{"id":38851,"date":"2017-05-11T10:04:53","date_gmt":"2017-05-11T17:04:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/world.edu\/?p=38851"},"modified":"2017-05-11T10:04:53","modified_gmt":"2017-05-11T17:04:53","slug":"citing-yourself-in-the-text","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/","title":{"rendered":"Citing yourself  \u2013 in the text"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-38852\" src=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"680\" height=\"470\" srcset=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg 680w, https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Write-About-Yourself-250x173.jpeg 250w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><\/a>Writing about your own work is sometimes tricky. There are \u2018secretarial\u2019 text issues involved in using your own work.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll talk here about how you refer to yourself and the work, and the vexed question of self-plagiarism.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>writing your work into the text<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The advice on self citation\u00a0often suggests that you refer to yourself by your surname. So in my case I\u2019d be writing along and then say <em>Thomson (date) showed that<\/em>\u2026. <em>According to Thomson (date)\u2026. \u00a0Previous work on this topic includes x (date), y (date) and Thomson (date)<\/em>\u2026. This move\u00a0separates yourself and pervious work out from what you are currently writing.<\/p>\n<p>This is not wrong. it is often done. But if, like me, you find this way of talking about yourself a bit odd, then there are two other options. The first is to use \u2018I\u2019. <em>In previous work I have\u2026 My earlier study on\u2026 This study builds on my project on\u2026 <\/em>Now there\u2019s nothing wrong with this and I\u2019d certainly rather write and read this than a lot of the author\u2019s surname in the text. A personal preference.<\/p>\n<p>The second option is to move the citation to the brackets and forget writing about the author in the main body of the text. So \u2026 <em>Previous work on x (Thomson date) suggests that\u2026 This study takes as its starting point the following\u2026 blah blah blah (Thomson, date). <\/em>This text\u00a0actually focuses the discussion on the substantive point, rather than on who wrote it. I have just read an entire book where the author refers to their own substantive work like this. And it worked just fine for me, as a reader.<\/p>\n<p>But it may be that some combination of I and brackets works best for whatever you are writing. It\u2019s up to you to think about what you like to read and your disciplinary conventions, as much as your writing fancies.<\/p>\n<p>The most unnatural way IMHO to write about yourself in the text is as a third person \u2013 <em>the researcher\u2019s previous work on this, as the researcher has argued in an earlier paper\u2026 <\/em>This is a highly-stylised version what someone thinks is proper in academic writing. It\u2019s as well to consider who else talks about themselves in the third person and where \u2013 the answer is hardly anyone, anywhere, anytime. If you want to write in ways that a reader will find \u2018natural\u2019 and not overly distancing and overly formal, then you might might to exorcise\u00a0this kind of researcher self in your text.<\/p>\n<p>And of course, as noted last week, too much author surname and personal pronoun \u2018I\u2019 can read as if it\u2019s all about you, only you, and not about the general body of work in the field. And Im afraid that\u00a0putting yourself, and only you and no one else, in the brackets reads like this too.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>self-plagiarism<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019ve written about this <a href=\"https:\/\/patthomson.net\/2011\/11\/12\/self-plagiarism-and-online-publication%e2%80%a6-some-musings\/\">before <\/a>and every time a handful or people write crossly to me saying that this is a ridiculous notion. That may be true but it is now actually part of copyright law in many countries. So like it or not, we are generally stuck with a ruling that says we have to treat our own material in the same way as everyone else\u2019s and quote ourselves.<\/p>\n<p>The shift to rules around\u00a0self-plagiarism\u00a0does stop people reusing large slabs of text, unchanged, from one paper to the next. Each paper is a new contribution, not a cut and paste.<\/p>\n<p>But\u00a0yes, there are some cases when we do want to use exactly the same words from one text to another\u2013 describing the methods used in a large research project from which several papers have been drawn is one, as\u00a0are\u00a0details of location in an ethnographic study. Most of us don\u2019t worry about the self plagiarise rule in these circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>Sometimes people don\u2019t bother with this rule. I\u2019ve recently read a book where a very famous scholar used a definitional statement \u2013 extensively quoted by other people \u2013\u00a0 which originally appeared in one of his refereed journal articles. It was such a well-known sentence that it leapt off the page at me. However, the writer didn\u2019t self-cite.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t blame him for this minor technical infringement. I can imagine him thinking that the wording was actually hard to better so why try to do so\u2026<\/p>\n<p>But technically\u2026 In\u00a0general, we do legally now need to \u2018quote\u2019 our own writing. This almost inevitably places us in the situation of having to explain why we are quoting ourselves \u2013 so back to number one above.<\/p>\n<p>And if you\u00a0know the rules about self plagiarism you can\u00a0then make your own decision about whether to follow them religiously. Just be aware the journals are increasingly using plagiarism software\u2026 and these algorithms will pick up self-cite as well as any other form of duplication.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Writing about your own work is sometimes tricky. There are \u2018secretarial\u2019 text issues involved in using your own work. I\u2019ll talk here about how you refer to yourself and the work, and the vexed question of self-plagiarism. writing your work into the text The advice on self citation\u00a0often suggests that you refer to yourself by [&hellip;]\n&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/\" class=\"more\">learn more&rarr;<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":38852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[92163],"coauthors":[11733],"class_list":["post-38851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-higher-education","tag-citing-yourself"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Citing yourself \u2013 in the text - World leading higher education information and services<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Citing yourself \u2013 in the text - World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Writing about your own work is sometimes tricky. There are \u2018secretarial\u2019 text issues involved in using your own work. I\u2019ll talk here about how you refer to yourself and the work, and the vexed question of self-plagiarism. writing your work into the text The advice on self citation\u00a0often suggests that you refer to yourself by [&hellip;]\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"World leading higher education information and services\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-05-11T17:04:53+00:00\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"680\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"470\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kevin\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kevin\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" class=\"yoast-seo-meta-tag\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kevin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee\"},\"headline\":\"Citing yourself \u2013 in the text\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-05-11T17:04:53+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":824,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/05\\\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg\",\"keywords\":[\"citing yourself\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Higher Education\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/\",\"name\":\"Citing yourself \u2013 in the text - World leading higher education information and services\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/05\\\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg\",\"datePublished\":\"2017-05-11T17:04:53+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/05\\\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2017\\\/05\\\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg\",\"width\":680,\"height\":470},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Citing yourself \u2013 in the text\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/\",\"name\":\"World leading higher education information and services\",\"description\":\"Global Higher Education Jobs, University jobs, Lecturer &amp; tenure jobs.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee\",\"name\":\"Kevin\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g8ba4c352a279c450aa9435d770c1ebf4\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kevin\"},\"description\":\"Kevin is founder of the world.edu project. The past 28 years have been involved in publishing to the education sector in print and the internet. Kevin has a degree in Education and has a many years experience in developing companies and projects.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/world.edu\\\/author\\\/kevin\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Citing yourself \u2013 in the text - World leading higher education information and services","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Citing yourself \u2013 in the text - World leading higher education information and services","og_description":"Writing about your own work is sometimes tricky. There are \u2018secretarial\u2019 text issues involved in using your own work. I\u2019ll talk here about how you refer to yourself and the work, and the vexed question of self-plagiarism. writing your work into the text The advice on self citation\u00a0often suggests that you refer to yourself by [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/","og_site_name":"World leading higher education information and services","article_published_time":"2017-05-11T17:04:53+00:00","og_image":[{"width":680,"height":470,"url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Kevin","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Kevin","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/"},"author":{"name":"Kevin","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee"},"headline":"Citing yourself \u2013 in the text","datePublished":"2017-05-11T17:04:53+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/"},"wordCount":824,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg","keywords":["citing yourself"],"articleSection":["Higher Education"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/","url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/","name":"Citing yourself \u2013 in the text - World leading higher education information and services","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg","datePublished":"2017-05-11T17:04:53+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/Write-About-Yourself.jpeg","width":680,"height":470},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/citing-yourself-in-the-text\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/world.edu\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Citing yourself \u2013 in the text"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/#website","url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/","name":"World leading higher education information and services","description":"Global Higher Education Jobs, University jobs, Lecturer &amp; tenure jobs.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/world.edu\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/world.edu\/#\/schema\/person\/42c1c1d5ff7ffbdf0bd50ed94c6ae6ee","name":"Kevin","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g8ba4c352a279c450aa9435d770c1ebf4","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1e8d491a5f9b9bf3db67c9e46abbba7bb06b26b458bd5025c55e0a4b9b60ea8a?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Kevin"},"description":"Kevin is founder of the world.edu project. The past 28 years have been involved in publishing to the education sector in print and the internet. Kevin has a degree in Education and has a many years experience in developing companies and projects.","sameAs":["https:\/\/world.edu"],"url":"https:\/\/world.edu\/author\/kevin\/"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38851"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/world.edu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=38851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}