A Guide to Ethical Writing (Essay Sample)

Name:
Instructor:
Course:
Date:
A guide to ethical writing: Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices.
Plagiarism may occur where a person heavily borrows from one source and fails to give due credit to that source. Also, one may adopt another person’s ideas and try to pass them off as their own. This can be avoided by ensuring one gives the relevant footnote or reference citation. Another subtle way of plagiarism is whereby a person unconsciously copies something they had seen earlier, but they mistakenly believe it to be original. This happens often due to the free and frequent exchange of ideas. Also when it surfaces in a person’s conscience in a different context from the one they first heard it in. In this way, it may lead to the original author missing out on their due credit(Roig 300).
Another situation is whereby some unscrupulous scientists have intentionally stolen ideas. They may be carrying out a peer review of their colleagues and borrow ideas from the unpublished material. In some cases, the paper they are reviewing fails to obtain funding. They then adopt those ideas and craft a grant proposal in case they are carrying out a similar research. They then submit it to a different funding agency and present it as their original work (Roig 296).
Authors should take caution when they borrow heavily from one source. They should ensure that it is clear to their readers which ideas are theirs and which ones they sourced from their research. In case one is not sure of whether a given fact is common knowledge or not, there should provide a citation for it. An ethical writer should ensure that when they quote from sources that provide conflicting information that they inform their readers. This is to avoid confusing their readers.
Another case is whereby one copies another person’s work verbatim. The accepted practice is to enclose the text in quotation marks and also to cite the works and give the page number as well.
According to Garfinkel, the concept of self-plagiarism is a bit confusing. It is whereby a person cites their work. The author should give credit to all the co-authors especially in academic articles as rarely are they published by individuals. In spite of this, one should avoid excessive re-use of text as it would mean copyright violation. This is to ensure that published content is original. Self-citation is allowed to some small extent but it should not be overdone. To circumvent this problem, some data is held in the public domain.Thisdata can be used by anyone. The person will not be accused of plagiarism provided they publish their results under a given license. However, when figures are reused there should be a proper citation for them.
By following the above-mentioned guidelines, authors will ensure they use an ethical approach when it comes to writing. It will also ensure there is order in the publishing world. It will also curb the rising cases of stealing of ideas from the original owners. These strict measures will ensure the quality of published works. This will curb on recurrent use of text and instead encoura...