Is it considered “Self-Plagiarism” if you re-use a Title?
I am thinking of writing an Article for a newspaper, and I already have ideas of how to expand that into a Book!
But I want to use the same Title for the Article and Book, because, well, it’s awesome!
Is there anything wrong with that?
To me it is neither confusing, nor unethical. Rather, I see it as expanding upon an existing body of work.
Thoughts?
Debbie
I don’t see any problem with it. There are lots of books out there that share a title with books written by different authors. Having a book with the same title as an article by the same author also common as giving the book the title of one of the articles it contains is normal practice.
I don’t see a problem with it.
Sure, there’s a remote possibility of causing some confusion, but for any written work, there are usually three or four common pieces of information that can identify it. The title, author, type of work (book, article, blog post, editorial, etc), and publishing date. For books, you of course have an ISBN.
Okay, thanks felgall and Force Flow!
It didn’t seem like such a horrible thing, but I still wanted to ask.
Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, but the article I am writing for the newspaper is limited to maybe 500-700 words, and as I compose things, my mind is saying, “Gee Deb, you could write an entire book on this?!”
If I can use my “killer title” now - to help it get published in the newspaper - and then later - should I write a book - that would be the best. :agree:
Sincerely,
Debbie
I don’t think titles can be copyrighted … but in any case, if they can, presumably you own it (unless you have deal with the newspaper).
Ethan Marcotte comes readily to mind, who wrote a famous article on A List Apart about Responsive Web Design, then wrote a book with the same title.
Personally, I think the concept of “Self-Plagiarism” is kind of stupid. I get the concerns with students just reusing one work over and over again, but by the very definition of what “plagiarism” is, you cannot plagiarize yourself?! 
Good enough for me!! 
Thanks,
Debbie
No, by definition it cannot be plagiarism to use something that you already created. There are certain times in academic settings where the particular requirements of an assignment will prohibit you from using work that you have previously created (I often hear this incorrectly called plagiarism), but in the legal context that is not an issue.
I don’t know where I heard or read about this, but you can’t copyright a title. Also, there are many articles, books, songs with the same titles and I’ve never heard anyone got into trouble because of that.
I don’t think that there would be any issue about this. People can use any title and wherever they may like, but it just different and unique title shows your creativity and originality. And since its your own title that is also not an problem
Titles can not be copyrighted. I dont think so that there will be a problem if you use a same title.
As far as I know “Awesome” has not yet been used as the title of a book so you are probably safe. :eyebrow:
The same title never creates a big issue for the book and news article. But you must be very precious about the content. Make sure that content must be different from news article. You must tell the reason to your visitor that why they need to read your book instead to news article.