Thread: Questions about Self Plagiarism

Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but here goes..

I am thinking of creating a site with information on it about certain topics. Some of the topics are similar to things i did in college/uni and i was thinking of using some of the assignments/specific paragraphs i wrote while in education. It is all my own work and no one can say i plagerized myself retroactivly or whatever lol...is there any reasons why i couldn't? they take my degree away? lol

any thoughts?

Originally Posted by sparckyz

Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but here goes..

I am thinking of creating a site with information on it about certain topics. Some of the topics are similar to things i did in college/uni and i was thinking of using some of the assignments/specific paragraphs i wrote while in education. It is all my own work and no one can say i plagerized myself retroactivly or whatever lol...is there any reasons why i couldn't? they take my degree away? lol

any thoughts?

Note: Moved thread to Building forum.

If you've sold any of that material to someone else, you cannot republish it without their consent. You can likely cite portions of it as long as you attribute those portions to whatever medium the new owners used to publish it.

If you've already published the work, for example, a research paper, you need to cite the original work. Self-plagiarism actually does exist. This is especially important if you've modified the original work. This is also more of an ethical issue. Most people get away with this anyway.

If you haven't sold or published your work, you should be fine.

Thanks for the reply m42.

None of the my work has been published and it is all written by be. It is purely work that i did for college and Uni assinments.

E.g. they give me an assignment with a load of questions and i waffle on for a paragraphs answering them and submit the assigment to the college/uni.

So you have finished your uni course right?

If this is the case I don't think they would look back over past exams/assignments etc. They do it once when they mark the assignment, find no results and move on.

You could always email/call the educational institution and ask them directly.

Plagiarism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by GameOver

So you have finished your uni course right?

If this is the case I don't think they would look back over past exams/assignments etc. They do it once when they mark the assignment, find no results and move on.

You could always email/call the educational institution and ask them directly.

Yeah, fininshed my courses years ago..just i have a lot of unique material/content that could full a book if i was to write one lol...think it could be some good stuff if put on a website(s)

Originally Posted by m42

Plagiarism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Not trying to bump my own post, but just this minute read this on wiki (not plagarising it lol), the education assignments part :P

"Typically, self-plagiarism is only considered to be a serious ethical issue in settings where a publication is asserted to consist of new material, such as in academic publishing or educational assignments"

Originally Posted by sparckyz

Not trying to bump my own post, but just this minute read this on wiki (not plagarising it lol), the education assignments part :P

*laugh* We aren't exactly liberal with bans here.

Originally Posted by sparckyz

"Typically, self-plagiarism is only considered to be a serious ethical issue in settings where a publication is asserted to consist of new material, such as in academic publishing or educational assignments"

Yes, per my earlier response, unless you happen to be reusing an old (usually previously published) research paper, I don't think you have a problem. As long as you're just posting your original, unpublished responses, you should be fine.

The cited reference for the last wikipedia statement you posted was this article: Times Higher Education - Allow me to rephrase, and boost my tally of articles

I think your answer was covered, but its a genius idea! Be careful, some of your stuff might be outdated. I don't know what subject you are covering, but make sure its all updated information.

Hey SZ, as you have completed your assignments and submitted to your Uni or college, thus you need to buy a copyright on those contents. As there were not any such type of legal formalities done on those contents thus you are not considered as owner of those contents.