Authorship, Academic Integrity, and Ethics

Dr. Heather Blain Vorhieshblain@umd.edu

Office of Writing InitiativesThe Graduate School

5 September 2013

Some Basic Guidelines

Citation provides researchers and scholars with information to verify and build upon knowledge.

As a researcher and a scholar, you are ethically bound to provide in-text citations and references.

Readers’ Ethical Assumptions of Authors (adapted from Harmon and Gross)

• Readers expect that authors did what they say they did (Readers assume no data was fabricated or “lost”).

• Readers assume authors have no conflicts of interest.

• Readers assume authors are not taking credit for others’ work (Others’ work will be correctly paraphrased or directly quoted).

• Readers expect authors to be able to produce relevant data if questioned about their work.

Some Citation Examples from Physical Review D

In-Text Bibliography

Common Knowledge

Be wary of categorizing something as “common knowledge.”

Many concepts and facts you might think of as common knowledge are not.

Even if a piece of information appears in many places (websites, textbooks), it does not mean the information is common knowledge.

The Common Knowledge Test

Identify a concept that you would categorize as common knowledge.

Pull up several recent journal articles on the same concept (at least 3).

Do sentences with this concept include an in-text citation? How about somewhere in the paragraph? Is there an author name? A year?

Carbon is the building block for life.

The A567N52 sequencing chain has been found to impact potassium levels.

Non-attribution

Non-attribution is a serious academic integrity violation.

It happens when a writer does all or any of the following:◦ Does not list the source text in the references and include an

in-text citation.◦ Copies and pastes the source text into a new text.

Never copy and paste text from one source into another unless ◦ 1. The source text is your own and ◦ 2. The source text is unpublished (in any form) and◦ 3. Other authors know that you are copying and pasting from

a previous, unpublished text and ◦ 4. You did not submit the source text for an assignment.

Copying and Pasting

Did you write the original text (the one being copied)?

NoYes

I wrote this for a class

I wrote this

outside of a class

Do not copy and

paste

Do not copy and

paste

It’s been published

It hasn’t been

published

Do not copy and

paste

It was an individual

project

It was a collaborative

project

You may copy and

paste

You may copy and paste ONLY if you have permission to do so from each and every group member

Two Other Kinds of Academic Integrity Violations

Patch-writing Cheating

Patch-writing mimics the wording of the original text; some words may be changed, but the initial sentence structure remains.

Cheating involves (among other things) submitting other’s work as your own.

Patch-Writing

The energy distribution in the detector was expected to give a better discriminant.

Since QCD radiation implies energy-momentum flow, theentire energy distribution in the detector (upon reconstructing and removing X from the list of calorimeter hits) can be expected to provide a superior discriminant compared tojj in an inclusive selection.

Reviewing Your Work for Academic Integrity

• What am I doing in this sentence?

• Am I providing data? Am I referencing another’s work?

• Am I paraphrasing from a text?

• Am I making a comment?

• Am I making an argument or summarizing another’s idea?

• How do I know this information? (Did I personally observe it? Or does it come from another source?)

Some Reminders

Always be explicit when checking if it is ok to use your material elsewhere.◦ “I would like to take the exact wording from pages 41-

43 and insert these sentences into an article I am writing for publication.”

You must have all group members’ explicit permission to use material (writing and figures) elsewhere if the source text is a group document.

Never copy and paste unless specific criteria are met (Refer to the copy and paste flow chart)

Do not patch-write. It is an academic integrity violation.

Always cite your sources.

Some Useful Resources

The Craft of Scientific Communication (Harmon and Gross)

Overview of Common Scholarly Procedures (Duke University)

On Being a Scientist (National Academy of Sciences)

Ethics in Publication (Elsevier)American Physical Society Publication Practice

s Tutorial“The Science of Science Writing” (George

Gopen and Judith Swan)

Writing Fellows (Email: gradwritingfellows@umd.edu)

www.gradwritingfellows.umd.edu