Is it okay to cut and paste some bits from my thesis to form a journal article? I don't mean just copy and paste a section and there's your journal article. I mean specific parts of my findings chapter can be made into a journal article, so can I just copy and paste that specific part into the findings section of my journal article, maybe taking a few bits out here and there to make it more concise? I hope I'm being clear. I don't know if this consitutes self-plagiarism, but if it does I don't understand how I can re-word specific parts of my thesis, and back them up with quotes from participants, without changing the argument.

My supervisor seems to think it's okay, but I just wondered what your thoughts are.

Hi Button,

I wouldn't do it word by word, a copy and paste job.

I'm pretty sure it's ok to write the same thing but you'd have to rephrase everything or it'd be self-plagiarism. Or at least, that's what my sups told me...

Hi Skig,

Thanks for that, although it seems that it varies between disciplines etc. I've just had a look at the guidelines of the journals I'm approaching, and both say as an author I retain the rights to 'reuse' the article in a thesis, in whatever format I want. So it's covered from that angle.

Also, my uni stipulates nothing about self-plagiarism, although the general view seems to be that as long as I acknowledge that 'some parts of this thesis have been published in bla bla bla' then it should be fine, but I'll double check this anyway. Very confusing!

I've written stuff for journals and edited books which is also going into my thesis - as long as you acknowledge it, it's not a problem (I checked with my supervisor).

Isn't the point that when you made a finding, you could publish it (quickly)? The thesis just acknowledges what you've found?

I went to a conference where they had a special panel of editors for journals (i.e. top top top american journals in my field). This question was asked and all 4 editors said its fine to do this, as its your work. But you can't plagiarise across journals articles i.e. if you write 2 articles based on the same 'problem' you have to make sure your intro/lit review is paraphrased and not exactly the same as your other article.

Hi all,
There's a section about cutting and pasting in an article I have just written, as well as some other hopefully useful advice:
http://chloenoraduck.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-write-an-academic-journal-article
Hope this comes in handy!
C