This page is part of MIT's Guidelines for Ethical Authorship and Publication Practices.
Text recycling is the practice of reusing parts of your own previously created work—such as text, figures, or equations—in a new document, without presenting that material as a direct quotation. This typically happens when the original and new documents share at least one author and the reused content is the same or very similar. Unlike plagiarism, which involves using someone else’s work without proper credit and is considered research misconduct, text recycling isn’t automatically a problem. Whether it’s appropriate depends on the context, how much material is reused, and the expectations of the field or publisher.
To help researchers navigate this issue, the Text Recycling Research Project (TRRP)—a multi-institution, NSF-funded initiative focused on text recycling in STEM research—developed a Model Text Recycling Policy in 2022. Some journals and publishers have already adopted or adapted this policy. In addition, TRRP researchers, working with editors and publishers (including representation from MIT Press), have created practical, research-based resources to help scholars understand when text recycling is acceptable and how to do it responsibly.
These resources, available on the TRRP website, include:
- Best Practices for Researchers
- Understanding Text Recycling: A Guide for Researchers
- How to Be Transparent about Text Recycling
- 5 Common Misconceptions about Text Recycling
The main takeaway is simple: be thoughtful, ethical, and transparent when reusing your own prior work, and be sure to check journal or publisher policies, copyright considerations, and any relevant agreements before doing so.