Marketing articles: duplicate content issue?

I wonder your opinion, guys, about submitting the same article to different article directories. As usual, it's a lot of pros and cons on the web about this issue regarding if it can be treated as duplicate content by SE's or not, if it will benefit you or not. One thing I am sure is that you mustn't have the same article on your own website. But if I give it around to 5-10 biggest directories (exactly the same article), will it make more input to my PR and rankings than submitting just to one article directory?

Thanks in advance.