<p>Bottom line: If an institution has, in writing, a policy that submitting the same or nearly the same work for two classes is academic dishonesty unless the profs agree, and a student tried to do it anyway, it is a violation. Period. And if profs suggest that it would have worked if the student had simply asked and simply doubled the length of the assignment, than there will be consequences, because the student didn’t ask and did half of the required work.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>If you write a piece of software, do you expect to be able to sell the same piece of software to Microsoft, Google, Intel, General Electric, Bank of America?</p>
<p>MIT:</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>Alter the paper by 10%. Then they aren’t the same paper.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s very nice that you have the time and money to take the second route through college. I wish everyone had that option but they do not. </p>
<p>You’ve admitted it’s a matter of opinion, not of ethics. Of course a student should follow their schools honor code but I still find this rule to be rather silly. </p>
<p>I don’t think of double-dipping as an unfair advantage at all. If anything, the student is missing a learning opportunity. But that should be up to the student as I simply do not see this as an ethical issue at all.</p>
<p>No one answered my previous question. This is in a high school context, but nonetheless. Student is asked to do summer reading and to choose among books A, B and C. Student already read book A for fun, independently, and therefore chooses that book. Unethical? I don’t see it that way at all. To me, this is the same thing. I get that universities have policies against it, which means it’s a violation, but something being a violation doesn’t mean that it’s unethical, any more than something being illegal means that it’s necessarily immoral. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, I’ll clue my kids in to this, good to know, LOL.</p>
<p>Microsoft writes software and “sells” it to millions of customers. And charges every one. And actually they don’t sell it-they license it. Not to mention they bought their first real software and resold it to IBM as their own–the greatest intellectual thievery in history.</p>
<p>Is it against rule to turn the same paper for two classes? If so, then rule should specify penalty. If not, then what is wrong? We at CC have no background to make any decision here. </p>
<p>When kids apply to different schools that reguire tons of various essays, you are saying that they cannot send the same essay to few schools? There is no rule agianst it, there is no punishment for it.</p>
<p>When a student receives a certain number of credits for a class, it seems to me that those credits are saying to the world (in particular, to future employers) that this student has completed a certain amount of work for those credits. If a student turns in the same work for two classes, that student receives more credits without completing more work. That student gains an unfair advantage, compared to the student who does separate work for separate classes.</p>
<p>Which is not to say that there are not situations in which a student may write the same paper for two classes–but the student needs to obtain permission, so that the professors know what the student is doing.</p>
<p>If the practice were spelled out in the honor code or in any of the school policies, the penalties should be in line with the categories that these offenses were placed. If there is no mention of the policy, the penalities should be accordingly lightened, and that would truly depend upon the circumstances. The overburdened, stressed out student excuse is one that I’ve heard for too many years, too many times and rates right down there with “I was holding it for a friend”. </p>
<p>What about recycling old papers? Turn in that 8th grade paper in 10th grade and take your chances. When an assignment is given, it’s not so you can just pluck a paper out of your folio and fulfill the requirements. It’s the learning experience.</p>
<p>I appreciate annikasorrensen’s viewpoint.</p>
<p>In the business situations, it would not make sense to re-generate work that has been done before, because that would be a complete waste of time.</p>
<p>In the academic setting, would it be a complete waste of time to write two different papers for the two different courses, when the assignments are flexible enough that the same paper could work for both? If one sees the college degree merely as a credential to be acquired, then it might be. If a student has a genuine “passion” for learning (as is often claimed or at least suggested on college applications), then it would not be. The student would be learning more by writing two different papers.</p>
<p>In terms of publications in the academic setting: I have published ten times as many papers as some of my younger colleagues have. I don’t make ten times their salaries. I have some older colleagues who have published ten times as many papers as I have. They don’t make ten times my salary.</p>
<p>
Well, maybe. It could also be saying to the world that the student has mastered the subject matter represented by those credits. Also, while it may give the student an advantage over another, what, exactly is “unfair” about it? College classes aren’t a competition, anyway (at least, I don’t think they should be). I continue to think that the student who does this doesn’t cheat anybody but himself. But maybe that’s reason enough to have a rule against it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Life’s not fair. The student whose parent is a history professor has an unfair advantage in history class compared to the student whose parent is a janitor. The student who has a parent from Paris has an unfair advantage in French class compared to the student who doesn’t. The student whose family collects Picassos has an unfair advantage in art history class. Etc.</p>
<p>I’m actually surprised by the comments here. I would have thought that there would be almost universal acceptance of the idea that double submission is some sort of academic dishonesty.</p>
<p>I’m gonna use a bad metaphor here. There’s a reason why bodybuilders do more than one ‘set’ of a specific exercise, and do more than one particular type of each exercise for a particular muscle group. One set of one particular exercise is not enough ‘stimulus’ or ‘work’ for the muscle to grow.</p>
<p>Likewise, if you are taking 4 classes that semester, and hand in one paper for all four classes, that one paper is not enough ‘stimulus’ or ‘work’ for your intellect to grow. It may be more efficient to hand in one paper for all four classes, but the process of becoming educated is not an efficient one.</p>
<p>Likewise, in math, almost no problem set involves just 1 problem to cover a specific concept. Let’s say you’ve just taught about determining the slope of a line. You don’t give just one problem about that. </p>
<p>It would be more ‘efficient’ to have just one problem for each concept. But you don’t learn as deeply.</p>
<p>The same is true for learning how to generate ideas, support those ideas logically, and write up those ideas so they are clear for readers. It has to be done multiple times for someone to acquire these abilities well.</p>
<p>Why must what happens in education always be compared to what happens in business?</p>
<p>I think some schools have policies against self-plagiarism; i think you’re suppose to cite yourself. </p>
<p>It appears the student knew this, or else I don’t know what they think they’re accepting responsibility or making excuses for…</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>If you had to do the same math problem in a physics and calculus course, would you use the same answer?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t see the dishonesty in it, if it’s the student’s own work. Dishonesty to me is, well, cheating, or paying someone else to do the work for you.</p>
<p>
If you don’t think higher education is a business, try not paying your tuition bill and see what happens. </p>
<p>If the school really wants to work the student’s mental musculature, it should assign specific topics that take the student out of their comfort zone, not let them write on whatever they want. What a student chooses to take out of their education is really up to them. </p>
<p>It’s a rule and students have to follow it. But let’s not get all “pie in the sky” about this. THe reason for this rule is grading, not learning. If nobody cared about grades there would be absolutely no reason for a rule like this. And the primary reason students care about grades is to get into graduate school, or medical school, or get a good job. Students can stretch their cognitive biceps and get Fs. Or attend a school like UC Santa Cruz used to be, where nobody got grades. But nobody does.</p>
<p>I’ve had students ask me for permission to revise or expand on a paper they did for a previous class. I’ve generally granted it, on the condition that they also submit the original paper so I can see how much additional work they’ve put into the revised version. My view is, sometimes you’ve got a great original thought that is worth carrying a step further, and you should get credit for the work you do to carry it to that next level. But if I got a paper that was identical to a paper previously submitted for credit in another class, I’d say that student did exactly no work on the paper for my class, and deserved exactly zero credit for that second submission of the paper. It would be unfair to the other students for me to give that student a second round of credit when she hadn’t done any work for the class. And that’s completely apart from what the honor code or any other code of academic conduct may say about it. </p>
<p>If the student changed the original paper only 10%, I’d give credit for the 10% that was changed; if 45%, then credit for that, and so on. Not to say that a student who changed a paper 45% couldn’t get an A; as always, it depends on the quality of the work, not the sheer volume. The problem in my view isn’t resubmission per se; it’s resubmission without notifying and securing the permission of the professor, and having a clear understanding about what’s expected for the class.</p>
<p>If the student were seeking credit for the same paper in two classes simultaneously, I’d at least discuss it with the other professor. I’ve never been called upon to do this, but my inclination would be to say that double credit for a single paper would be OK as long as the subject matter matched up well to what was expected in both courses, and as long as the double-dipping work product were substantially greater than would ordinarily be required in either course. Not necessarily twice as long, because again the goal is quality, not sheer volume; but substantially double the effort as defined by the scope and ambition of the project.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I completely disagree. It’s not a question of students being “in their comfort zone” or being able to “write on whatever they want.” Sometimes two courses come at some of the same material from different angles. A philosophy major, for example, might come across Descartes’ famous “cogito” argument multiple times, e.g., in a course on the history of philosophy, a course on epistemology, and a course on philosophy of mind. In a quality philosophy course, the professor won’t just hand students a “canned” topic, or even let them choose from a pre-selected menu of topics. Part of the intellectual challenge in the discipline is to come up with a good and original topic, in this case one that sheds new light on old and familiar work. And the grade that is awarded on the paper is in part a grade on the identification and selection of topic and the framing of the issue. If the student were to submit the same paper for all three courses without first securing the permission of the instructor, it’s a fraud on the academic process. It’s not “stealing,” exactly, but it’s fraudulently misrepresenting as original work something that is NOT original work, at least not in the context in which it’s presented. The student who gets A’s in all three courses should earn it on the strength of three original topics, three original arguments, and three original work products, not one. On the other hand, if the student first writes a paper on Descartes for her history of philosophy class, and then comes to her epistemology professor and says, “I wrote this paper on Descartes for my history of philosophy class, and it advanced this interesting and original argument that I’d like to have the opportunity to develop further in this direction; would that be OK as my paper for this class?” I can’t imagine any philosophy professor would turn down such a request, as long as the proposed additional work was substantial and original and meritorious in its own right. But no professor I know would ever knowingly give permission for that student simply to double-dip on the work that had already been done for credit in the previous class, by re-submitting the identical paper. That much just seems obvious. And although I don’t recall the question ever having come up in my own undergraduate days, lo these many years ago, I’m quite certain it would have been considered highly improper—a species of cheating—for a student to double-dip without the professor’s knowledge or consent even back in the 1970s.</p>
<p>Wow, I had no idea this was against any rules. I did this all the time. I used to pick my classes so that I’d only have to write one paper. I had one paper that I used for four classes. Since I was working full time and going to class in between mid shifts, I thought that writing one paper that would fit two or three classes was good time management. The one paper I wote was on U.S. policy in China and it worked for classes in pol sci, history of U S foriegn policy, politics and history of Asia and one other China/U S history or pol sci. This was mid 1990s and it never occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong. I was just trying to get more sleep in between work and classes.</p>