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Is it ok to use a question similar to a question from someone else's questionaire? The question is not that specific, but the possible answers are similar. For example the question similar to yours measures level of involvement on a 7 point scale, while you measure level of importance on different scale. Howerer, possible answers that are measured are similar (some are the same, but not all of them). I know that when scales are used in social sciences, they are cited, but this is not a scale, more like a descriptive question.

Is this considered plagiarism? The advisor thought that it's not.

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    You're posting a question every couple of days about this paper you've already submitted. It really seems like you're putting yourself under an unsustainable level of stress right now over something currently outside your control. If you were a friend of mine, I might suggest looking into what options your institution has for mental health counselling. A counselling session can be useful in helping you find perspective, develop strategies for dealing with stress, etc, whether or not you are ordinarily in good mental health.
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 15:39
  • If I understand the question and some of your comments, you and your advisor think there is no issue with plagiarism. What is the basis of this question?
    – Terry Loring
    Commented Nov 11, 2022 at 1:04
  • Terry, I think this is a good question. I teach research methods and have a big unit on surveys. I get this question from students fairly often. I am surprised we have not had a similar question here before.
    – Dawn
    Commented Nov 11, 2022 at 1:43
  • Ah, this prompted me to check! Possible duplicate: academia.stackexchange.com/questions/49927/…
    – Dawn
    Commented Nov 11, 2022 at 1:45

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Your advisor is correct, this is not a plagiarism issue.

Whenever possible, questionnaires should use validated survey questions and responses from previous research. These should be used word-for-word if possible, as small language changes can affect how respondents answer.

If you are totally making up new survey questions when there are good questions that measure constructs out there, you are probably making a mistake.

If you are changing a word or two here and there solely to be “original”, you are probably making a mistake.

Cite appropriately, of course. Usually citing the original source of the validated questions is best, and maybe one or two other influential papers that are directly related to your topic.

Note that you do not need to cite every paper using a similar question to yours. There are fields/questions where hundreds of papers use the exact same question—imagine how long those citation lists would be if you had to cite every other paper with a similar question.

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  • It is not a scale, not a validated question, just a descriptive one, something like "which of the following methods your company uses...". My advisor said that for scales and validated questions there should be a citation (you adopted or adapted it), but this one is a descriptive question that could have come out of theory...
    – User857965
    Commented Nov 22, 2022 at 18:45
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Your advisor is giving good advice. It is unlikely that anyone would consider such things to be plagiarism for a number of reasons.

First, other than in exceptional cases, there isn't much "creativity" in the questions. The questions are not especially likely to capture the "thoughts and ideas" of the questionnaire writer.

Second, and related to the first, is that there are a limited number of ways to say such things.

Thus, questionnaires of this kind tend to be very similar.

Watch out for exceptional cases (the creativity issue), but in the main, there should be no issues.

Note, importantly, that plagiarism is about misappropriating "ideas" and concepts, not just repeating words. If it isn't an issue overall with your paper, using similar/same words for known concepts won't be an issue either.

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  • Thank you for your answer. Is it ok if some suggested answers are the same, such as "legal councel" or "product manager" and things like that? Of course, not everything is the same, biut there are overlappings.
    – User857965
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 14:25
  • Probably fine. However, if your work is based on the work of an earlier study, you should cite that study. But it would be overkill to make a separate citation for each such (small) case.
    – Buffy
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 14:29
  • It's based on one specific study and that study was cited multiple times. However, some questions from questionare used in that study are modified and one seems to be very similar to a question from another study (possible answers are similar). That second study isn't cited. Moreover, the second study happened to have very similar structure like the first, therefore there are similarities...For example, authors of the second study never mentioned their questions being based on the first study even thought there are similarities in suggested answers.
    – User857965
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 14:36
  • Easy enough for you to cite the second study, noting the similarities. Make it easy for readers.
    – Buffy
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 14:38
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    Time to relax, then. Onward to the next thing.
    – Buffy
    Commented Nov 10, 2022 at 15:11

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