Part II: Writing and Submitting Your Manuscript
What’s Right and Fair
Ethical Issues in Research and Writing
A number of ethical issues can arise during the academic research, writing, and publishing process. These include plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of data, conflicts of interest, confidentiality, treatment of human subjects and animals in research, and authorship issues.
If you are a student or faculty member of the University of Colorado, you may want to review the academic policy on Misconduct in Research and Authorship, as well as the Honor Code for students.
Both of these statements address issues of plagiarism and other breaches in academic honesty.
According to the Misconduct policy, the penalties for violation can be severe:
If misconduct in research is found to have occurred, responsible faculty, staff, students, or administrators may be faced with a range of appropriate sanctions, from warning to dismissal.
Check Your Ethical IQ: True or False?
1. As long as you paraphrase an idea from an original source and give credit, you are not plagiarizing.
Feedback for the statement 1 will appear here after you make a choice.
2. It’s OK to use copyrighted material in your manuscript as long as you cite the source.
Feedback for the statement 2 will appear here after you make a choice.
3. It’s OK to submit your manuscript to more than one journal at the same time, or to submit it to a second one if the first one hasn’t responded for a really long time.
Feedback for the statement 3 will appear here after you make a choice.
4. It’s OK to divide up your research study into very small segments and send them off as separate articles to different publishers.
Feedback for the statement 4 will appear here after you make a choice.
5. It’s OK to discuss an article you are refereeing with a colleague.
Feedback for the statement 5 will appear here after you make a choice.
The academic researcher and writer must be very careful to avoid ethical violations throughout the research and publication process. The Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) has published a very helpful document, "Guidelines on Good Publication Practice," , that assists researchers, editors, and authors in identifying and avoiding ethical pitfalls.
7 Beth Luey, "The Librarian’s Role in Teaching Academic Authors about Publishing Procedures and Ethics," Serials Review 22, no.1 (spring 1996), <http://search.epnet.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&an=9608072823> (16 January 2006).
8 Ibid.

