TOPIC: ETHICS IN ACADEMIC WRITING AND
PUBLISHING
TOPIC: ETHICS IN ACADEMIC WRITING AND PUBLISHING
COURSE TITLE: ENGLISH FOR ACADEMIC AND
PUBLICATION
COURSE CODE: ENG 8113
AN ASSIGNMENT SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF
ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE
REQUIREMENTS OF M.A ENGLISH
IN
AJAYI CROWTHER UNIVERSITY, OYO
MARCH 25, 2021
LECTURER IN CHARGE: PROFESSOR AYODABO
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1.0
Introduction………………………………………………………………………..
2
2.0
Definition of an academic…………………………………………………………
2
2.1
Definition of ethics …………..…………………………………………………….
2
2.2
Ethical Practices……………………………………………………………………
3
2.3
Unethical Practices…………………………………………………….…………..
3
3.0
Plagiarism…………………………………………………………………………..
3
3.1
Types of a Plagiarist………………………………………………………………..
5
3.2
Image Manipulation, Fabrication and Falsification …………………………….....
6
3.3
Duplicate and redundant publication………………………………………….…..
7
3.4
Human rights, privacy, and confidentiality…………………………………….…
8
3.5
Authorship………………………………………………………………………..
8
3.6
Libel and defamation………………………………………………………………
9
3.7
Conflicts of interest………………………………………………………………..
9
3.8
Salami Slicing………………………………………………………………………
10
3.9
Tutoring and Professional help……………………….…………………………..
10
4.0
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………
12
References…………………………………………………………………………
13
1
1.0
INTRODUCTION
This paper views the issue of ethics of academic writing and publishing in two ways: ethical
practices and unethical practices. In a bid to do justice to the topic, some definition of terms will
be stated after which focus will be on the following areas: reliable sources, plagiarism, fabrication
and falsification of data, image manipulation, duplicate and redundant publication, text recycling,
human rights, privacy, and confidentiality, authorship, among others but also proffered solutions
to avoiding them.
2.0
DEFINITION OF AN ACADEMIC
According to Collins Dictionary (2021), “an academic is used to describe things that relate to the
work done in schools, colleges, and universities, especially work which involves studying and
reasoning rather than practical or technical skills. In an article published on the website of
University of Leeds, Leeds (2021), academic writing is referred to as a writing that is “clear,
concise, focused, structured and backed up by evidence. It has a formal tone and style, but it is not
complex and does not require the use of long sentences and complicated vocabulary.”
Agunloye O. O (2019) emphasizes that “responsible, respectable, and successful engagement in
research and scholarship in academia requires adherence to certain basic professional ethical
principles to sustain the fidelity of academic work and the integrity of the researcherscholar.”Notwithstanding the intention of the research, human factors cannot be undermined.
Hence, researchers must bear in mind ethical principles in research and scholarship
2.1
DEFINITION OF ETHICS
For the purpose of this paper, we shall employ the definition by Agunloye O. O (2019) who states
that ethics is a value-laden judgment about actions, the rules guiding the actions, and the
appropriate choices of reasonable steps to take. Ethics in research require the identification and
reasonable resolution of these value-laden actions and the judgements to be made before, during,
and after the research-scholarship process.
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2.2
ETHICAL PRACTICES
In research, there are lots of steps to undertake to emerge successful. A credible research requires
extensive and intensive reading to be able to turn out a quality work. In a bid to do that, credible
sources must be consulted. Evergreen materials (Bible, Qur’an, Plato, Aristotle, Shakespeare, and
so on) are part of the list of credible sources to be consulted. Similarly, sites like Google Scholar,
highly respected journals and archives can be employed to produce quality works.
2.3
UNETHICAL PRACTICES
In recent times, it can be argued that due to the availability of personal computers, smart phones
and access to internet there has been widespread dissemination of scholarly works hurriedly
prepared, poorly drafted and even illegitimate publications. Sadly, these bring about dire
consequences in the academic environment.
3.0
PLAGIARISM
Cambridge University Press (2020) defines plagiarism as “using someone else’s ideas, words, data,
or other material produced by them without acknowledgement’. Plagiarism can occur in respect to
all types of sources and media, including:
i.
text, illustrations, musical quotations, extended mathematical derivations, computer code,
etc.;
ii.
material downloaded from websites or drawn from manuscripts or other media;
iii.
published and unpublished material, including lectures, presentations and grey literature.”
“Plagiarism may not be a deliberate act but an oversight. Still, it is a significant violation of
truthfulness and involves stealing intellectual property or taking credit for other individuals’ work”
(Berg, 1990; Berk, 1991; King et al., 1997; Malone, 1998; Rogers, 1993). Borrowing all or part of
another student’s paper or using paper-writing service or having a friend write a paper on your
behalf is a form of plagiarism.”To avoid plagiarism, there are some cues to take.
3
In the paper of International Journal of Advances in Engineering & Technology (2021) it mentions
that to avoid plagiarism, “improve paraphrasing and summarizing skills”. Begin summary with a
statement giving credit to the source: According to Rajan et.al.l, put any unique words or phrases
that you cannot change, or do not want to change, in quotation marks: ... “Fast, fair and constructive
peer review" exist throughout our journal management system …”
Besides, if one is to quote directly, “the person’s name must be near the quote in the notes, and in
the paper, those direct quotes that make the most impact in the paper should be selected-- too many
direct quotes may lessen credibility and interfere with the style. The person’s name may appear at
the beginning, middle, or the end the quote. Indicate added phrases in brackets ([ ]) and omitted
text with ellipses (. . .).” Whereas when it comes to quoting indirectly, take note of rewriting “using
different words and sentence structures than the original text and be sure the “new words and
sentence structures are different than the original text.”
Asides the above, when in doubt of committing plagiarism, “ask if the material is common
knowledge.” Common knowledge according to that paper is if “the same information is found
undocumented in at least five other sources, it is presumed as information the readers will already
know” or the author believes the information can be “found with general reference sources.”
To guide against plagiarism, manuscripts are screened for duplicated text and possible plagiarism
using Crosscheck, Turnitin (http://turnitin.com/) or Ithenticate (http://ithenticate.com/).
3.1
TYPES OF A PLAGIARIST
According to the paper of International Journal of Advances in Engineering & Technology (2021),
the following are types of a plagiarist.
1. A Ghost Writer is one who turns in another’s work, word-for-word, as his or her own.
2. The Potluck Paper tries to disguise plagiarism by copying from several different sources,
tweaking the sentences to make them fit together while retaining most of the original
phrasing.
4
3. The Labor of Laziness is a writer that takes time to paraphrase most of the paper from other
sources and make it all fit together, instead of spending the same effort on original work.
4. The Self-Stealer “borrows” generously from his or her previous work, thereby violating
policies concerning the expectation of originality adopted by most academic institutions.
5. The Forgotten Footnote is the writer that mentions an author’s name for a source, but
neglects to include specific information on the location of the material referenced. This
often masks other forms of plagiarism by obscuring source locations.
6. The Misinformer writer provides inaccurate information regarding the sources, making it
impossible to find them.
7. The Too-Perfect Paraphrase writer properly cites a source, but neglects to put in
quotation marks text that has been copied word-for-word, or close to it. Although
attributing the basic ideas to the source, the writer is falsely claiming original
presentation and interpretation of the information.
8. The Resourceful Citer properly cites all sources, paraphrasing and using quotations
appropriately. Sadly, the paper contains almost no original work. It is sometimes
difficult to spot this form of plagiarism because it looks like any other well researched
document.
The above list should identify and guide against the crime of plagiarism to avoid debasement or
embarrassment.
3.2
IMAGE MANIPULATION, FABRICATION AND FALSIFICATION
Leonard (2006) “Researchers who manipulate their data in ways that deceive others are violating
both the basic values and widely accepted professional standards”. They mislead their
colleagues, impede progress in their field or research and undermine their own authority and
trustworthiness as researchers. Misleading data can also arise from poor experimental design or
careless measurements as well as from improper manipulation.
5
In the guidelines provided by Wiley publications (2014), it suggests that “changes to images can
create misleading results when research data are collected as images. Thus, inappropriate image
manipulation is one form of fabrication or falsification that journals can identify. It may, however,
be legitimate and even necessary to edit images. For example, the selective enlargement of part of
an artwork may be needed to reveal features that would not otherwise be visible, and editing of
video data may be needed to protect the privacy of participants.” In order to avoid rejection of
one’s research or face any other penalty, the guidelines made available by Wiley publications
(2014), suggests some of the following.
I.
II.
Journals ask authors to declare where manipulations have been made.
Journals explain in their instructions for authors what should be added and taken away
from an image during submission.
III.
Modifications or manipulations to an image are only acceptable if they apply equally across
the entire image and as long as they do not obscure, eliminate, or misrepresent any
information present in the information originally captured.
Leonard (2006) in his paper emphasizes that data fabrication and falsification - often go hand in
hand. Fabrication is making up data or results and recording or reporting them while falsification
is manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results
such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record.
Agunloye, O. O. (2019) posits that “a researcher should report the details of the methods used in
the data collection and analysis, as accurately as possible. This is important for the purposes of
replicating the study, establishing its fidelity and validity. Any assumptions made in the data
collection and analysis processes must be clearly stated and explained. The basis and suitability of
any statistical analysis methods used must be clearly and reasonably justified and should align
with the intent of the research.”
3.3
DUPLICATE AND REDUNDANT PUBLICATION
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Cambridge University Press (2020)states that “duplicate or redundant publication, or ‘selfplagiarism’, occurs when a work, or substantial parts of a work, is published more than once by
the author(s) of the work without appropriate cross-referencing or justification for the overlap.” In
the guidelines provided by Wiley publications (2014), the working definition for duplicate or
redundant publication is that “authors must avoid duplicate publication, which is reproducing
verbatim content from their other publications.”
”Copyright transfer Agreement, Exclusive License Agreement or the open Access Agreement are
part of the processes to help avoid duplicate and redundant publication. It must be noted that one
of them must be submitted before publication and it requires signature from the corresponding
author to warrant that the article is an original work, has not been published before, and is not
being considered for publication elsewhere in its final form.” It can also be found in Wiley’s
guidelines 2014 the under listed.
I.
Any previously published results, including numerical information and figures or images,
must be labeled clearly where they were previously reported.
II.
Papers that present new analyses of results that have already been published should identify
the primary data source, and include a full reference to the related primary publications
III.
Abstracts and posters presented during sessions at conferences.
IV.
Results in databases and clinical trials registries (data without interpretation, discussion,
context or conclusions in the form of tables and text to describe data/ information).
V.
3.4
Dissertations and theses in university archives.
HUMAN RIGHTS, PRIVACY, AND CONFIDENTIALITY
Agunloye O. O (2019), records that “research involving human subjects is one of the most ethically
regulated and contentious in the spheres of research and scholarship. This should be no surprise
given the horrible historical and contextual experiences of research studies involving human
subjects. Research studies conducted on human subjects in Nazi concentration camps during the
7
Second World War (WWII) and the Milgrams’ Obedience to Authority Study (McLeod, 2007)
highlight the degree of harm researchers can inflict on captive subjects. In the Tuskegee Study on
unsuspecting black males, in Tuskegee Alabama (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2013),
researchers did not reveal all the facts about the experiment to participants for informed consent
and the serious health harm caused by the experiment was not adequately treated. These are just
few examples of ethical malfeasance in research in the medical and biological sciences. In the
social and behavioral sciences, landmark research studies such as: Humphrey’s Tearoom Trade
Studies (DuBois, 2008) where he pretended and embedded himself among the research participants
without disclosing his researcher role thus, breaching their privacy and confidentiality. Watson’s
Little Albert experiment (Watson & Rayner, 1920) did not protect Albert since the procedure
subjected him to fear. The Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, Maslach, & Haney,
2012), also brought out the risks of physical and psychological damage associated unguarded
studies involving human subjects who were prisoners at the mercy of the guards. The intensity
and fidelity of ethical considerations which go into a research-scholarship process depends on the
research typology.”
In the guidelines provided by Wiley publications (2014), it advises that “journals require authors
to provide a statement identifying the ethics committee that approved the study, and that the study
conforms to recognized standards. For example: Declaration of Helsinki, US Federal Policy for
the Protection of Human Subjects, and so on. These standards encourage authors to conduct studies
in a way that ensures adequate steps have been taken to minimize harm to participants, to avoid
coercion or exploitation, to protect confidentiality, and to minimize the risk of physical and
psychological harm.”
3.5
AUTHORSHIP
In an article written by King C. R (2003), she states that issues tend to arise when writing a
manuscript with multiple authors. Authorship disagreements can lead to embarrassment, anger,
8
animosity, bitterness, wrecked friendships, and destruction of professional relationships and,
ultimately, can damage careers. She also added that an author can be regarded as one if such a
person has “participated sufficiently in the work to take public responsibility for it. Authorship
credit should be based only on substantial contributions to: a) conception and design, or analysis
and interpretation of data; b) drafting the article or revising it critically for important intellectual
content; and on c) final approval of the version to be published.”
3.6
LIBEL AND DEFAMATION
In the guidelines provided by Wiley publications (2014), it states that “editors should be alert to
language in both submitted manuscripts and also in peer review reports or correspondence which
could give rise to legal action for defamation or negligent misstatement. Such language, which
can be directed at corporate entities and associations as well as individuals, should not appear
within published articles and should be removed from any peer review report or correspondence
that is passed on to the author.”
3.7
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
In the guidelines submitted by Wiley publications (2014), it advises that “editors, authors, and peer
reviewers should disclose interests that might appear to affect their ability to present or review
work objectively. These might include relevant financial interests (for example, patent ownership,
stock ownership, consultancies, or speaker’s fees), or intellectual, personal, political, or religious
interests.”As per intellectual conflict of interest, (Blancett, 1993) affirms that it “includes situations
in which general knowledge may contradict what is reported. For example, most authors cite
references supporting their work, but some may either incorrectly cite the references or the
references do not adequately support their point. To help prevent intellectual conflict of interest,
authors are asked to indicate to the editor whether they have published the same or a substantially
similar manuscript in another book or journal.”King C. R (2003) asserts that “although
investigators in most instances acknowledge support, the question of the integrity of the results
9
remains. Individuals who receive such support should be careful that their actions not be seen as
promoting a particular product.”
3.8
SALAMI SLICING
Abraham P (2000) affirms that the “slicing” of research that would form one meaningful paper
into several different papers is called "salami publication" or "salami slicing". Unlike duplicate
publication, which involves reporting the exact same data in two or more publications, salami
slicing involves breaking up or segmenting a large study into two or more publications. These
segments are referred to as "slices" of a study. As a general rule, as long as the "slices" of a broken
up study share the same hypotheses, population, and methods, this is not acceptable practice. The
same "slice" should never be published more than once.”
According to the U.S. Office of Research Integrity (2017), “salami slicing can result in a distortion
of the literature by leading unsuspecting readers to believe that data presented in each salami slice
(i.e., journal article) is derived from a different subject sample. This not only skews the "scientific
database" but it creates repetition that wastes readers' time as well as the time of editors and
reviewers, who must handle each paper separately. Furthermore, it unfairly inflates the author's
citation record.
There are instances where data from large clinical trials and epidemiological studies cannot be
published simultaneously, or are such that they address different and distinct questions with
multiple and unrelated endpoints. In these cases, it is legitimate to describe important outcomes of
the studies separately. However each paper should clearly define its hypothesis and be presented
as one section of a much larger study.”
3.9
TUTORING AND PROFESSIONAL HELP
Eun Young (2017) affirms that “many universities in North America have a writing center where
students with writing assignments can go to receive peer assistance/mentoring.” “Between the late
1970s and early 80s,” as Hobson (2001) reports, “writing courses dealt with writing (e.g.,
invention, drafting, revision, development of authors’ voices, etc.) while writing center staff were
10
allocated the demanding and ethically questionable task of ‘cleaning up’ writers’ editing skills, of
eradicating minority dialects...and of ‘dealing with’ non-native writers (155–166).
On the other hand, studies of current writing center tutorials point to a shift in focus.” For instance,
according to Blau et al.(2002), “tutors are consistently advised to be collaborative and nondirective, to avoid proofreading and deal with higher-order concerns (HOCs) of focus,
organization, and development before lower-order concerns (LOCs) of grammar and mechanics,
no matter whom they are tutoring. Interestingly, tutors in the same article reported that they often
were sucked down into line-editing and felt guilty about their tutoring session interactions at times.
This difficulty in drawing the line between collaboration and collusion is explored by several
authors, for example, Barrett and Cox (2010) and Sutton and Taylor 2010.“
Eun Young (2017) further mentions that “while a number of studies have dealt with what to focus
on in writing center tutorials for ESL students, few studies have approached them from the
perspective of ethics. The above studies highlight a need for a tool to establish boundaries in tutors’
use of directive assistance.”
4.0
CONCLUSION
In this paper, we have succeeded in explaining key terms relevant to the topic “Ethics in Academic
writing and publishing”. In the process, the areas touched include academic, academic writing,
academic publishing and ethics, plagiarism, image manipulation, fabrication and falsification of
data, duplicate and redundant publication, human rights, privacy, and confidentiality, authorship,
salami slicing and tutoring and professional help.
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