What is Self Plagiarism? How to Avoid

Self-plagiarism is an issue for most of the institutes, especially academics. Presenting previously submitted work as new, even if you are not copying from others, is still considered academic dishonesty. Therefore, it is crucial to avoid self-plagiarism by creating original work for each assignment.

Addressing the growing concern of self-plagiarism is essential because many people are involved in this unethical act. In this blog, we will discuss ways to prevent plagiarizing your own content. But before that, let’s have a look at what self-plagiarism is.

What is Self Plagiarism?

Self plagiarism is when you reuse your own work without mentioning it, which can mislead readers into thinking it’s new and original. It is also known as text recycling, as parts of previously submitted work are included in the latest work.

Self-plagiarism includes:

• Submitting a paper from a previous course with minor changes for a new course 
• Recycling a published work and submitting it to another journal without citation 
• Reusing large portions of text from an earlier assignment
• Submitting the same assignments for two different subjects.

All the above situations are not acceptable. However, there are specific ways in which self-plagiarism is not unethical. For example, you can add a small portion of your previous work just to build context for describing a concept. Adding your content with an acknowledgment or citation is also completely fine.

Ways to Avoid Self Plagiarism

You can easily avoid common types of plagiarism by following a strategic approach. The first step is to write from scratch without adding anything from previous submissions or publications. Use these techniques if the ideas collide with the work earlier or want to incorporate them into the ongoing content.

Ask for Permission

If you want to add your previous submission to your new work to build context, then first ask your institute. They will guide you about what percentage you are allowed to copy and how to do it. Different organizations have different policies for self-plagiarism, and what’s acceptable in one situation might not be in another. So, checking the rules and asking for permission is always a good idea.

Cite Your Work

A simple yet effective way to avoid plagiarizing from your work is to cite it. Even if you add a small part of your published paper, add a reference to tell the readers that this work already exists. However, you must build upon the ideas instead of copy-pasting larger chunks. This method will also increase your credibility as a writer or researcher.

Paraphrase the Text

Another helpful technique to prevent self-plagiarism is to use the paraphrasing tool to paraphrase the existing text. In paraphrasing, the overall wording, phrases, and sentence structure are changed. The paraphrased content conveys the same meaning in different wording, so it becomes challenging to detect that the previous content is used again.

Remember, you must paraphrase the text correctly and not just as a substitution of words. So, change the sentence structure and add more insights into the original one to make it look fresh and unique.

Beware! Paraphrase: Write In Your Own Words

Conduct Originality Test

Conducting a plagiarism test is essential to steer clear of accidental self-plagiarism. You can repeat the same concepts without intention if you write on similar topics. Therefore, to be safer, run your content through the plagiarism detector.

The plagiarism checker is an advanced tool that matches your content against published content to check for similarities. It highlights the duplicate text, which you can paraphrase afterward. This plagiarism detector also helps to find citations as it shows the web page where the content was posted originally.

To Sum Up

Most people think there is no issue in plagiarizing your content in the new work. However, plagiarism is wrong in all its forms. No institute or organization accepts plagiarized content in any form. Copying from your previously submitted text is also a form of plagiarism and is highly discouraged.

The consequences of plagiarism are the same, even if you are duplicating your previous submissions. Therefore, paraphrasing and citing the published work should be advised instead of directly copying it. In addition to that, check your content with the plagiarism checker to ensure that the content is unique.