Maybe shift in perspective might affect our thinking. Imagine, instead, that this was a student we were talking about. There are a couple of situations that could be argued are parallel.
For instance, the student could be simultaneously taking a class in post WWII history and chose as his topic for his term paper the changes in governmental funding of research that occurred from pre to post war times. Maybe the student is also taking a History of Psych course and chose the changes that occurred in psychological research because of WWII. There is no doubt that he could construct both papers in close parallel and have several identical paragraphs. In all likelihood, the two instructors would have no idea this occurred. Consider a similar example. Suppose the person takes a class in adolescent development followed by a gender studies class. In both classes the student's paper topic was on the differences in social restrictions placed on adolescent boys compared to girls. The same exact paper, with only small modifications, might be suitable for both classes, and could be submitted with the instructor clueless about the reuse. Would we consider either or both of these examples cheating? Do you explicitly (in your syllabus) disallow such reuse of papers in your classes? Why? To what extent are the above situations similar and different from what we are talking about in writing for publication? -- Paul Bernhardt Frostburg State University Frostburg, MD, USA On 2/20/09 10:59 AM, "Helweg-Larsen, Marie" <[email protected]> wrote: > Claudia Stanny says (among other things): > >> I have a colleague who is doing an elaborate longitudinal study on >> aging. He has collected data on an enormous number of variables. Parts >> deal with fundamental processes of cognitive change. Others deal >> strictly with health issues. Still others deal with issues of adjustment >> and sense of well-being. Each of these is of interest to different >> audiences. He would be hard pressed to find a journal that would be >> interested in everything. > > In this situation there would be little concern about plagiarism or > specifically having identical introductions. If different research questions > are addressed then the introductions would be quite different. The materials > sections would also be quite different (because the measures are different). > The description of the sample, data collection etc can be described fully in > the first publication and subsequent publications would briefly describe them > and provide a reference to the first publication for complete details. I see > that done all the time. So it is common to slice up large data sets in > different ways and publish some of the findings along the way. > > The original poster said that two different paper had identical (or nearly > identical) introduction sections. I think that is hard to justify. It is easy > to imagine that the same authors would write in a similar style, logic, > reasoning, and use similar references. But identical? Given differences in > audience, purpose of paper, hypotheses tested etc that is just difficult to > imagine. I don't think the concern is "self plagiarism" per se but more an > issue of making unique contributions with each publication. > > Marie > > > > **************************************************** > Marie Helweg-Larsen, Ph.D. > Department Chair and Associate Professor of Psychology > Kaufman 168, Dickinson College > Carlisle, PA 17013, office (717) 245-1562, fax (717) 245-1971 > http://www.dickinson.edu/departments/psych/helwegm > Office hours: Monday 10:30-11:30, Tuesday & Wednesday 2:00-3:30 > **************************************************** > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Claudia Stanny [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 10:46 AM > To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) > Subject: RE: [tips] Can you plagiarize your own work? > > Karl and Mike both make good points about multiple publications. Yes, if > the data are closely related to the same questions, the authors should > attempt to publish them together or clearly show how the various > publications are connected. That is why we discourage piecemeal > publication. > > But, as Karl notes, sometimes a research project generates a lot of > data, not all of it related to the same topic. It is hard to recruit > participants and costly to collect data from them. It is efficient to > get as much information about as many questions as we have while we have > access to participants. The questions answered by our data don't always > hang together nicely as a single package - or even a series of related > articles. Mike's examples from the huge published literature are the > exceptions. And the example that reads like the Super Bowl list of > contenders is a better example of an author asserting the "programmatic" > nature of multiple independent research projects than of an author > presenting complex data from a single project in linked publications > (the pub dates range over a 10 year period, after all - Shiffrin & > Schneider's appeared in back-to-back issues of the same journal). > > I have a colleague who is doing an elaborate longitudinal study on > aging. He has collected data on an enormous number of variables. Parts > deal with fundamental processes of cognitive change. Others deal > strictly with health issues. Still others deal with issues of adjustment > and sense of well-being. Each of these is of interest to different > audiences. He would be hard pressed to find a journal that would be > interested in everything. > > This raises another question. Must he wait until the 5-year study is > "complete" (sometimes these just run until the sample quits responding)? > Can he publish interesting findings from year 1 as a cross-sectional > study? A well-designed study will have some interesting cross-sectional > questions that can be answered with the first cohort. The methods > section will refer to an ongoing procedure for data collection, but the > procedures remain essentially the same from year to year. It seems silly > to demand that a new method section be written each time beyond noting > where in the sequence the current set of data were collected. > > A simple rule of "never use any paragraph of your writing in more than > one publication" is easy to apply but certainly misses the nuances of > the what the paragraphs have to say, who they are written for, and the > other material written for the same work. > > Claudia Stanny > > --- > To make changes to your subscription contact: > > Bill Southerly ([email protected]) > > --- > To make changes to your subscription contact: > > Bill Southerly ([email protected]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
