I agree with Annette here. Plagiarism has slightly different meanings in different disciplinary contexts (because we chiefly concerned with the originality of different aspects of the writing in different disciplines). In the context of a primary report of a new scientific study, plagiarism has primarily to do with whether the data reported is new or not (because, what we don't want is for the same data to be presented twice without clear notification, in order to prevent the false appearance of replication). The author who is concerned about running into problems with repeating parts of the setup should simply footnote the section and note that it was first developed for such-and-such an article, and it remains relevant to the new article because it is a continuation of the same research program. Any journal editor who actually rejected such a paper because the "setup" (background, procedure) was similarly worded to those of a previous paper by the same author on the same topic (though of a different experiment) would get exactly what s/he deserves -- the paper published by another journal.
It is easy to be too punctilious about these kinds of things by applying the letter of descriptions (of plagiarism, in this case) that were only ever meant to be general descriptions of prototypical instances (e.g., copy words from a previous paper nearly exactly without citation). If one were in a different disciplinary context (e.g., literature) then lifting large chunks of any part of a document (e.g., a story) and plunking them down in a new document would constitute plagiarism. IMHO. 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/ ========================== Annette Taylor wrote: > > > > > I have to disagree with Miguel here... agree with Barbato. I have > spent the last decade researching a single paradigm and plan to do so > until I retire probably. It has taken me years to phrase some of the > basics in the most clear way so that others can understand what I > mean. I don't want to have to think of more alternative ways to say > some things. I had to really craft the text of the basic ideas > carefully because I'm trying to explain some relatively abstract > concepts in the most effective way possible for the listener/reader. > So to have to redo this in a potentially less effective way to avoid > self-plagiarism seems down right silly. They are my words that I > worked on, and if they form the foundation of parts of the > introduction and methods section then I can't believe it's a problem > to reuse them whenever I write about the same topic. In fact, I have > tried to just free write the methods section in subsequent papers and > found myself repeating myself verbatim without even trying. > > I an left asking myself if we haven't had the pendulum swing too far, > once we have to worry about repeating parts of introductory > explanations to set the stage for a new study, as being somehow > "dishonest" or lacking "integrity." > > Just my 2 cents here. What do the others on the list think? > > Annette > > Annette Kujawski Taylor, Ph. D. > Professor, Psychological Sciences > University of San Diego > 5998 Alcala Park > San Diego, CA 92110 > tay...@sandiego.edu <mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu> > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* Rick Froman [rfro...@jbu.edu] > *Sent:* Wednesday, September 15, 2010 7:58 AM > *To:* Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) > *Subject:* [tips] Self-plagiarism > > > > > _http://www.the-scientist.com/blog/display/57676/_ > > Interesting post on The Scientist.com with quotes from TIPSter (and > plagiarism expert) Miguel Roig. (I don’t mean that he is good at it, > just that he knows a lot about it.) > > Rick > > Rick Froman > _rfro...@jbu.edu_ <mailto:rfro...@jbu.edu> > > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: tay...@sandiego.edu > <mailto:tay...@sandiego.edu>. > > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a21b0&n=T&l=tips&o=4833 > > <http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a21b0&n=T&l=tips&o=4833> > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-4833-13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a2...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > <mailto:leave-4833-13534.4204dc3a11678c6b1d0be57cfe0a2...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> > > > --- > > You are currently subscribed to tips as: chri...@yorku.ca > <mailto:chri...@yorku.ca>. > > To unsubscribe click here: > http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd0da&n=T&l=tips&o=4837 > > <http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd0da&n=T&l=tips&o=4837> > > (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) > > or send a blank email to > leave-4837-13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu > <mailto:leave-4837-13132.a868d710aa4ef67a68807ce4fe8bd...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> > --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@jab.org. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=4861 or send a blank email to leave-4861-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
