[AISWorld] Plagiarism and "Self-Plagiarism"

[Chitu Okoli]

Dear colleagues,

I strongly agree with those like Ned Kock and Steven Alter who use words like "nonsense" in reference to "self-plagiarism". Steven Alter was particularly eloquent in this matter, so I will not repeat his arguments. However, I would like to refer you to two articles in the Communications of the ACM that treat this topic (citations below) from the two different perspectives reflected in the arguments on this list. First, Collberg and Kobourov (2005) define self-plagiarism thus: "Self-plagiarism occurs when authors reuse portions of their previous writings in subsequent research papers. Occasionally, the derived paper is simply a retitled and reformatted version of the original one, but more frequently it is assembled from bits and pieces of previous work." This misleading definition has been addressed by many others in this thread. The fundamental problem is that their article fails to distinguish plagiarism (a real problem), multiple submission (another real problem) and reuse 
of one's own material (an ethical and valuable scholarly activity, as others on this list have explicated). In short, although I agree with their fundamental exposure and criticism of multiple submission as a serious problem in computer science, I disagree with their labelling of this as "self-plagiarism".

Another CACM article on the topic is a much earlier work by Samuelson (1994). A scholar in technology law, she argues that while some reuse of one's own work is problematic when the previous work has been assigned to someone else's copyright, "fair use" quantities and types of reuse are ethical, justifiable and valuable. (Note that the American "fair use" legal concept is different in some important ways from the "fair dealing" concept in other legal jurisdictions.) Her arguments are very much in line with the arguments on this thread that have advocated that we scholars should be encouraged to reuse our own work, without any deceit involved that could be interpreted as multiple submissions. My own views, heavily influenced by Samuelson, are thus:

* Copyright violation by reusing your own work for which you have assigned copyright to a publisher is illegal in almost all international jurisdictions. However, whether it is unethical to do so is another matter; I think it is more unethical that the publishers strong-arm us into handing over our copyright so that we can get published in desirable outlets. But that's a whole other topic.
* Multiple submission by resubmitting work for publication in a distinct outlet while presenting it as substantially original, previously unpublished work is deceit; it is thus clearly unethical.
* Reuse of your own original work, with or without citation of the previous work, is perfectly ethical and very valuable, as long as there is no misrepresentation that it is completely new and original. However, for reuse of previously co-authored work, I would think we would at least owe our co-authors a citation of the work they previously co-authored with us.

I would like to directly address Roger Clarke's definition of "self-plagiarism": "'the re-presentation of the documented words or ideas of oneself, without appropriate attribution". While I respect that the underlying issue for which he is concerned is the real and serious issue of multiple submission, I strongly deny that there is any ethical obligation to cite yourself when only small portions are reused. (I consider up to several paragraphs to be a "small portion".) The idea behind plagiarism is that someone pretends that the words they write are their original words or ideas, when in fact they are someone else's original thought. If I present words that are originally mine in a publication whereas I have repeated them in print many times before, they remain originally mine no matter how many times I do this; there is no deceit involved (unless I present them as entirely new and original, which is then multiple submission, a legitimate ethical concern). I can't fathom why 
that would be considered "self-plagiarism", when there is another term that accurately describes it. Such a term can serve no purpose but to demonize innocent scholars, as Ned Kock alerted us to, and should certainly not appear in our professional policies such as the AIS Code of Ethics.

References:
C. Collberg and S. Kobourov. Self-plagiarism in computer science. Commun. ACM, 48(4):88--94, 2005.
Samuelson. P. Self-plagiarism or fair use. Commun. ACM 37, 8 (Aug. 1994), 21--25.


Regards,

Chitu Okoli
Associate Professor in Management Information Systems
John Molson School of Business
Concordia University, Montréal

Phone: +1 (514) 848-2424 x2985
http://chitu.okoli.org/pro

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