Rara Rizal

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Rara Rizal
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Run For Your Li(v)es!

Education > Special Education > Can I Plagiarize Myself?
 

Can I Plagiarize Myself?

As a high school student -and an honest one, you see :) there are times when I feel that the temptation to cheat is high: like when there's more than one exam in one day; the topic/subject is too difficult and the standard is too high; something important came up at the last minute and there's not enough time to study, etc.

Yeah, and maybe once or twice I failed to fight the urge (ie. I cheated!) and I immediately felt bad about it. Like in last year's midterm exam, I stumbled upon a very tricky physics question (I remember it being gravity and acceleration-something about Superman jumping off a tall building to save this woman which leads to how fast must he go before the woman falls down and get pumpkin-smashed). You know, as a very, very rational person, the first thing that came to mind was he must go as fast as his ass can. But since Physics does not qualify a sentence without equations or figures as an answer (or better yet-a sentence with the word "ass" in it), my perfect rationale wouldn't score me a point.

What I did that time was asking a senior of mine, who was sitting next to me, and happened to be in the Physics Olympiad team (she went as far as winning a national title). She only told me which formula to use, which is nothing in comparison with using crib-notes and electronic devices but is sure as hell enough to call it cheating. And I felt really, really, bad (haha I'm a terrible liar!).

But I have a bigger confession to make. Well, I don't know if it's a big deal or not since I don't know if it actually is a form of academic dishonesty or not. Often (and I mean really-really often, like most of the time, or like almost all the time), I use my previous research/writings as a reference piece for my other assignment paper. I did my biology term paper on Oxidative Stress in IDDM (Insulin-Dependent Diabetes Mellitus). And for my Indonesian assignment-it was about scientific writing, what I did was translating my own paper into Indonesian (bad, BAD girl!!). I've two reasons: One, I was too lazy to write a science paper for Indonesian-I mean what's the point? If all the teacher cared about was the syntax and grammar, why bother create an invention for that? and Two, I have always been interested in topics like Oxidative Stress and free radicals, and I thought this is what I'm best at, and if the teacher doubts it, I might give her a full-length presentation along with statistics and graphs and charts of melting polar ice-caps if she'd like.

And that's just one example. I've done it many times, and I most probably will keep doing it. I don't know if self-plagiarism is actually a form of plagiarism, I mean, duh, it's my work, and doesn't matter in what ways I put it, it still is mine, right?

I also believe that it's just a matter of intention . If you intend to deceive the teacher, then it's cheating. But if you consult about it first, and your teacher approves, I doubt it's an academic dishonesty. Right now I'm going to find out more about self-plagiarism (I don't even know if the word exists).

Oh, and speaking of plagiarism, as hypocritical as it sounds, I hate it when people copy me. Like, I don't know why every time someone bought the same pencil as mine, the Jessica Sanders-esque alter ego inside of me is dying to strangle them. And right now I am really pissed because this particular person just keeps following me wherever I "nest". I mean, I don't mind one or two blog sites, but 4? FOUR blog sites? Seriously? Well, what can I do, this person has the right to blog and rock wherever he/she wants, even if it means subsequently following ALL 3 of the previous blog sites I've been on. And that's how I got here, anyway-by followin around.Heh.




PS. I apologize for recently using too many "Heroes" reference in my articles. It's just too good to miss! Finally, have a good day and try not to plagiarize yourself, or you'll end up in court facing a lawsuit from you! Oh how thrilling.

posted on Feb 21, 2008 10:47 AM ()

Comments:

you better play nice, there, play, you don't wanna end up in court because you don't agree with yourself btw, didn't know i had a writing "style", i couldn't tell, and somebody did, wow blogging is fun!
comment by raragoe on Feb 23, 2008 11:02 AM ()
In times past I cut and pasted 12 articles per day onto 4 sites. Now, I still review upwards of 12 articles, but post only one written by me on 2 sites.
I really enjoy reading my own articles. Often, I agree with them.
BTW, I think MyBloggers better fits your writing style.
comment by bumpedoff on Feb 23, 2008 5:06 AM ()
comment by strider333 on Feb 23, 2008 12:57 AM ()
Just so you know, as a teacher, I believe that plagiarism is NOT borrowing from yourself. You did that work, you are not passing it off as someone other's that yours. Plagiarism is taking someone else's work and passing it off as your own. You're safe!
comment by teacherwoman on Feb 22, 2008 8:33 AM ()
Gee sounds right to me. I am doing a contract report right now, principally by copying equations developed in two of my previous reports. Why not, they are still good?. Cheers
comment by baseeker on Feb 21, 2008 3:05 PM ()

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