In the belly of the beast: Legalism vs Epistemology & the Ethics of Self-plagiarism

This blog post started out as a question on the Facebook group Reviewer 2 Must Be Stopped. If you are not already following it, I can heartily recommend it and there are often good debates, comments, threads and memes. I asked a genuine question about self-plagiarism:

“I am after some advice: I originally wrote a blog post about 4 months back, then turned it into an abstract and will be presenting at a conference shortly, now I am developing that original blog post into a paper. So, my question is, if I use much of the material from the blog post in its original form in the paper I am writing. Is that self-plagiarism?”

You can try and find the thread here (if you want to see for yourself or add and comment): https://www.facebook.com/groups/reviewer2/permalink/10159044032760469/

A big thank you to everyone who commented on this thread, I learnt a lot. Alongside the thread, I also did some reading and together it really helped shape my thoughts on the subject. I can’t say I have any definitive conclusions or answers. It was though, a really fun way to explore a complex and serious topic.

After the thread started to come to a natural conclusion, I thought about posting a response directly to the thread. But having realised that my response would necessarily be too long for a comment. I decided to knock up a blog post instead. That very much reflects my writing process; from an idea to research (see the Facebook thread in this instance), to blog, to abstract, to conference paper, to a published paper. It is a process that works well for me and until recently I have never really considered that the blog element of this process might be problematic (in fact I don’t think it is problematic at all).

What I have learnt:

1. Self-plagiarism is a complex, messy, ill-defined concept – it is also a highly contested concept and that is a really important aspect to consider. In my limited experience it is when you touch on those triggering, contested concepts that there is the most benefit/need for debate.
2. There are a number of clearly stated definitions of self-plagiarism that are worth noting which offer a sense of an “official” definition. However, for brevity’s sake I am going to go with the definition to be found in the blog entitled “Is Recycling Your Own Work Plagiarism?” (2016) on the Turnitin website. If only by way of evidencing the “official” position as oposed to my own (fluid and unfolding) position.
3. To me this definition clearly reveals there is a power dynamic at play. To one degree or another this dynamic appears to be culturally inflected through the practices of gate keepers in the academic publishing industry. This was even acknowledged by some of those taking part in the debate on the Facebook thread. Not explicitly I would add, but there were more than a few comments from people who are currently journal editors who suggested that; if in doubt asking the editor would provide a sense of that journals policies on self-plagiarism. Which in turn might be expected to reflect the policies of the journals publisher. This is no surprise, it is just a a further reflection of the structural relationships within the publishing industry.
4. As the thread developed it became clear to me that debate around self-plagiarism is a legalistic one in that when publishing a paper, you sign over all copyright to the journal. This is an ethical issue only because you have agreed to a contract. A contract that stipulates that the work is owned by the journal and cannot be reproduced or shared. This appears to be the basis for a claim that self-plagiarism is unethical. I have yet to read anything that dissuades me from this position, though more on this below.
5. However, most/some of us break that contract by sharing our published papers via email often responding the full text requests from other scholars, or by posting our full texts on sites like ResearchGate. We may do that without realising we are infringing copyright; we might do that for other more ideological reasons (wanting to tear down the academic publishing industry for example) or we may do it in a spirit of altruism. Either way, it appears to be custom and practice within the academic community.
6. Arguably the academic publishing industry is in very uncertain waters from an ethical standpoint. The fact that it is fundamentally built on exploitation of free labour and thrives from a model of enforced scarcity rather undermines the publishers claims to copyright on the basis of ‘ethics’. A subject for further debate perhaps (see the further reading at the end of this blog).
7. Nonetheless, copyright appears to be the primary ethical issue in self-plagiarism, and thus unrelated to the more familiar understanding of plagiarism i.e. the passing off as other people’s work as your own. There seems to be a distinction here between a legalistic ethics i.e. issues of ownership and copyright. As opposed to an epistemological ethics in which there is an acknowledgement that a scholar’s work is unique, builds on other’s ideas and contributes to growing knowledge and understanding.
8. The overlap between the two positions seems to be the expectation for honesty amongst scholars. But is it dishonest to re-use your own words and ideas? I guess, if you are saying I have never used these words or ideas before and you then sign a contract to that effect you could alegedly be guilty of fraud if you are later found to have previously used those words and ideas elsewhere. But this just brings us back to copyright and a legalistic definition of self-plagiarism.
9. The problem for those that adhere to the notion that self-plagiarism is a thing. Is the idea that a scholar may be reusing their own words from previous publications. That to do so is fundementally dishonst. Again there is an obvious copyright issues here, but I would argue (see above) that is not an epistemological ethical issue but a legal one. If the use of previously written material is clearly aknowledged then it is easy to avoid claims of dishonesty. It would also be good practice to correctly cite any previously used/published material as a source. If you do this then there is in no ethical issue to address epistemologically or legalistically. Everyone in the thread pretty much agreed with this bar a few who took a more didactic poistion.
10. The complexity here seems to be around custom and practice of journals operating in different fields. In some fields for example, it is acceptable to re-use material from conference presentations, whilst it is not. In some fields it is expected that your paper will have emerged from previously published materials. One comment suggested that the a common guideline for reusing previously written work is that no more than 25% is included in the new work.  
11. Getting credit for the same ideas many times is an issue that came up in the debate and is also mentioned in various definitions. I am not sure exactly what the problem is here though. Yes, I get that ‘milking it’ would get boring, that journals seek original work (for academic and business reasons), but it would seem a sensible and reasonable strategy for academics to maximise reach, impact and significance. There are structural reasons that would impel us to maximise the dissemination of our research (promotion being one among many). There are also plenty of examples of scholars who have developed an entire career from some early research, who have followed a debate through from its inception to its conclusion (retirement/death). Recycling the exact same material in the exact same form might be an obvious example of where such a practice might be seen as problematic. But surely, our ideas develop, mature, grow and are further elaborated over time.
12. One comment raised the issue of passing off work as original that has been previously published on the understanding claiming that it was also original is fundamentally dishonest. This would seem to be recycling the same point as explored above but with a different focus. Again, I would ask if it is possible that there is a grey area here and if there needs to be more clarity over exactly where the line is between dishonesty and the reasonable and necessary development of material to progress a discussion/argument or theoretical position.
13. So, where do we draw the line? The question then might be something along the lines of “what is too much” – however, to simply proscribe all re-use of previously published material is too simple and reductive. It also plays into the hands of the corporate beast of academic publishing (see above) and the legalistic ethics of copyright.
14. How do we define ‘previously published’ anyway: does this mean as one comment suggested that any written work that has been put in the public domain should be considered as published? Does a comment on a Facebook thread count as previously published, what about an open letter, a personal blog post? It would seem this is an extremely problematic question in the ethics of self-plagiarism. In general, it would seem that different journals in different fields have different policies. Which would suggest to me that this is not an ethical issue but one of custom and practice. Enforced by the gate keepers of academic publishing based on their own particular position vis a vie self-plagiarism. Obviously, their particular positions will also be informed by the policies of the journals they work (for free) for. So, this again brings us back to the questionable practices of the academic publishing industry and begs the question who benefits and again shifts the focus of a debate on ethics onto the role of academic publishing in the contribution to knowledge and understanding.

At the conclusion of this debate which was great fun and I do want to say thank you to everyone who took part. I also want to apologise for not correctly citing you all, but that was deliberate as I didn’t want to put any of you in the position of later finding you had tripped a plagiarism detector should you wish to use your exact same words again. I will conclude with a comment from Jeroen Par Dijk for whom it is clear “the concept of self-plagiarism was introduced to protect the rights of the publishers”.

For further reading about the roots and history of academic publishing, this Guardian article for 2017 is excellent: “Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?“