So I have two papers due for two different classes (one is for a course called “Gender and Sexuality in Korean Culture”, and one is for a course called “Studies on North Korea”.) For the Gender and Sexuality course, I need to write an 8-10 page paper on a topic in Korean culture that pertains to the coursework, and for the other I need to write 12 pages in Korean about a social issue in North Korea. I am thinking about writing about the changing roles of North Korean women in the underground economy for both.
Would it be okay for me to translate sections of the Gender and Sexuality paper into Korean and use them for the North Korea course, if I cite myself and expand upon my ideas a little more (as the Korean paper is longer, and Korean text tends to take up less space on the page)? I would likely be reaching roughly the same conclusion and using many of the same sources for both versions. The meaning of the text itself would probably be about 50 to 66 percent the same, but in two different languages.
Do you think this would be considered academic honesty or plagiarism? I already submitted my paper proposals to both teachers and it got approved both times, and this is a topic I am really passionate and excited about. I am not a Korean native speaker, so even just translating an academic work into Korean is going to take a lot of work, so I don’t think this is quite the same as just reusing sections of a paper for two different assignments… I’m confused ^^;;; Help!
At my school, using even a portion of the same assignment for two different classes without the instructor’s approval was considered a violation of the academic integrity policy. You can check your own school’s policy to see if it also violates your school’s academic honesty code, but generally, yes, this is considered academic misconduct.
I would ask permission from both professors before doing using the same material for both classes. If you do not feel comfortable asking both professors before permission beforehand (perhaps because you think they’ll say no), then this is probably something you shouldn’t be doing.
Usually students encounter problems with the academic honesty policies of their school for reproducing parts of former/different assignments in new papers - but a lot of the time, the issue has to do with citation, since most students reason that since it’s their own intellectual property, they can freely use it as many times as they wish without citation (that’s incorrect.)
I don’t see any issue with using your own words and ideas in multiple assignments if you cite it properly.
As long as you cite yourself, they can’t accuse you of plagiarism. Now, just because they can’t accuse you of plagiarism doesn’t mean that they won’t dislike the fact you used both papers twice. I would email the professors and get their permission first.
There is currently a thread in the parent’s forum about this same issue. The student is facing a honor code violation.
You need to discuss this with both professors and ideally get permission in writing. I suspect that the professors might feel that you are researching one topic and writing two papers using shared content. Basically doing half the work in their minds.
I would not do this. At my university, “double dipping” like this is not allowed without explicit permission from your professors and I’ve never heard of an exception for what you’re wanting to do. Exceptions I’ve gotten are for things like getting extra credit for attending a talk for two classes where I needed to do a writeup for both. It’s not a matter of plagiarism or citing yourself, its an issue of reusing work.
There have been threads before indicating that many schools and instructors do not like students using the same work for more than one course without getting permission from the instructors beforehand.
This is a common misunderstanding by students - both their own work and others - but it’s not true. Citation doesn’t make you immune from plagiarism. For example, I have have had students copy large sections of papers or articles (think several paragraphs), slap a citation at the end, and think that it’s not plagiarism. Similarly, copying and pasting things you wrote for another class into a new paper and citing yourself is still plagiarizing.
Why? Because you’re not supposed to reproduce work. Think about it on a broader scale: a reporter who writes an article for the Associated Press can’t turn around and submit the same article, or large chunks of it, to Reuters. A professor who submits an article to the Journal of Awesome Studies can’t then publish the same paper or several pages of it in the Journal of Super Awesome Studies. If you write a report to your boss for one project, you can’t turn around three months later and submit the same report for a related but different project.
You can certainly write on very similar topics from different angles and combine your research strategy for the two papers, and use one paper as the basis for another. But your words and thoughts should be substantially different for each one.
^ Yes, You can write two different papers on a similar topic. Perhaps each can have a different thesis statement and different arguments are presented. The key is – every sentence needs to be different. No cutting and pasting. Don’t look at the first paper when you are writing the second (and don’t start with the text file from the first paper when you are starting to type up the second.) Certainly the knowledge you gain from writing the first paper will inform the second, but the second paper needs to be written from scratch. Of course you can cut and paste from the reference section as many of the cited papers will be the same.
@julliet I quite disagree. If the student properly cites himself/herself, that is not plagiarism. I am not just talking about slapping a citation on the end, I’m talking full-out, proper citations whether text is directly copied or paraphrased. I would like to think that a college student would know better than to simply copy and paste the same exact text whether from their own work or someone else’s work. Scientists often work in the same narrow field for their entire careers. We do not directly copy what we write, but we often write it in different ways and cite ourselves and others. After all, there are only so many ways you can introduce certain a very specific gene, protein, etc.
@mademoiselle2308 - You aren’t actually disagreeing with me…you’re saying the same thing I said. The key part is here:
Which is pretty much exactly what I said:
Citing your own work obviously isn’t plagiarism, if done correctly. And properly quoting a medium-sized section of text and citing that properly also isn’t plagiarism, although it should be used sparingly and only if the way the original author wrote the text is particularly eloquent or poignant. (And generally speaking, you wouldn’t quote your own words that way, unless you were the unquestioned authority in an area).
What IS plagiarism is copying and pasting large sections of your own work (I’m talking several pages) and turning it in as new work for a new class. It doesn’t matter whether you cite that or not, it’s still plagiarism. As I said above, a scientist could not turn in substantial sections of an old paper as a new paper for a different journal. The OP is talking about using half to two-thirds of an already-written paper and turning it in as new work. To most professors, that would be unacceptable.
Aha, I’ve watched a team of students use a water temperature regulator as the final project for both their control systems and microprocessors class and get away with it.
