Regulation

By now, some national and international regulations regarding text recycling have been published. In the aftermath of the Nijkamp-case, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) published an advice on correct citation practices (KNAW, 2014).

Besides the statement in the Netherlands, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) also published a set of guidelines regarding text recycling (Harriman & Patel, 2014). Both policy statements agree that permissible reuse of an author’s own material is highly dependent on the circumstances. They agree that reuse is allowed if “it concerns brief passages of introductory, theoretical or methodological explanation” (KNAW, 2014). However, reuse of parts of the results, conclusion or discussion sections are, in general, not allowed (Harriman & Patel, 2014). Both policy statements stress that reused passages should never create the suggestion that they constitute novel contributions and should always be properly referenced.