Chapter 7 · Practice 4 of 4
Cite your own earlier work, such as course reports and papers
Why it matters
Reusing your own previous writing without saying so is called self-plagiarism, and similarity checkers find it easily if the earlier work was submitted before. HEC's guidance, for example, says similarity with an author's own previous work can be ignored only if that work is cited.
If parts of your project started as a course assignment, a semester project or a conference paper:
- Tell your supervisor early.
- Cite the earlier work where you reuse its ideas, text or results.
- Rewrite rather than paste, and make clear what is new in the final year project.
The same applies within a team: if two teams share a dataset or a component, both reports should say so.
Do
- Tell your supervisor if the project grew from earlier work
- Cite earlier reports or papers you reuse
Avoid
- Pasting an earlier course report into a chapter