Double-dipping! I agree with you.
Sally
CapilanoU
----- Original Message -----
From: "Stuart McKelvie" <smcke...@ubishops.ca>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<tips@acsun.frostburg.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2009 5:16 PM
Subject: RE: [tips] Can you plagiarize your own work?
Dear Tipsters,
May I ask how Chris and others how you would react to this?
I recently was asked to review two papers from two different journals. One
manuscript was anonymous and the other was not.
The two papers presented different data but they referred to fairly similar
research questions.
Large chunks of the two introductions were word-for-word the same.
Parts of the method were word-for-word the same.
There was no clear cross-referencing for these bits of the text in the two
manuscripts.
I saw this as (self-) plagiarism and expressed this view to the referees in
very strong terms.
Do you think I was wrong?
Sincerely,
Stuart
___________________________________________________________________
Stuart J. McKelvie, Ph.D., Phone: (819)822-9600, Extension 2402
Department of Psychology, Fax: (819)822-9661
Bishop's University,
2600 College Street,
Sherbrooke (Borough of Lennoxville),
Qu¨bec J1M 1Z7,
Canada.
E-mail: smcke...@ubishops.ca
or stuart.mckel...@ubishops.ca
Bishop's University Psychology Department Web Page:
http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy
___________________________________________________________
-----Original Message-----
From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:chri...@yorku.ca]
Sent: Wed 18-Feb-09 3:23 PM
To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)
Subject: Re: [tips] Can you plagiarize your own work?
Dap Louw wrote:
I've just returned from a workshop on Plagiarism where the presenter was
adamant that if you use any part of what you've previously published
without referencing it, it's plagiarism. I agree that this could be the
case if the person goes overboard. However, according to the presenter
this also includes single sentences, phrases and examples. I find this
too rigid.
I wonder if that speaker had ever before said in public any of the
things s/he said at that conference.
The world is full of people who desperately want there to be immutable,
inviolable, utterly explicit rules for conduct. Unfortunately, the only
way to make rules like that is to make them extremely restrictive. Such
people think that wrong rules that are transparently clear are better
than right rules that might be open to interpretation. It's a little
like looking for your lost keys under the streetlamp (rather than where
you lost them) because the light is better. They spend their time
correcting your use of commas (where there was little chance of
misinterpretation) and wondering whether you have ever before strung the
same five words together in the same order. In their effort to be
utterly consistent, they will get themselves into Barber Paradoxes of
these kinds. (viz., Plagiarism is, at core, presenting the ideas of
another as your own. But what if the "other" is, in fact, yourself at
another time? Wouldn't that count as a kind of plagiarism as well? And
around they go.)
The real question is whether you are presenting an old idea as though it
were completely original. Is this audience led to believe that it is the
first ever to hear the idea that you are about to express? My experience
is that few conference-goers actually have such high expectations of
every talk they attend. On the other hand, they will be justifiably
disappointed if they hear you give essentially the same talk they heard
you give last year, or at another conference with a large overlap in
membership.
The solution is not to come up with a watertight definition of
"plagiarism." It is, instead, to meet your obligations to your audience.
(Consider, would you rather hear an interesting new idea that was first
presented just a week ago across the continent and a conference for a
different discipline that you never would have attended anyway, or would
you prefer not hearing about that interesting new idea precisely because
it was first presented then, there, to them?)
To my mind, a powerpoint slide at the beginning or end of the
presentation saying that "some of this material has been previously
presented at..." should hold be enough to hold the mavens at bay. They
are best ignored. There are too many more important things to do. Of
course, you run the risk that they will ultimately get into positions of
power and try to clobber you over the head. (But most aspects of life
run the risk that silly and crazy people will get into power and do that...)
Chris
--
Christopher D. Green
Department of Psychology
York University
Toronto, ON M3J 1P3
Canada
416-736-2100 ex. 66164
chri...@yorku.ca
http://www.yorku.ca/christo/
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