Cheating generally refers to unfair practices in whatever activity one chooses to perform. Most of the time, it would include making the work easier or faster without following the rules and laws associated with the deed. While plagiarism means using someone else’s work or ideas without proper referencing, self-plagiarism refers to recycling one’s own words or publishing them in several places. When people use their ideas or texts, they do not necessarily try to make the work easier. The original source provides the information for the work, and no one will be deprived of their idea or author’s rights. For example, a student had to explore the Great Depression topic and write their thoughts on it. The data and historical sources had to be referenced, but the author’s original words were included in the paper without any works cited.
It is not likely that the same class would require another paper on the Great Depression, but other ones might. If the teacher asks the same student to provide their opinion on the topic again, using the original words would be restating the opinion and not simplifying the work. Besides, the person would have to analyze whether the position had changed, which leads to spending more time on writing when compared to simply stating the current opinion. Some may argue that self-plagiarism is not a fair practice which allows students and scholars to pretend they have submitted exclusive content to several publishers. However, in this case, the action of offering the text as unique would be cheating, not recycling the words. For example, if two publishers do not mind printing repeated content, given that the same text is fair and within the rules, it should not be considered cheating.