Is it acceptable to reuse a term paper for a different class?

Students are asked to write numerous term papers throughout their high school career. As students write papers over and over again, some resort to using old information from old research papers.

Is it okay to recycle or reuse information from one paper to the next?

Teachers have different views on students recycling used information.

“I think it’s a major no-no,” said Mrs. Dianne Boone, who teaches English II. “Research papers should allow the students to explore new information for new topics. Students need to broaden their horizons. If I caught that a student recycled a past paper, I would hand it back to them and tell them to redo the entire paper.”

Mrs. Boone’s view is definitely against the idea, but other teachers don’t necessarily agree.

“I don’t see a problem with it,” World History teacher Mrs. Samantha Smith said. “You can’t plagiarize yourself. Plagiarizing is taking something from someone else. If their content is taken from a previous paper they’ve written, it’s all original and in my eyes it’s ok. I don’t see a problem. It would be pretty interesting if they figured out how to cite themselves.”

English I Teacher Mrs. Paulette Jones offers advice to students finding themselves recycling used papers.

“I don’t think it is ok,” Jones said. “To me, it is still plagiarism because you aren’t using your original thoughts at that moment. I would encourage a student to talk to their teacher to help them read over their paper and get something new and original.”

What about if students recycle papers from high school into their college careers?

Students were divisive on the subject, but the common theme was that they believed it was alright.

“I would do it. If my old paper meets the requirements, I would simply use the old paper. There should be no problem,” junior Nicholas Williams said.

Senior Hai Phan says he believes recycling term papers is not wrong.

“I probably would not do it,” Phan said. “You are not really learning anything again. It’s your own work. I just would not do it. I feel like it’s really pointless to do that, because you need to learn new things.”