Plagiarism or NOT? Need help

Hi, guys. I am new to this forum and I need some help urgent. Is it plagiarism if I write about the same topic (from academic research viewpoint) to be specific civilization related topic "Jews in Lebanon" for two courses yet using different perspective. In the already done research paper, the story is told through the eyes of jewish family fleeing lebanon during the 1970's and their lives, and in the one I plan to submit now is a powerpoint on the subject but strictly based on historical facts. To be on the safe side, IS this PLAGIARISM?

You cannot self-plagiarize, so IF you are the author of the 'already done research paper' then you may use it for more than one course/class.

APA policy on self-plagiarism:


docs.google.com/document/d/1nq6KIhBwrzOW3oDqrTuejWLSAL_hiE4BsI-M00HyXRs/edit?pli=1

Thanks, John Fogerty.

It isn't plagiarism. You are only using a similar topic but discussing it from a different point of view. In fact, the point of view that you will be using is totally different or unrelated to the first paper. I do not believe that you should be worried about being accused of plagiarizing your paper because of these reasons. For one thing, the other is a formal research paper with personal insight from the family. The other, is a power point presentation that will highlight an unrelated discussion. Nobody can be accused of plagiarism simply based on a similar title. If that were the case then students since time immemorial would not have completed their studies because of plagiarism accusations. Provided you never include any information, or borrow facts from the first essay without properly referencing it, you cannot be accused of plagiarism. You know how to avoid being accused of that so all you have to do is stick to the side of the road that leads you away from possibly plagiarizing yourself. Based on the information you provided though, it seems that is far from happening.

It's not "plagiarism," but it's academically dishonest and it's something that any professor would expressly prohibit if you asked for permission to do in advance. They expect you to do all the research necessary for every course project; they don't expect you to do research for one topic and then adapt that same research for written projects in different courses instead of researching a new topic. If you doubt that and you genuinely want to avoid doing anything wrong, you can just ask the professor that question. (The answer will almost always be instructions not to choose any topic for which you have already done all the research in connection with any previous project.)

If the paper is to be submitted in a class that somehow has a connection to the previous class, then the student can claim to be doing ongoing research on the given topic. That way the student can legally rehash old references coming from the original paper. The old information can then be updated with new data in relation to the new research. It isn't plagiarism when you are doing continuing research on a given topic. This type of research is normally done by higher academic level students (e.g. masters, doctorate) who are trying to become experts in a particular field. As such, there should not be a problem when a college student does the same thing based on an acceptable justification. Professors can take that into consideration and decide whether or not the student can be allowed to do the continuing research for the new paper.

This is complete nonsense. The test of whether it's allowed isn't whether or not the project is "somehow" connected to the previous class or what the student "claims." The test, as I've suggested earlier in this thread, is simply whether or not the professor would allow it if asked; and if you ask a college professor in just about any college course whether it's OK for you to use some of your research from a previous class (let alone any of the content from your actual essay in that previous class) to fulfill a writing or research requirement in a current class, the answer will almost always be "absolutely not" and that the professor expects you to find a topic that you have not yet researched or written about for any other class. If you're afraid to even ask the professor, that means you already know that the answer is no.


Obviously, if the project is part of ongoing long-term research within a longer post-grad program, that's a totally different situation than what the OP asked about in connection with "two courses." Trust me that no doctoral candidate needs to ask anybody on this forum whether it's OK to continue his long-term research project within his long-term growing expertise in his chosen area of research. We're talking about undergraduates who are thinking about reusing work from one course to fulfill the writing requirement in another course. Obviously, the projects and the two courses at issue have to have some content "connection," because if they didn't, the opportunity to reuse a project wouldn't ever come up in the first place.


Professors know full well whether they're teaching graduate students engaged in long-term research that bridges consecutive courses or just undergrad students who sometimes take courses with some overlapping content, whether subsequently or even concurrently. Except maybe in very rare circumstances, professors absolutely prohibit using any research already conducted for a previous course, and even then, it would only be with their explicit permission in advance. No undergrad professor will ever allow a student to "rehash" anything from an old project or to submit anything already written for a previous course. Whether or not you'll necessarily get caught doing it and want to take the risk is up to the student; but there's no question that it's never allowed without permission in advance and that permission to do so is almost always denied.

Spot on! Just because the student wrote the paper does not mean they can reuse it. Attempting to do so without permission from the professor is almost certain to yield a fail as the original paper is now in the school's database. You also risk the issue being on your permanent record. Best case outcome, you are allowed a complete rewrite with a penalty. When in doubt, leave it out!

If the paper is based on two different points of view, using different information, and is presented in an totally different format, then there should not be any problem reusing an old topic. Just don't use the same sources for the papers. Since one is from a family perspective and one is from a research point of view, there is no conflict within the topic, or the presentation. This will not be considered plagiarism by any professor. Instead, it shows that the student has a keen interest in this specific field of study and research. No professor will fault the student or penalize the student for having an interest in a specific topic that he pursues researching throughout his academic career. It would have been better if the student totally changed the title of the paper as well. I wonder if he ever did that.

From what I gather, the student was going to use a totally different approach to writing the paper even though it would have been based on the same topic. I believe that provided he does not reuse information from the old paper, then there will not be any plagiarism involved in the development of his Powerpoint presentation. New information would be used, hence creating a totally different research paper for the student. Let's face it, there are so many papers written on the same topic all the time, but nobody ever accused the writers of plagiarism. Even when the writer updates his information on the given topic alone.