The world of academics keeps on changing and getting into details. Publications are getting more complicated due to the many developments regarding text matching. While this is in an effort to make researches more justified, some of the parameters it considers are ridiculous. Self-plagiarism is among the aspects that are contradicting, yet important for publications. Read about the ongoing plagiarizm debate in this article.
What is Self-Plagiarism
Self-plagiarism refers to when an author duplicates part of his/her own texts, without citing the repetition. Initially, plagiarism covered citing other people’s work, without creating references to that specific work. Now it is up to another level, copying your own work is illegal. To legitimate this, there are ethics and regulations to govern self-plagiarism and some famous authors have been victim.
For this type of copy pasting, some questions arise and they may remain rhetorical for many years. How can you copy your own idea? If the original idea was yours, why should there be limitations in using it? Maybe we would justify that every word you publish ceases been your idea. This would be the only reason why someone would limit the use of your own ideas, or even paraphrasing them.
The Ridiculous part of Self-Plagiarism
Recently, Jonah Lehrer has been a victim of copy pasting his own work in the Wall Street Journal. While this seemed awkward, his career is still at stake as critics describe him as lazy. The word Laziness would come into play when someone has done totally nothing or below average.
However, the right argument would be that a lazy person would not have come up with the idea at first. In addition, if you want to emphasize on a point you had published earlier, it should not have limitations.
With plagiarism having different levels, sometimes it would be illogical to discriminate someone due to paraphrasing content, especially if it was originally theirs. For instance, a case for Lehrer may get critical, since the audience expects new ideas in each of his statements. In other cases, duplication of one’s content is recommendable and it actually shows how fit you are in the specific field.
Most organizations take self-plagiarism to another level and end up sacking the authors. Brown Lloyd is another victim of this self-copying concept. For him, the organization had to carry out critical investigation in an effort to screen copying of his own editorial works. Wonders never cease, as they were able to detect self-plagiarism in his publications. The criteria used to define copying of one’s idea are still not clear, since the author is the master of their publications.
Why Authors Opt For Self-Plagiarism
Citation rules govern text matching in all angles of writing. However, when an author comes up with a new concept, the originality belongs to him or her. With the confidence that the content and ideas are his or hers, it is possible to go overboard and duplicate ideas. Of course, it saves time and it would be easy to emphasize on a point, especially when it is the main agenda of the writing.
Self-plagiarism brings in a new aspect of new work, both within and without the publications. Maybe morals and virtues will help authors avoid the shame of self-copy. Honesty, integrity and accountability are basic for the success of any author.
Betsy Johnson is a writer, she uses Edusson UK Platform in her work.