Disclaimer first - I am not a student. There are no students in my immediate family. This never happened to anyone I know - it’s just something I was thinking about because my mind goes weird places.
Let’s say in a writing class, you’re assigned to do a biography of anyone from a certain time period. You choose a scientist you find particularly interesting.
Fast forward to a science class where you’re assigned to write a paper on a scientist - is it ethical to use the same paper? Or even essentially the same paper, tweaked for the different instructor’s format preference?
Is it considered to be plagiarism if it’s your own work? Did anyone attend a school that addresses a similar situation?
Personally, I don’t see a problem with it, whether it’s luck of the draw or if you deliberately pick a topic that can fulfill multiple assignments. If you do your research and write it yourself, I think it’s just a bonus if one effort fits two requirements.
If you recycle material without referencing the original work, it is self-plagiarism. It is certainly deemed unethical in scientific publications that are held to be original research.
Both of the schools where I got my degrees said you couldn’t do it without clearing it with one or both professors. The college where I have done adjunct work has a similar policy in place. Actually it may be somewhat stronger, like an outright ban – I haven’t checked lately.
I can see both sides of the issue. As a professor, I would like to know if a student has already used this paper in another course, but I’m not completely sure I can articulate just why. From a student perspective, it seems perfectly reasonable to use the same paper twice as long as it fulfills both assignments!
I have never had a student ask if he or she could recycle a paper for my class. Then again, the assignments for my class are likely to be very very different from assignments for other classes, even within the same department. If a professor is really worried about the possibility that a student Might try to use the same paper twice, the professor probably ought to think about assigning papers that really do not translate from one class to another.
The student is taking a class and is supposed to be doing classwork to fulfill the class requirements. The instructor is not assigning the student an independent research paper to find the answer to some deep question. The purpose is to complete an exercise relevant to the class goals and objectives. Producing a paper from the back files does not meet the intended goals of the exercise.
I mean, if my personal trainer says that I should do ten pull-ups today as part of my workout, I don’t tell him that I did ten yesterday and they should count for today.
I might cut a student some slack if I assign a book to read and the student has read the book previously, but I want the student to do the exercise required for the class curriculum.
I work at two universities right now. At both submitting a work from a previous class is absolutely not permitted without asking for permission from the 2nd professor. They do not classify it under plagiarism but the broader “academic misconduct”.
I was assisting with a course once and a student asked if they could do this. The professor said they could with certain conditions. Basically, they wanted them to explore it a little bit deeper in areas that were more relevant to her class.
I would never have thought about asking the professor. Guess it’s a good thing I’m not a student. Tho, now that I think about it, I never had to write any papers anyway - well, apart from the creative writing class I took. I’m guessing that’s pretty typical in an engineering curriculum.
Well, call me naive, but it seems to me that the purpose of education is to learn. The objective of setting a paper is to teach the student to do some research, and to lay out a thesis or analysis cogently. Submitting the same work twice is “perfectly reasonable” only if you view education as a game where the objective is to get certain grades while learning as little as possible!
From the perspective of an institution that seeks to maintain learning standards, if a student circumvents the learning process by resubmitting his own prior work, the effect is really no different from copying somebody else’s work.
Professor here. It’s expressly prohibited at the four schools where I’ve studied or taught unless you get permission from the instructor.
As a professor, I’d want to read the original paper before giving permission, and I’d require the second paper to be substantially different. The quickest way to be denied permission would be to ask, “how different does it have to be?”
I’m in a master’s program right now and its considered self-plagiarism and is a no no without clearing it with the professor even if the paper is part of a retake of the class.
My daughter recently had to do a paper which she was told could be handed in for a biology grade and an English composition grade. Obviously, each teacher was looking for and grading different aspects of the paper. If she hadn’t been told it was a two class assignment, I don’t see why hypothetically, she couldn’t submit the same paper for more than one class, assuming it meets the criteria and topic for each class. Unfortunately for her, that rarely happens. Most importantly though, sources need to be cited whether it’s being submitted once or three times.
I should add, I agree with the other posters, it needs to be run by the instructor first, and I wouldn’t let my daughter do it without their consent first.
Well that’s just common sense. If you’re retaking the class, you damn sure shouldn’t be handing in the same work that led to the retake in the first place.
AIUI, at most colleges and universities, this is considered an academic violation, self-plagiarism.
That being said, I think the self-plagiarism rule is BS. If you happen to have written a paper that is equally suitable for two different classes, then you should be able to submit the same paper for both classes. You as a student are simply lucky that both classes aligned in this way for you and should be allowed to submit a paper that covers the co-shared topic.
Plagiarism should be defined as copying someone else’s work. If it’s yours, it’s yours.
So your view of education is a process where you should try to learn as little as possible, while satisfying the specified requirements for each course?