Question

If I am writing an APA paper about why I felt that I wanted to do a marketing plan on a product, would I need to cite myself? I don't understand what I would use for a reference if it was supposed to be why I feel the need to do it on that product.

Answer 1

If you are just writing an opinion paper or a persuasive essay that is expressing your point of view, you do not need to cite yourself because you would be essentially be citing the paper that you are writing, which is ridiculous. However, if you make reference to a previous paper that you have written, then you need to cite yourself. I have done this on more than a couple of occasions where I have had overlapping research or similar topics.

One other instance is if there is something specific that your personal insight can provide to the paper but this is very, very rare, and is usually more appropriate on a team paper. I have only done this once, on a team paper where part of it referred to a poem I had written and we wanted to discuss (in the paper) my feelings behind writing that poem. So I summarized my feelings and we cited it as a personal communication. But that was a very exceptional case.