Well there is never anything better than useful and unique content but it shouldn't harm too much really.
The more times the same article appears anywhere on the internet, the less value the article offers, especially diminished are the links found in or around duplicate content. I'd say that if you have articles that offer real value to the reader, post the article once, on your site, and get other sites to link to it. If the article is of limited interest, rewrite it about 5-10 times and distribute each version to a different site only once.
Do you get dinged for unique content if the article is a shorter version of what is on your site? Like say the first half? And what if you posted it on a few of the big ezine sites would you have the same problem that you stated?
It's likely to be considered duplicate content if you use different sections of the article. Since the Google spider can literally "read" the article, it can quickly identify that the same X number of characters are identical. The best way to use the same content while avoiding "penalties" (the algo basically just dismisses the content, instead of penalizing it) is to change each sentence slightly. Example: "Where to host your website can often be a difficult decision." becomes "Choosing a web host causes headaches for many website owners." It can be time consuming, but you can usually hire a writer to do this for you in these forums. Trust me, it's worth the nominal cost (or effort on your part) because the results are so very much faster.
I would submit a different version of the article or at least wait until the article on your site has been indexed before submitting it.
1. Post the article on your site first. This establishes you as the owner. 2. Submit to ezinearticles second. If ezine searches for your article, and they find it on your site, that is great. 3, Submit the same article to other directories. The more the merrier. How do I know? Cause I asked them. I was concerned about all the stuff you hear about duplicate content etc. I wrote ezinearticles and asked them point blank if I posted the article on my website first, would you consider that duplicate content and reject it on those grounds? Their reply was a big NO. Zeek
Zeek, that's a great bit of initiative on your part. It should be noted, however, that just because ezine doesn't consider it duplicate content, that doesn't necessarily mean that Google doesn't.