Text recycling: Views of North American journal editors from an interview‐based study

Abstract

Over the past decade, text recycling (TR; AKA ‘self‐plagiarism’) has become a visible and somewhat contentious practice, particularly in the realm of journal articles. While growing numbers of publishers are writing editorials and formulating guidelines on TR, little is known about how editors view the practice or how they respond to it. We present results from an interview‐based study of 21 North American journal editors from a broad range of academic disciplines. Our findings show that editors' beliefs and practices are quite individualized rather than being tied to disciplinary or other structural parameters. While none of our participants supported the use of large amounts of recycled material from one journal article to another, some editors were staunchly against any use of recycled material, while others were accepting of the practice in certain circumstances. Issues of originality, the challenges of rewriting text, the varied circulation of texts, and abiding by copyright law were prominent themes as editors discussed their approaches to TR. Overall, the interviews showed that many editors have not thought systematically about the practice of TR, and they sometimes have trouble aligning their beliefs and practices.

Text Recycling in STEM Research: An Exploratory Investigation of Expert and Novice Beliefs and Attitudes

“…For many of our respondents, publication status of the source appears to be an important factor in deciding whether recycling is acceptable. This echoes findings from prior studies of attitudes toward text recycling (Hall et al, 2018;Pemberton et al, 2019). In comparing expert and novice responses, we see here, as we did earlier, that experts were generally more tolerant of text recycling than novices.…”

“…In a survey of journal editors and editorial board members across the academic spectrum, Hall et al (2018) found that while most board members were not opposed to text recycling in general, there was substantial disagreement regarding the appropriateness of recycling from one published work to another. A major finding from a related interview-based study by Pemberton et al (2019) was that journal editors held widely divergent views on recycling between published papers and had a variety of reasons for their views.…”

“…Or, perhaps, experts have learned from personal experience that recycling text in some situations is common and acceptable in their area of research. It is even possible that experts' own practices do not align with the guidance they provide their mentees: Pemberton et al (2019) found that editors who do not themselves object to some uses of text recycling in their own work sometimes encourage a more cautious approach to their graduate students out of a philosophy of risk aversion.…”

“…To date, published opinions and guidance on whether, when, and how text recycling should be used in scholarly writing have varied considerably, especially in reference to research writing in empirical research fields. Journal editors and editorial board members who may oppose recycling material from one published article to another are often fine with recycling from other genres such as grant proposals, grant reports, or conference posters (Hall et al, 2018;Pemberton, et al, 2019). Navigating these inconsistencies can be challenging even for expert STEM researchers.…”

“…In interviews of journal editors, Pemberton et al (2019) found that many experienced journal editors had given little previous thought to some of the complexities of text recycling and appeared to be formulating their positions as the interviews unfolded. Given the lack of educational materials or other widespread training on the topic, it is reasonable to assume that this might be the case for the current study as well.…”