Is this self-plagiarism?

[adel9216]

Hello!

Quick question!

I am currently working on a book chapter that I am co-authoring that I have to submit by the end of the month. It is on my doctoral research theme/topic, so I'm very excited to be part of this.

It's no surprise: I am using a lot of the same themes and concepts that I have used in my coursework papers last term. Is it self-plagiarism if I copy-paste some sections of my coursework paper (in which I got A+ as final grade) in the book chapter? I have written those coursework papers myself, and as a sole author. I find it difficult to re-phrase everything when I have already well-explained and defined the concepts in a paper that has never been published before and that has only been read and graded by my professor.

[Puget]

Short answer: No
Longer answer: Many (most) of us don't really think "self-plagiarism" is a term that makes sense. There can be problems with publishing the same content in more than one place (copyright issues, and just doesn't add much of value), but the problem there is really duplicate publication, not plagiarism. There can also be problems with submitting the same work for more than one class as a student, but there the problem is again not plagiarism but the fact that you are defeating the purpose of learning something new (and probably violating university policies).

In this case, you are simply using text you wrote earlier for a class (so not published) for the chapter (so not another class), so zero problem with either.

We do this all the time as academics-- dissertations turn into papers (or books in book fields), text from papers gets ported into grants and vice versa, etc. So long as you're not violating anyone else's copyright and adding something new of value, you're good to go. 

[namazu]

I concur with Puget.

[adel9216]

Great! Phew! Thank you! Less complicated for me to copy-paste certain sections instead of completely re-invent the wheel.

[mamselle]

But keep track.

I work for a guy who likes to recycle his words a lot.

One has to remind him he's already used those three paragraphs on the group's website, and in his annual report, and that a third unchanged usage in the grant proposal is going to sound weird to the folks who read the proposal and then go to the site to see what it looks like.

If I see whole chunks of text or particularly pithy phrases repeated exactly between a published article and a book, it should be because the article has become a chapter in the book.

It's also possible to get certain phrases in your head more generally, and re-re-re-use them mercilessly without being aware of it.

So....keep track and don't over-do it.

Not to be dire, but because readers do remember such things and may become irritated by them.

M.

[Dismal]

Certainly you can use the text you already wrote, but I agree with the commenter above.  Why do you need to virtually cut and paste without any further revisions and improvements?  Have you already peaked as a writer and no improvements are possible?  But you have identified one of the benefits of writing class papers on a topic you intend to spend more time on.  Very efficient.

[adel9216]

But keep track.

I work for a guy who likes to recycle his words a lot.

One has to remind him he's already used those three paragraphs on the group's website, and in his annual report, and that a third unchanged usage in the grant proposal is going to sound weird to the folks who read the proposal and then go to the site to see what it looks like.

If I see whole chunks of text or particularly pithy phrases repeated exactly between a published article and a book, it should be because the article has become a chapter in the book.

It's also possible to get certain phrases in your head more generally, and re-re-re-use them mercilessly without being aware of it.

So....keep track and don't over-do it.

Not to be dire, but because readers do remember such things and may become irritated by them.

M.

Makes sense. I have to keep track, and I will. And yes, you are totally right. I can think of a few writers that recycle over and over again the same things and it is irritating to people.

[adel9216]

Certainly you can use the text you already wrote, but I agree with the commenter above.  Why do you need to virtually cut and paste without any further revisions and improvements?  Have you already peaked as a writer and no improvements are possible?  But you have identified one of the benefits of writing class papers on a topic you intend to spend more time on.  Very efficient.

I have made minor changes. It's just a few paragraphs of definitions of concepts with examples so I did copy-paste those. It's a small portion of the chapter.

I was invited to contribue to this book because of my doctoral work, so I did not do this intentionally but my paper will be useful in parts for this which is great.

[Kron3007]

Certainly you can use the text you already wrote, but I agree with the commenter above.  Why do you need to virtually cut and paste without any further revisions and improvements?  Have you already peaked as a writer and no improvements are possible?  But you have identified one of the benefits of writing class papers on a topic you intend to spend more time on.  Very efficient.

If you have gone through and revised this to the best of your ability and like how it reads why wouldn't you cut and paste?  There is no reason to think that doing it again will result in any thing better, so it is just a waste of time.  This dosn't mean that you have peaked as a writer, just that you are happy with this specific piece of text and it was done to the best of your ability.

In my world, one of the keys to success is to know when something is good enough for the purpose at hand and to move on to the next thing.  Writing is definitely an excercize in diminishing returns and many people fall into the trap of looking for perfection, spending far too much time as a result.  I could spend way more time on each grant/paper/whatever and they would likely turn out a little better, but it is more beneficial for me to finish things up and maintain productivity.  Of course, I am in a STEM field and this could be different for others.     

[toothpaste]

It probably would be appropriate to disclose to your editor what you are doing so they don't get a surprise nastygram at some distant point in the future.

[namazu]

It probably would be appropriate to disclose to your editor what you are doing so they don't get a surprise nastygram at some distant point in the future.

Disclose to the editor that they're using material they originally wrote for an unpublished class paper?  Under what circumstance would anyone ever send a nastygram about that?

[jerseyjay]

It was my understanding that it is a good thing to use the material from  your doctoral coursework for your doctoral dissertation, and use materials from you doctoral dissertation for articles, and then use the material from articles for a book. At least in history that is often how it is done. In fact, if you don't do this, some people would say you are wasting your time.

As an undergrad, I wrote a paper on a topic. I then expanded the paper into my senior thesis. Then I expanded it some more into my doctoral dissertation. Then I published some articles. Then I published a book.

I think the key is: try to add something to each iteration. I do not mean specific language--if you have found the perfect way to describe something, I don't see why you would need to come up with another way to say it. I mean add research and thought, so that if somebody writes a biography of you someday, they can read all of these and see how you have progressed as a scholar and a thinker.

The other thing is that, from the master's thesis on up, you should somewhere indicate that you are using material original published/submitted somewhere else. But a class paper is, well, who cares. I am still pondering taking a research seminar paper I wrote as an undergrad and pursuing the same topic as an article. I doubt you would be able to recognize much of the prose after I finish, but it would have been inspired by that earlier research.

"Self plagiarism" and plagiarism are really two different beasts. The problem with plagiarism is that you are stealing somebody else's work/research/ideas and pretending they are your own.

No such danger exists if I publish the same article 5 times with different titles. The main problem with "self-plagiarism" is that it inflates one's research productivity (which is used to get jobs/tenure/promotion), and it wastes the time of readers, reviewers, publishers, etc. It is based on the cynical (although perhaps accurate) view that nobody will actually read what is published and hence won't notice it has been published before.

Currently I am working on a book chapter that draws on four different articles I wrote. (Say, basket weaving in post-war Europe, and I've published articles on basket weaving in France, in Spain, in Germany, and Finland.) To a large degree the chapter is synthetic--tying together the research I have already done, but drawing out comparative angles that were not developed in the originals. And of course I will update the historiography. I am going to indicate this in the notes (and the editors know what I am doing). Although if  you ran the final article through Turnitin it would probably be flagged for plagiarism, I don't think it actually is.

[larryc]

It is fine.

And as Puget mentioned, there is no such thing as self-plagiarism.

[adel9216]

It is fine.

And as Puget mentioned, there is no such thing as self-plagiarism.

thanks!

[youllneverwalkalone]

OP, the answer is "no", because a coursework paper paper does not constitute a publication.

That said, I disagree with whoever says "self-plagiarism" doesn't make sense. If your question had been "can I copy/paste large sections from another book chapter?", as opposed to an unpublished class paper, I imagine the tenor of the replies would have been quite different.