We have to keep in mind what the academic definition of plagiarism is, because it isn't the same as the lay person definition. Reusing the same fragment of as f

We have to keep in mind what the academic definition of plagiarism is, because it isn't the same as the lay person definition. Reusing the same fragment of as few as 3 or 4 words without direct attribution is plagiarism. For fun, trying googling "It increases the amount of crap", and you will find that your very own post meets the academic definition of plagiarism. Both for containing a single plagiarised phrase and percentage wise (46% plagiarised!). I've seen post grads spend weeks using software to look for identical phrases of 4 words in their final work and previous work and then slightly rephrasing a sentence to avoid duplication of a common phrase and the dreaded self-plagiarism. Then running the thing again and inevitably finding the new wording was a duplication as well. I couldn't see it as anything other than a colossal waste of time. If you are writing about the same topic it's inevitable that you will phrase things in the same way at times. All of this does nothing to combat the CV padding you worry about because it only concerns reusing the same exact language, not talking about the same ideas over and over in different ways. As an outsider it seems that academia has descended into a kind of madness about plagiarism and self plagiarism. I think this is largely thanks to software companies trying to sell their plagiarism detection systems.