Library and Research Resources for M.S.N. Students

Did you know you can plagiarize yourself? You may have thought to reuse a paper from last semester, data from a past research project, or parts of an assignment you did for another class. Those are all examples of of self-plagiarism. The Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.), defines self-plagiarism as "the act of presenting one's previously completed work as original and new" (APA, 2020, p. 21, 256).

In an academic setting, self-plagiarism includes submitting the same paper or project for more than one courses unless the instructors give you permission. The WT Code of Student Life discusses inappropriate multiple submissions of the same work on page 26, as Section 1.g of the Academic Integrity Code.

Why is this plagiarism?

Your writing, research, and projects should reflect what you learned in a specific class. This is an important part of academic honesty. You are here to acquire knowledge and build on what you've learned previously. Many graduate programs structure their curriculum so that you build on the knowledge and skills from previous classes.

Self-plagiarism doesn't only apply to students. Many professional publications have policies against duplicate publication, or submitting the same article to multiple journals at the same time. Researchers should cite previous work, especially if they are using a previously published observation. Journal publishers often own the copyright to your article once it has been published. It is copyright infringement if you do not cite your original publication.

How can you avoid self-plagiarism, or plagiarism in general? Knowing what to cite and how to cite it is key. Dr. Miguel Roig has written Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices:  A guide to ethical writing as a module for the US Department of Health & Human Services' Office of Research Integrity. He includes 28 Guidelines for ethical writing, including:

• Guideline 1:  An ethical writer ALWAYS acknowledges the contributions of others to their work.
• Guideline 5:  Whether we are paraphrasing or summarizing we must always identify the source of our information.
• Guideline 11: While there are some situations where text recycling is an acceptable practice, it may not be so in other situations. Authors are urged to adhere to the spirit of ethical writing and avoid reusing their own previously published text, unless it is done in a manner that alerts readers about the reuse or one that is consistent with standard scholarly conventions (e.g. by using of quotations and proper paraphrasing).

Source:  Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices:  A guide to ethical writing by Miguel Roig.

The Cite - APA page and the Plagiarism Resources page of this guide have further resources on citations and how to avoid plagiarism. The Writing Center can help you with citations and references.