Nicole James said:There is actually a specific term for this: self-plagiarism. It happens when someone takes their own previously published work and attempts to pass it off as an entirely new, original piece. In this case, the individual wasn't just mentioning their past research—their earlier work actually constitutes a significant portion of the material being presented as part of this doctoral dissertation, all without any mention that it was being cited from their own prior publications.
If someone sticks to the same topic they've already covered and copies maybe 50-60% of the text from their old paper, that's plagiarism. I wonder if there's an actual rulebook for this—like, does it count if it's 5% or 20%, or does it have to be 50% or 70%? I guess anything over half should probably trigger it...
And if he didn't cite himself, people shouldn't be making such a huge deal out of it. Most people make that rookie mistake thinking, "Hey, I wrote this, so I can just grab whatever parts I want whenever I feel like it." It’s a common slip-up early on. You might let it slide for a bachelor's or master's degree, but for a PhD, the standards should be way tighter. Still, by God, he did mention his own work. It would be much worse if he was stealing from someone else without credit, so why all the panic... At the end of the day, it isn't just on him; it's on the mentor too. If they had any real conversation about the project, they should have warned him about the rules...
