Is it self plagerism if I take the same argument or main idea from a paper that I wrote last semester and use that same principle/argument/main idea/thesis in another paper for the next semester if it's is completely rewritten with different words and stuff but is trying to get the same idea across to the reader?

Question

If it is how do I avoid this? This seems awfully... weird... how can one steal from one self? Would it even matter sense I'm undergraduate student and my papers aren't published and my new professor would have no access to my paper that I wrote last semester. How would I reference myself if I'm not directly quoting myself and let me reader now that I wrote a similar paper (but this one is rewritten and has new sources and so forth sense I have to incorporate new sources). I find it strongly odd that the main concept from one course has reappeared in another and I feel as if I should be able to write a paper that has the same argument/idea of a paper that I already wrote (especially sense my old paper unpublished and considered not complete? and I can rewrite it and what not) and don't see what would be wrong with it.

I'm very confused by the idea of self plagerism and was wondering if someone could tell me if my case would be considered self plagerism. I checked on the internet and can't find anything about my particular case were my previous paper is unpublished and therefore not complete? How do I get around self plagerism of this type if this is indeed self plagerism?

Answer 1

self-plagiarism -- that doesn't even make sense!! Plagiarism means to copy someone else's words and ideas and call them your own.

There's nothing wrong with doing this as long as the ideas fit the new assignment.

Note the spelling ~~> plagiarism
Note the meaning ~~> http://www.answers.com/topic/plagiarism