text would probably not be repeated. However, and particularly at undergraduate level, I would take a dim view of students who try to 'recycle' work from previous modules - perhaps in different general subject areas, or from previous years' work, or from previous courses (i.e. at different institutions). I would argue that plagiarism tend to occur when students try to get two grades for one piece of work whether or not the source was written by the same person. Double bubble is cheating. P A Flinders ________________________________ From: learning development in higher education network [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Gordon Asher [[log in to unmask]] Sent: 11 May 2017 14:10 To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: Pat Thomson on 'self plagiarism' Pat Thomson on Self Plagiarism Thought these extracts from Pat Thomson on 'self plagiarism' (contradiction in terms? - if plagiarism is passing off someone else's work as if it were your own?) touches on many conversations I know many of us have had? From https://patthomson.net/2017/05/11/citing-yourself-in-the-text/ <https://patthomson.net/2017/05/11/citing-yourself-in-the-text/> 'self-plagiarism I've written about this before <http://patthomson.net/2011/11/12/self-plagiarism-and-online-publication%e2%80%a6-some-musings/> and every time a handful or people write crossly to me saying that this is a ridiculous notion. That may be true but it is now actually part of copyright law in many countries. So like it or not, we are generally stuck with a ruling that says we have to treat our own material in the same way as everyone else's and quote ourselves. The shift to rules around self-plagiarism does stop people reusing large slabs of text, unchanged, from one paper to the next. Each paper is a new contribution, not a cut and paste. But yes, there are some cases when we do want to uses exactly the same words from one text to another- describing the methods used in a large research project from which several papers have been drawn is one, as are details of location in an ethnographic study. Most of us don't worry about the self plagiarise rule in these circumstances. Sometimes people don't bother with this rule. I've recently read a book where a very famous scholar used a definitional statement - extensively quoted by other people - which originally appeared in one of his refereed journal articles. It was such a well-known sentence that it leapt off the page at me. However, the writer didn't self-cite. And I don't blame him for this minor technical infringement. I can imagine him thinking that the wording was actually hard to better so why try to do so... But technically... In general, we do legally now need to 'quote' our own writing. This almost inevitably places us in the situation of having to explain why we are quoting ourselves - so back to number one above. And if you know the rules about self plagiarism you can then make your own decision about whether to follow them religiously. Just be aware the journals are increasingly using plagiarism software... and these algorithms will pick up self-cite as well as any other form of duplication.' And from https://patthomson.net/2011/11/12/self-plagiarism-and-online-publication%e2%80%a6-some-musings/ <https://patthomson.net/2011/11/12/self-plagiarism-and-online-publication%e2%80%a6-some-musings/> 'It used to be the case that self-plagiarism was understood only as the substantial cutting and pasting of text from one article to another without any by your leave. This was pretty common practice until relatively recently and I confess to having occasionally done it myself. But growing awareness of plagiarism per se combined with software that detects it (and audits of academic publications) have made all of us more aware that this is not really on. If it's published it's published - and a new article needs to start afresh or self-cite. There are of course exceptions to this, as in descriptions of research sites and research methods from a particular project - these really aren't fluid, and need to stay substantially the same across project publications. It's the spread of online publications that complicates the question of self-plagiarism quite considerably. Many of us have for example put early versions of papers online in conference repositories. We generally still own the copyright on these but technically these are now published articles. How many of us own up to these when we submit the paper to our chosen journal? How many of us actually acknowledge in the journal text that an earlier published version exists, let alone formally quote from it? As a journal editor, one of the things I now wonder about is whether we are approaching a time when we have to do online searches to find out whether one or more versions of a paper submitted for refereeing already exists out there as a publication. If they do, then the decision that faces any editor is whether we want to publish something that is already available. I have heard of some journal editors who have already decided that the answer to that question is no. And that response raises a whole raft of other questions about what counts as originality and contributions to knowledge, not to mention the small matter of the ownership and purposes of scholarly knowledge production...' Work like you don't need money Love like you've never been hurt and dance like no-one's watching "Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world." Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed) University of Huddersfield inspiring tomorrow's professionals. [http://marketing.hud.ac.uk/_HOSTED/EmailSig2014/EmailSigFooter.jpg] This transmission is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you receive it in error, please notify us immediately by e-mail and remove it from your system. If the content of this e-mail does not relate to the business of the University of Huddersfield, then we do not endorse it and will accept no liability.