# Is it cheating to turn in a paper you did last year for another class this year? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 21, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490 "2011-03-21T18:28:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![overlyverbose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/9dc877/32.png) [@overlyverbose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/overlyverbose)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/21 "2011-03-21T21:23:49Z")
Even if it’s not technically cheating, it’s certainly violating the spirit of the assignment. I second the idea of having your friend check with the prof. I’m pretty sure any one of my former professors would’ve said absolutely not had I asked to hand in a previously-used paper, regardless of whether I wrote it. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/22 "2011-03-21T21:34:48Z")
Interesting. I never would have thought of it as plagiarism, myself. I don’t ever recall using the exact same paper in two different classes, but I’ve almost certainly borrowed themes, topics, and structures from papers written in other classes. I don’t see anything in my alma mater’s academic integrity guide that says anything about plagiarism other than "Plagiarism: submitting material that in part or whole is not entirely one’s own work without attributing those same portions to their correct source. " ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/23 "2011-03-21T21:43:15Z")
> [@PSXer](#): > > my friend wants to know If President Jackson goes along for the ride with the reused essay, it is probably okay. Just be sure he is stapled to the FRONT of the essay, not hidden inside. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/24 "2011-03-21T21:45:12Z")
Former teacher. There is often more to an essay assignment than being able to put ten pages of sensible words together. Anyone, with enough time and a good proofreader, can do that. What matters is what you learn during the process of writing itself. For a composition class, the point is often to practice, practice, practice, until the act of developing and writing an essay becomes so routine that you can spend the rest of your academic career focusing on content and ideas rather than writing in and of itself. Other classes may want you to gain more experience researching and using the library- something that you get better and better at the more you do it… Or they may just use the essay as a way to force you to spend X amount of hours pondering the subject (and reaping the benefits of such contemplation.) It can be a chance to explore or refine your specific interests in a topic. Most research essays expose you to far more material than you ever use in your essay. So your single essay may be about climate change and dinosaurs, but in the process you probably explored all kinds of tangental subjects, which no doubt increase your broader understanding of the field while narrowing down your specific interests. For example, _Nawth Chucka_, you probably know the topic of that single essay pretty well. But how much more would you know if you had chosen to research five different topics? If you had used those papers to talk about climate change in modern times, or prehistoric plants and climate, or whatever, you would actually start building a broad understanding. For your composition classes, you missed out on practices the essential first steps- outlining, researching, etc. Even if you went through a lot of work modifying the paper, you still didn’t get the practice that course meant for you to get at the early stages of a paper. This is important. This is why they don’t just hand you the research or give you someone else’s paper to modify. There is value going through the process. ---
**Author:** ![Giraffe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giraffe/32/129_2.png) [@Giraffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giraffe)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/25 "2011-03-21T21:47:29Z")
If it got an A the first time, then yes. In fact, not only should you turn it in for this class, you should turn it in for every class, even classes like math and gym and stuff. An A is an A. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/26 "2011-03-21T21:58:55Z")
> [@Nawth\_Chucka](#): > > I hope not, I stretched one very in-depth paper into 4 different course assignments over the course of my college career. I edited it every time, though, it wasn’t identical. I turned it into a PowerPoint presentation for a fifth class. This. I used the same paper on non-human primate language acquisition for at least three classes during my undergrad days. ---
**Author:** ![Nawth\_Chucka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c57346/32.png) [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/27 "2011-03-21T22:01:21Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > If it got an A the first time, then yes. In fact, not only should you turn it in for this class, you should turn it in for every class, even classes like math and gym and stuff. An A is an A. For PE - “This is how dinosaurs square danced in the Cretaceous-Tertiary Period! Tail navigation and balance was paramount.” ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/28 "2011-03-21T22:12:11Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > This. I used the same paper on non-human primate language acquisition for at least three classes during my undergrad days. Mine was the impact of disease in military camps during the American Civil War. Version 1.0 (freshman prototype) was for American History the Civil War to Modern times. 2.0 made it’s appearance in History of the U.S. Military. 3.0 was for Disease in History. Version 4.0 was released in a knowledge integration course known History of Science to a professor that actually encouraged me to continue with the material in graduate work. ---
**Author:** ![BlakeTyner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@BlakeTyner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlakeTyner)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/29 "2011-03-21T22:13:29Z")
Whether it’s acceptable or not will be up to the prof. I will say this, though: if you have submitted the essay to [Turnitin.com](http://Turnitin.com) before, and you submit it again, it will be flagged as plagiarism. Normally, we professors can see the originality index and any matches from the internet, but we don’t have access to individual papers. I’d see “100% match, Student Paper, Local College” and that’s it. I could click on that and the website would send the original professor an email asking for permission for me to see the original essay, but that’s generally a longshot. Just FYI. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/30 "2011-03-21T22:47:15Z")
Ask the professor. In fact, ask both professors. “Double-dipping” is generally considered cheating _unless_ it’s done with the instructor’s permission (which you may get, but it’s likely to come with conditions, such as significantly revising or expanding the work). ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/31 "2011-03-21T23:07:56Z")
I always assumed it was ethically wrong. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/32 "2011-03-21T23:16:12Z")
Mine was “Allusions to King Lear in Melville’s MOBY DICK,” turned into my Shakespeare professor and my American Lit professor, who were friends. Nearly got me chucked out of college, too. I thought I was so clever, too, rules-lawyering my college perfectly. ---
**Author:** ![Kolga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e56c9b/32.png) [@Kolga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolga)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/33 "2011-03-21T23:31:16Z")
I will frequently have a conference with one of my English comp colleagues and a student who is enrolled with myself and the colleague in the same semester, about combining the requirements for a paper so that the same paper can fit both classes. The key, of course, is developing a project that adequately satisfied BOTH my requirements and my English comp colleague’s requirements, and that the student develops to our satisfaction. But again, the student must discuss this situation with both of us prior to the completion of the project. ---
**Author:** ![kapri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4491bb/32.png) [@kapri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kapri)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/34 "2011-03-21T23:32:35Z")
Where I teach it’s considered plagiarism. Yes, plagiarizing yourself. Students who are caught doing it may not suffer the same consequences as someone who out-and-out steals someone else’s work, but most likely they will get a 0 for the assignment. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/35 "2011-03-21T23:48:48Z")
This is fascinating. I have to say that in the real world, if I did not use and re-use every bit of work as much as possible, my boss would choose me to pieces for wasting time. ---
**Author:** ![ZenBeam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/3ab097/32.png) [@ZenBeam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZenBeam)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/36 "2011-03-22T00:19:33Z")
> [@Giraffe](#): > > If it got an A the first time, then yes. In fact, not only should you turn it in for this class, you should turn it in for every class, even classes like math and gym and stuff. An A is an A. I like this post. You should use it as a reply in other threads, too. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/37 "2011-03-22T00:21:39Z")
Mine was a 5-pager on Jonas Salk and the polio vaccine. We had open choice of topics for research papers in 11-th grade English, so I researched it, wrote it, got an A on it. The next year my AP Bio teacher assigned us a paper on any bio-related subject of our choice. I added a small amount about the Salk vaccine’s decline in favor of the Sabin vaccine, gave the rest a good polish, and got another A on it. Neither I, my teacher, or my mom (a teacher herself) saw any issue with it. The point of the second assignment wasn’t to hone my research skills, it was to demonstrate a moderately in-depth knowledge of a biology-related topic…which I already had. ---
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/38 "2011-03-22T00:39:14Z")
A few thoughts: I remember learning that it was unacceptable to do this unless you had the permission of BOTH the instructor you want to submit the paper to as well as the instructor you originally submitted it to. I never understood that, especially if you already turned in the original paper. It’s unlikely that your paper is going to “fit” without modifications. I certainly agree that it CAN take less time to modify a paper to fit the new class, though depending on the differences it can easily take longer and/or look so uneven that it reads funny (e.g. you turn in an essay on “How the Civil War Contributed to American Popular Culture”, but half the essay is on tactics used at First Bull Run with occasional digressions to state that such and such reenactment society demonstrated this in such and such a year, because it was based on your essay entitled “Tactics Used at Manassas Turned the Tide of the War.”) There’s the argument over the purpose of a school assignment. If it’s to make you gain more essay writing experience, it’s clearly not appropriate to copy. If it’s to make sure that you know the subject matter of the essay, then it seems a lot more acceptable, in a similar way that some classes can be passed by exam if you already learned the material elsewhere. If the professor wants to confirm that you know the diagnostic criteria and treatment options for schizophrenia by assigning you an essay, then a person who has already written such an essay has already demonstrated the goal. ---
**Author:** ![Gil-Martin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Gil-Martin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gil-Martin)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/39 "2011-03-22T00:46:07Z")
> [@RandMcnally](#): > > I was under the impression that you’re still plagiarizing, you’re just plagiarizing yourself (which is apparently possible). This is the way it is as both the universities I’ve attended. On the other hand, I think it would be all right to expand upon a previous paper. In fact, I’ve been encouraged to do this. However, I would make sure everybody knows exactly what’s going on. Could you get away with quietly recycling a paper? I think so. Could you get in trouble for this if caught? Most likely. Is it unethical, wrong, worthy of damnation? Eh . . . I would hate to impose my morality on you. I would, however, suggest **PSXer’s Friend** is contemplating something dishonest. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490/40 "2011-03-22T00:48:45Z")
> [@Gil-Martin](#): > > Could you get away with quietly recycling a paper? I think so. Could you get in trouble for this if caught? Most likely. Is it unethical, wrong, worthy of damnation? Eh . . . I would hate to impose my morality on you. I would, however, suggest **PSXer’s Friend** is contemplating something dishonest. If I were in this situation I wouldn’t think it was unethical in the least bit. In fact, I find it stupid that I wouldn’t be allowed to do it. But in the end, it really doesn’t matter what I or you (generic you) think, but what the university does. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-cheating-to-turn-in-a-paper-you-did-last-year-for-another-class-this-year/575490.md?page=3)