<p>Interesting piece. I see nothing wrong with it. Would a student have a case if a school objected?</p>
<p>I agree with you and the author. I see nothing wrong with it, either. In fact, I did it with a Faulkner paper when I was in college. I did the research, I did the thinking, I did the writing - what’s the problem?</p>
<p>It’s called double submission, and undisclosed to the assigning faculty, it is a form of academic dishonesty. Lot’s of people do it. In the work place, it’s common and no big deal to copy yourself or resubmit work, but in a school setting it is inappropriate. </p>
<p>Now, if you disclose it, and the faculty are fine with it, go ahead.</p>
<p>This has been a topic on cc before, and I was surprised how many people said it was unethical. I mean, if a school has a rule against it, don’t do it. It just never occurred to me that there would be a rule against it. I agree with The Ethicist on principle, but think he should have cautioned others to check their school’s policies.</p>
<p>In most of the college classes I took, double submission was forbidden. I once was supposed to write a paper and give a presentation on a subject I had already extensively researched, and I asked if I could write a new paper combining my previous research with new research as well, and the prof ended up making me write about a completely different topic so there was no way I could use previous research. In hindsight I kind of wish I’d just done it without asking. But I suppose if I could use previous research, in effect I had more time to complete the assignment than everyone else which wouldn’t have been fair.</p>
<p>
You also wouldn’t have learned as much by doing the double submission and some would argue that learning is the primary point of going to college in the first place.</p>
<p>Doing a double submission is like skipping an assignment and defeats the purpose of the assignment which isn’t really to provide a paper on something but rather, to learn/practice something.</p>
<p>I actually suggested to my hs DS that he re-use a paper for a class this year, with a few tweaks. He looked at me in horror and told me that he would be flunked for that, because it would be considered plagiarism…</p>
<p>I can actually see some benefit. I think that learning to generalize or, on the other side of the coin, to make more specific is/are very valuable tools for the real world. To be able to take two questions and develop one answer, or to take an answer and adapt it to another situation are skills worth learning. They are other ways of not compartmentalizing information, which I see happening all too often.</p>
<p>I think it is perfectly “ethical” IF the student went to the professor and said, “I have a great paper that I already wrote on this subject. Would you mind if I handed it in for this course?” After all, if it is ethical, he has nothing to hide, right?</p>
<p>Sometimes ethics don’t have much to do with rules.</p>
<p>For schools or instructors that use plagiarism software such as turnitin.com, my D was informed that a double submission could cause the second one to be flagged as plagiarism whether in whole or part since the first was already in their data base.</p>
<p>My D’s college code says students cannot represent work completed for one course as original work for another. So, if like mini suggested, they tell the professor they are using an old paper, and get it approved…
highly doubtful.</p>
<p>Oh, I’m not all that concerned about whether it is approved, but whether it is ethical. If you have absolutely no qualms about actually asking, then you don’t have to ask, as you think it is ethical. If asking makes you uncomfortable, you have your answer in advance.</p>
<p>Authorities may approve all kinds of things that are unethical. Rules and ethics are not the same thing (something they tend not to want to teach in school…)</p>
<p>I did submit the same paper to two classes–WITH PERMISSION–a couple of times in college. I didn’t re-submit a paper I’d already written; I selected a topic that was appropriate to both classes, secured the professors’ permissions in advance, and then wrote a paper that I submitted for both classes. </p>
<p>(Oddly enough, although I distinctly remember doing this, I can’t for the life of me retrieve the courses, the topics, or how I fared on the papers. I seem to recall my “Biology and Women’s Issues” class was involved in one of these scenarios…perhaps the other class was some kind of psychology class (I took a lot of those)…but I just can’t think what the paper would have been about.)</p>
<p>At my school, it was specifically stated that this was not allowed unless permission was requested from and given by the professor giving the assignment.</p>
<p>I don’t see what’s wrong with it. I’ve never just flat-out turned in a paper for more than one class, because I try to tailor my papers to classes, but I do draw very heavily from previous papers. Why should I do all the research again? Many of my classes junior and senior year were heavily focused on the same very specific topic. One of my interests, maternal health in Afghanistan, just frankly does not have a lot written about it. I think I’ve pretty much summed up all the major studies done in my last few papers and why should I rewrite the exact same paragraphs? </p>
<p>I will never understand how someone can plagiarize their own work.</p>
<p>With that said, I would obviously not do anything expressly prohibited by the prof or school. I <em>can</em> see how it’s cheating yourself out of exploring another topic but I don’t think that it’s cheating in general.</p>
<p>Scholars draw from their own work all the time, and revise their thinking as they go. In fact, that’s how knowledge progresses. But the key is that’s a recipe for more work, not less. </p>
<p>The ethics are involved if one is using the opportunity to avoid work, rather challenge your own thinking. And I think the student, if s/he is an ethical person, as ability to judge that for him/herself, regardless of the college’s rules, or the professor’s permission. If you’d feel uneasy about asking for the permission, you already know it’s not the right thing to do (regardless of how the professor answers.)</p>
<p>If I can plagiarize my own work, it’s really a very small step to plagiarizing someone else’s.</p>
<p>There’s a similar difficult in academia for professors submitting the same paper to different conferences or different journals (under a different title). The rule of thumb is apparently that you should not reuse more than 25% of the content across two papers.</p>
<p>The university where I teach has a list of academic integrity rules and submitting the same or similar paper in two courses without prior permission from the course instructors is under the category of CHEATING. I think this kind of policy can be found in the academic regulations of most colleges and universities these days. Rarely, I am asked for permission to write paper on a VERY DIFFERENT aspect of a topic than is being written about in another course, and the papers would not have much overlap or reduction of work. I have approved that, but would never accept a paper that was the same or largely the same. I believe grades and credits should be earned.</p>
<p>I agree that if there is a rule against it, it is cheating. If there is no written rule against it, it’s probably still a good idea to ask both professors. They might like the idea of one paper for two classes, if they are related–but they might ask for a longer paper. They might not like the idea, and if you do it without asking, they may downgrade you if they find out, even if there is no specific rule against it.</p>
<p>But it’s not plagiarism, any more than it is arson.</p>
<p>I have repurposed a paper before. We did a paper in HS on Locke and Rousseau for Government. In Composition and Rhetoric I, we were required to write a comparison/contrast. I showed my previous paper to my professor and asked if I could use the material. It was already in almost exactly the form I needed, so not much editing would be required. She was thrilled. It was a small assignment. She was happy that I had remembered the paper and identified it quickly as a comparison/contrast and had no problem with my using it in her class…but I DID ask first. Got an A. :)</p>