Is it academic dishonesty for Ben to turn the same paper in twice? What is the best thing for Ben to do in this situation?
Response 1: Yes, it is dishonest for Ben to just turn in the same paper twice. It would be better if he talked to the professor about the assignment, explained that he has already written a paper, and perhaps propose ideas for further developing the paper that might also satisfy the requirements for the current assignment.
Response 2: Penn State policy says approval from an instructor should be gotten first. It is counter-intuitive that you would be cheating with your own work, but the point is to make sure you put in a certain level of effort for each course. As an instructor, I would ask to see Ben's paper, and would more than likely require he do further research to expand on the paper. This would be a great chance for Ben to follow-up more on a topic he was interested in previously.
Response 3: It is common practice for published writers to spend several weeks or months researching a subject and then write several articles on the same subject for publication in a variety of periodicals, using the same base of research material. It is NOT legal to sell the exact same article to more than one publisher unless the party holding the copyright (author) has sold particular rights specifying that the publisher can only publish the article once (reprint rights) and the original copyright holder retains the right to sell the work in its original form to another publisher. Very often a contract will specify a period of time that must pass before the copyright holder can resell the work in this manner.
In this case it is fine for Ben to use the research material he covered in a previous class to complete this assignment but after completion, the assignment must be unrecognizable from the original paper. It is not okay to hand in the same paper for two different classes, even though the work is original. The purpose of education is to build and use skills, so if a student learns a skill and does not actually use it, but depends on work previously done, the full benefit of the knowledge goes untapped. So a student is really only hurting him- or herself in making this choice. At the very least, Ben can use the research material he used for the original paper again, and perhaps the bibliography, but he should rethink the content, structure, and presentation of concepts completely. It might be safest to choose a completely new subject and start from scratch.
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