To the editor:

There is a committee on the Rhode Island College campus that is charged with coming up with a policy regarding self-plagiarism. I was extremely surprised at such a possibility so I then checked various dictionaries and conducted a web search, which turned up no such match.

The question is whether or not it is appropriate for students to use the same paper or assignment for two different courses. Some faculty members feel it is not. I say, what difference does it make as long as it was the student's work? The paper should be graded on the quality of the paper relative to the assignment.

I have written articles that were published by The Providence Journal, The Herald News, The Newport Daily News and The Sakonnet Times, all exactly the same. Did I plagiarize myself?

Thanks to Dr. Kane who brought this up at a recent meeting. There should be a policy regarding this. It should be there is no such thing, but I think there will be a policy that is loosely worded to continue to allow professors to penalize students who turn in a similar papers. These professors should make that known at the beginning of the semester. What do you think?

By the way, this article has been submitted to five newspapers . Did I self-plagiarize?

Raymond Ballard

Tiverton