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I think we can all agree that if I am presenting work that is intended to be new ideas and I present a previously published result of which I am the sole author, that this is self-plagiarism. The clearest example of this is reusing an already published result in a journal article without attribution.

If that already published result is in a co-authored work, is it still self-plagiarism, or does it somehow make it worse?

StrongBad
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    Job talks are intended to be new ideas? – Azor Ahai -him- Apr 10 '19 at 21:39
  • I think presenting this question from the position of the "at worst" scenario makes this question a bit unclear or misleading. I mean, also, on your commute to work you "at worst" commit murder, but that doesn't seem to be the best way to judge the ethics of the situation or compare it to another. Someone's power point failing to mention their own paper for a slide figure is maybe self-plagiarism by a strict definition but probably the least impactful type. The Q&A that motivated this one is about someone passing off work as their sole work, which isn't really related to that sort of mistake. – Bryan Krause Apr 10 '19 at 21:53
  • @AzorAhai I am confused (and I think I have confused you). Where did I say job talks are new ideas, because that is not what I meant? – StrongBad Apr 10 '19 at 22:25
  • @BryanKrause does the edit make it better? – StrongBad Apr 10 '19 at 22:27
  • You talked about a job talk, then said "[I]f I am presenting work that is intended to be new ideas...." – Azor Ahai -him- Apr 10 '19 at 22:53
  • @AzorAhai got it. I can see the jump now. I was trying to get away from the confusing job talk part and focus on the self-plagiarism of co-author issue. – StrongBad Apr 10 '19 at 22:58
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    Yes I think it's more clear, but I'll be quite puzzled if anyone answers anything but "yes" and I'm a bit confused why you've asked the question because I think with these edits it makes it clear that you are talking about a different circumstance than the possibly more questionable one addressed in the other Q&A. – Bryan Krause Apr 10 '19 at 23:09
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    This question falls into the far too common trap of worrying about the label "(self-)plagiarism" instead of the actual issue: Is it ethical to present your own previous joint work without explicitly acknowledging your coauthors? (In my opinion, the answer is "Obviously not.") – JeffE Apr 11 '19 at 05:37
  • @JeffE In other words, yes, it's worse? – sgf Apr 13 '19 at 09:14
  • @sgf In other words, it's bad. Whether it deserves the label "plagiarism" is irrelevant. Whether it's "better" or "worse" than other violations of scholarly ethics—copying a third party's text verbatim without attribution, faking experimental data, using human subjects without informed consent, submitting a paper without the consent of all authors, gift authorship, and so on—is a fun discussion to be had over beer, but also basically irrelevant. – JeffE Apr 13 '19 at 13:50

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The essence of plagiarism, self or otherwise, is an intention to mislead by passing something off as your original work when it is not. You can never be guilty of self-plagiarism if you say/write something along the lines "As I [and my colleagues] showed/claimed in ...". If you repeat as an original comment something that is not original, it is irrelevant that you wrote its true original form with the collaboration of others.

That said, I am beginning to question the premise of this question. What kind of 'job talk' is that demands wholly new material never before published? That means material never before subjected to peer review - surely of lesser quality than peer-reviewed published stuff? And, anyhow, it is surely a practical impossibility to cite full references in a talk: your audience would either sleep or find something of more interest on their phones.

JeremyC
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  • I apparently have confused people. I believe job talks are not new material and I don't see what I wrote that has confused people. – StrongBad Apr 10 '19 at 22:25