Text Recycling (AKA “Self-Plagiarism) in Scientific Writing: Thorny Issues and Best Practices
Description: Scientists often have reason to reuse some content from their previously written documents in their new ones. While some uses of text recycling are widely considered appropriate, others are not. Given the variety of ways that scientists might recycle text, they are often unsure about what is and isn't ethical or legal. For the past decade, the NSF-funded Text Recycling Research Project has been conducting research and developing guidelines and other resources on the subject. This talk will present the ethical and legal complexities of text recycling in research writing, present a useful taxonomy of text recycling, and review best practices.
About the speaker: Cary Moskovitz, PhD, Professor of the Practice at Duke University, served as Director of Writing in the Disciplines from 2005-2023. He holds a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering from North Carolina State University and a Master of Architecture from Virginia Tech. Cary is Director of the NSF-funded Text Recycling Research Project. His articles and essays related to writing pedagogy and text recycling have appeared in such publications as The Chronicle of Higher Education, Science, Research Integrity and Peer Review, and Science and Engineering Ethics.