As Nelson Dometrius's opening essay suggests, academic standards,like other occupational standards and practices, change over time.These changes may draw fire from both established and youngerscholars trained in the classical tradition. Shifting norms inpolitical science range from different publication standards overtime (few would doubt that the number of publications required fortenure has increased in most schools), to changing ideas aboutjournal quality, to different conference practices. In this essay, Iargue that the increasingly common practice of presenting identicalpapers at multiple conferences is not a negative influence on thediscipline and does not conflict with any of the commonly offeredrationales for conference attendance and participation. In fact, Isuggest that making changes to existing papers—presenting futureversions of a paper—may produce a more focused research agenda andmay battle some potentially negative trends in political science. Ialso argue that this practice is a rational and predictableoutgrowth of the shifting academic incentive structure.Thanks to Nelson Dometrius, ToddCollins, Gibbs Knotts, and Niall Michelsen for helpful commentson an earlier draft of this paper.