Hi everyone,

I'm attending two conferences on similar topics this summer. I wrote a seperate paper for each one, with about 50% overlap. However, the reviewers of the first one recommended a re-write because I was trying to cover too many topics. So I figured: alright, I'll just use what I submitted to the other one. So now there's a 95% overlap. However, I noticed, upon submitting that I was agreeing to not submitting the paper to any other conferences. Any opinions on how much paper #1 should differ from paper #2? What are the ethics on recycling? Technically, I could redo aspects of one of them in the next 24 hours (before it's due) but I'm really not keen on that! There will be about 10 conference attendees in common. Thanks in advance.

-Baldy

Difficult one. How much can you use/present the same data, but take a different angle on it? A different focus that will give you slightly different conclusion? I think overlap to some degree is acceptable, 95% sounds a little high, in my opinion.
good luck...

I presented my work orally at a UK conference back in January of this year. I am due to present the same work and data at an international next month, but this time as a poster.  I declared this to the reviewers of the latter meeting, and they were ok with it. I have submitted an abstract to a conference (being held in August) with an entirely different methodology and data.  To me, it's 'horses for courses', but clarification and honesty to the organisers can save a bit of embarrassment and confusion later. Good luck!  Ginga x.

Thanks for the responses. I forgot to mention that one of the conferences in national; the other international. I'm going to spend the day bringing the common parts down to around 50%. It doesn't help that one of my supervisors thinks it's fine to reuse and the other thinks it's horrific. Gotta love conference papers... :-)