单选题
Some people argue that self-plagiarism (自我剽窃) is impossible by definition because plagiarism is theft and people cannot steal from their own work. But, this is not correct in law. And there are circumstances, such as insurance fraud (保险欺), etc., when it is possible to steal from oneself.
Self-plagiarism, however, must be carefully distinguished from the recycling of one"s work that to a greater or lesser extent everyone legally does. Self-plagiarism in academic (学术的) publications is a gray area. However, many universities indirectly recognize the practice as deceptive. They publish rules preventing students from handing in basically the same essay for credit in different courses. There are also rules against someone handing in the same graduate thesis to different universities. Among established academics, self-plagiarism is a problem. It means basically the same article or book is handed in on more than one occasion for salary raising or promotion.
Like all plagiarism the essence of self-plagiarism is the author" attempts to cheat the reader. This happens when no indication is given that the work is being recycled or when an effort is made to disguise the original text. For example, an author just makes cosmetic changes to make the same article, chapter, or book look different. But actually it remains unchanged in its central argument. In this case, disguising a text occurs. Authors change such things as paragraph breaks, capitalization, or the substitution of technical terms in different languages. What he has done is to make readers believe they are reading something completely new. This practice is self-plagiarism.
单选题
In the second sentence of the first paragraph, "this" refers to ______.