Between the recent resignation of Jonah Lehrer and the the converstions/workshops at the 5th International Plagiarism Conference it is safe to say that I’ve had the issue of self-plagiarism, sometimes referred to as “double dipping”, on my mind.
Can a writer plagiarize themselves? If so, what are the rules for attribution and reuse one’s previous work? Finally, are there times when it is acceptable to reuse old work?
These are not easy questions. Where most of the world seems to be getting a better handle on the concept of traditional plagiarism, with self-plagiarism, much like collusion, there’s still a lot of debate, discussion and resolution to be had.
So I wanted to propose five different self-plagiarism-related scenarios, each with slightly different spins and circumstances. My goal is not to pass judgment, but to get your feedback on these scenarios. So please, feel free to leave your comments, below, on the PT Facebook Page or on Google+. You can also send me a tweet but Twitter may be the wrong format for this conversation.
Without further ado, here’s the five scenarios to consider:
- A news reporter, similar to Jonah Lehrer, has a long career for multiple papers and reuses passages, ranging from short to a few paragraphs, in newer works. This is despite the fact that the passages were originally written for other employers.
- A researcher working in a particular niche releases a new paper but reuses significant verbiage from older works during the introductory and descriptive parts of the new paper. The research itself, however, was new and original.
- A student learning programming reuses code from previous projects without citing the code as old in the source.
- A blogger, who has written for many years for the same site, begins to reuse ideas and even some verbiage from old posts, assuming that his current audience hasn’t seen them.
- Finally, a freelance writer is paid to write custom articles for clients but, instead, reuses large portions of previous articles when writing for new clients.
More than just which of these scenarios are ethical/unethical, I’m interested in the why. If a situation, in your mind, is unethical, what can we do to make it ethical? The reverse is true as well.
Where are the boundaries drawn? That’s what this exercise is supposed to help us figure out.
If a scientist does something using exactly the same methodology as (s)he has used in a previous paper, but applied to a different context or setting, is there a case to be made that it is in fact scientifically most precise to describe that methodology the second time around using exactly the same words as the first time? The self-plagiarism police wouldn’t agree, of course. But what is the added value of trying to say exactly the same thing in different words, in such a scenario?
While I agree that we shouldn’t force the scientist to reinvent the wheel, how do you feel about attribution in this case? Should he attribute the use of his previous language just to be clear?
I think there are different genre expectations between science and the humanities when determining if #2 is unethical. In science, I agree that it might be appropriate to reprint the entire methodology in a new article if the methods were the same; in fact, this might be very helpful as it would point out how identical the experiments were. I think self-attribution here would be the general expectation–how hard would it be to pop in the (Smith 2012) or a self-reference (“As conducted in the earlier study…”). This self-attribution would also bolster the author’s credibility–he/she is now more of an expert in the field having published on it before.
However, in the humanities, there are not often the “mandatory” sections like in the sciences. A lengthy reused introduction is basically soaking up space that could be used to publish work by other authors. Journals often have “notes” sections for a reason–if a professional in the humanities does not have a significant enough amount of original material he/she should publish in a shorter-form and not 1. Take up valuable publication space and 2. Take credit for a full article for tenure status in a humanities field. I think the difference in this regard is significant–in the sciences, the “work” is the experiment; in the humanities the “work” is often researching/writing the article.
What are the ethics of putting into print, or online features for which one is hired and paid, content that has appeared, in part, on a personal blog? And what of when the blog post is what attracted the publisher to the topic?
I’m not sure I understand the question, can you rephrase it? Is the person republishing paid content on their personal site after its sale or selling content already on their blog?
The latter: taking material from one’s personal blog and using it as a launch for a longer editorial work, for which one is paid. Expanding on an idea one has explored on one’s blog does not, I don’t think, pose any ethical conflict. My question is whether any part — sentence, phrase, chapter – of what’s appeared on the blog may be reused in print publication. With citation, one assumes it must be yes. Without citation, it appears to fall under self-plagarism.
Moynihan has posted he’s found many more instances of plagarism in Imagine, http://www.twitlonger.com/show/ilk1jt
It’s a mistake to call what you’re talking about plagiarism since plagiarism is by definition taking from another. Self-plagiarism is an oxymoron.
Looking at the ethics issue, I don’t see anything wrong with scenarios 1-4. If the words or code are appropriate to the situation, then why not use them? What would be the source of this obligation to cite yourself? Who’s being misled?
Scenario 5 might be unethical if the client is expecting original work and is instead paying for something he’s not getting.