Self-Plagiarism and Textual Recycling: Legitimate Forms of Research Misconduct

Abstract

The concept of self-plagiarism frequently elicits skepticism and generates confusion in the research ethics literature, and the ethical status of what is often called “textual recycling” is particularly controversial. I argue that, in general, self-plagiarism is unethical because it is deceptive and dishonest. I then distinguish several forms of it and argue against various common rationalizations for textual recycling. I conclude with a discussion of two instances of textual recycling, distinguishing them in terms of their ethical seriousness but concluding that both are ethically problematic.

Keywords:

• plagiarism
• research misconduct
• self-plagiarism
• textual recycling

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am grateful to Matthew Lance for research assistance and Stu White both for agreeing to my reuse of his materials and for generous comments he provided on an earlier draft of this paper. I also benefitted from two anonymous reviewers and comments received at a session of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Annual Meeting, March 1, 2013

An earlier version of this paper was presented at a session of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Annual Meeting, March 1, 2013, San Antonio, TX.

Copyright permissions: This manuscript reproduces copyrighted materials, by permission, from ACS Nano, Langmuir, Anaesthesia, and the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at http://www.tandfonline.com/gacr.

Notes

1. I am grateful to Matthew Lance for research assistance and Stu White both for agreeing to my reuse of his materials and for generous comments he provided on an earlier draft of this paper. I also benefitted from two anonymous reviewers and comments received at a session of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, Annual Meeting, March 1, 2013.

2. An anonymous reviewer helpfully emphasized this point.

3. Permission to reprint the materials below received from both ACS Nano and Langmuir.

4. These four are notorious for their research misconduct. Hwang Woo-suk fabricated what had originally been heralded as ground-breaking stem cell research; Dietrich Stapel is a social psychologist who manipulated and fabricated data in scores of publications; Eric Poehlman published fraudulent hormone replacement research; Andrew Wakefield fabricated data purporting to show a connection between autism and the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.