Hi, I submitted a research proposal earlier in the year to uni which included a literature review. Now I’m writing my thesis and want to directly copy and paste some of those paragraphs into it.
Is citing my own proposal enough to be avoiding self-plagerism? Or must I paraphrase it (I hope that is not the answer…. why and how can I paraphrase my own words when I am already 100% happy with it!!)
I would like to know if I can reuse those chunks without paraphrasing. Anyone been in this situation? Will ask uni but they will take forever to reply. Thanks a bunch.
Comments
I think that sounds fine. You didn’t publish the research proposal and the ‘self-plagiarism’ rule (as I understand it) doesn’t prohibit using material from your own research proposal in your thesis.
You didn’t publish it so you should be able to use your previous submission. Double check with your advisor first in case this is a for a class/grad requirement and that is for some reason not allowed.
You’ll do better to rewrite, especially now that you know how the data worked out. Straight copy paste won’t be as good.
It does speed things up, and we all do that. I finished a paper less than a week after getting data last month, largely bc I had laid it out in the grant ahead of time. I don’t think a single paragraph was left unchanged, but it still beats starting from nothing.
You should still check with your supervisor, but 100% fine if you ask me
Check with your supervisor/advisor, as others have suggested.
The closer your final project was to the original proposal, the easier it is to copy/paste. Even then, you probably need to edit for things like verb tense (proposals are typically future tense).