Do Article directories mind if we submit the same article to lets say the top 5 article directories? Would I get penalized in any way if I do so? Or would you recommend only submit to Ezine since it looks like the biggest article directory out there...
Isn't the purpose of writing articles, for the most part, to get them as widely disseminated as possible. As far a some sort of penalty I doubt it. If you write a good article on your own blog or only submit it to one place, what's to prevent perhaps thousands of sites from republishing it.
It is kind of a two edged sword. Write them to get them diseminated and the more they are diseminated the more they are viewed as duplicate content which diminishes their value in search engines because they are viewed as duplicate content. You have to make the call.
I recommend to classify articles into 2 types: articles to be posted only on Your blog and articles to be submitted to various Article Directories. They shouldn't be mixed