What goes around comes around: The ethics of undergraduate self-plagiarism
Abstract
The goal of this thesis is to identify the problem of the practice of undergraduate self-plagiarism. My interest in this topic was sparked following a situation I encountered while tutoring a first-year English composition student in Purdue University Calumet’s Writing Center. The student wanted to “tweak” a paper he had written in high school that earned him an “A” in order to resubmit it to his college composition class. I urged the student to write a new and original paper. I never did find out how the “potentially recycling” student proceeded with his writing assignment. He stated that he was going to “make some changes.” Since then, I have been researching the practice of self-plagiarism. I also presented a paper on self-plagiarism at the IWCA/NCPTW Conference in 2008 in Las Vegas, Nevada (Mendenhall). There are many questions regarding the extent to which self-plagiarism is ethical. However, it is not a topic that receives much attention. In fact, according to Lelia Green in a 2005 article in the Journal of Media and Culture, “Self-plagiarism is a relatively new evil – at least, few people in author’s circles appear aware of it. Googling the term results in some 8,000 hits (whereas plagiarism alone scores 3,150,000)” (Green). Since this particular subject can be explored in various aspects from the elementary school level through the realm of the academic published professional, this thesis focuses on self-plagiarism at the undergraduate level. It identifies the boundaries of what does and does not constitute undergraduate self-plagiarism, as well as establishes when and why it is acceptable and ethical. It also provides practical recommendations for universities, as well as administrators and educators of undergraduate English Composition in dealing with this issue and how to avoid it. This is of particular importance because the role of college writing classes is to help the student grow in his knowledge, thinking and reasoning processes, and writing skills. True self-plagiarism needs to be prohibited because the recycling of previous work causes a student to cheat himself of these educational benefits which will serve him well throughout life.^
Degree
M.A.
Advisors
Lizbeth Bryant, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Education, Language and Literature|Language, Rhetoric and Composition|Education, Higher
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