Hi, I need your help please folks.

Three of my chapters have been published as papers, and I've just been told by the research office that that will be flagged up as self-plagiarism and therefore I need to re-write those chapters (TurnItIn produced a high score). My supervisor is on holiday and I am panicking! Please tell me they are wrong? :'-(

Hugh, this sounds like wrong advice to me, and it contradicts everything I have been told to do (ie I've been told to lift things word for word from my thesis and publish them). If I find anything concrete about this I will share it with you, but I'd put money on it that it's the wrong advice.

Just to add to my answer: I think it's common practice to note in the thesis something like, 'Parts of this chapter have previously been published in journal XYZ', but I'm sure what you're describing is not self-plagiarism. The fact that you can do a 'thesis by publication' says it's not!

I truly hope you are right. And I've always believed this too. My supervisor has never told me otherwise either. My PhD isn't by publication though.

My thought was that they would exclude my publications as 'sources' from TurnItIn so it doesn't show a match to that.

If I had known it was going to cause problems, I wouldn't have published.

What do the rest of you think? I am not re-writing 3 chapters. I'd rather give up on the PhD. (Yes I've reached that stage!)

Thanks so much for replying Chickpea, I'm panicking less now.

My supervisors have said explicitly that stuff doesn't need to be re-written to publish it - I checked this with them ages ago as I was concerned about how long it would take to re-word things.

I would have thought they would just ignore matches with your own work on Turnitin. Apart from anything else, I have used Turnitin for 'work in progress' checks on my thesis, something the school allowed us to do, which means my work is already in there.

Anyway, hopefully others will pop by and confirm this to be their understanding too!

Chickpea, my problem is that I don't have access to TurnItIn, and had to ask the office to put it through, and that's where it was flagged up. I'm hoping my supervisor says it'll be fine when he gets back on holiday (I just hope he doesn't keep me waiting for long) :-(

I am with Chickpea on this Hugh- I am 100% certain that this is not something to be concerned about and that your supervisor will tell you it is ok. Those at the office will just have blanket advice 'Oh look, it has flagged this up- better re write it'. I mean, who knows best, PhD students represented on this thread who have all heard that this is not an issue across different institutions or those that work in the office who have not been through the PhD process themselves?

In past theses that I have read from my department, people simply state before the contents page 'The following work has been published from the thesis: *list of publications*' and these are those that have passed.

Even though it is not a thesis by publication, as Chickpea says, thesis by publication would not exist if this was an issue :)

Thank you Zutterfly (and chickpea)!

I'm hoping my panic is over now. This weekend I'm hoping to continue the final proof read for my 1st draft submission. I'm hoping to have it finished by Monday evening. Then I've got to prepare for interview and take some time off.

I can do this. I can do this. I can survive this. This is what I keep need to repeating to myself. I will make it to passing this PhD, and all of you will too! :-)

I am also 100% certain this is absolutely not something to worry about. At the beginning of the thesis do you have an "author's declaration' or something similar? We have to include one, and that's where we list which chapters have been published.

You can write something like "Chapter 3 was first published as XX" if it's exactly the same. Or, as I am doing, "the work in Chapter 3 has previously been published in part in XX"

You absolutely can do this. And so can I :-) NEARLY THERE!

I felt like i wasn't making a lot of progress today, so I decided to write my acknowledgements. I said I wouldn't write those til last, but I'm glad I've done it now. After 6 years of effort, there were a lot of people to thank!

Thank you IntoTheSpiral, this is all very reassuring!

I have declaration with papers, but not specifying which chapters they are in, though it is obvious. Since editing again, I have made minor changes to them, and added things too, so all of it is not exactly the same, although most parts are the same. I think part of my publications is also in introduction and recommendations, so its scattered around.

You are so close Hugh! And is the interview for a job? Good luck :) I have had no joy on the job front yet, so I have taken a step back for a few weeks to focus on the editing of my thesis.

Currently nearly finished editing chapter 3 of 10. I feel like I am maybe taking too long but I want it as polished as possible before it is handed to my supervisor. I am hoping the remaining 7 chapters will be much faster as I don't have a lot to edit on those (hopefully!)

Well done on the editing! I've been polishing them too, and my partner warned me yesterday not to get too bogged down with polishing and formatting the thesis, as I may need to make further major changes once my supervisor sees the full draft.

Interview is for a RA job. Its my 1st interview in 3 years and I'm dreading it a bit ... I've forgotten how to talk about myself :-| Have you been for any interviews recently? What were they like?

Thank you!

Re Acknowledgments, I was like you, I didn't let myself write it in case I jinxed it, but I glad I wrote it in the end, because it made me realise that there were lots of people who have indirectly contributed to my thesis, and if I don't make it to the end, it wouldn't be fair on them. Its a good source of motivation for me :)

I have not been shortlisted for any interviews yet. I don't want this to sound arrogant but I was surprised as I have always been offered every job I have applied for outside of academia before starting my PhD. When applying for these academic jobs, I am just not having any luck with even getting shortlisted for interview.

My sup recommended changes throughout and some of them were quite major so I am hoping when the full draft is in I won't have that many- (hoping!)