Ethical Behaviors in an Academic Field - Research Paper Example

ANSWERS Part I The term ethics in the simplest and most basic sense and line of thought refers to a set of acceptable, permissible and lawful conducts and behaviors. At the very least, ethics encompasses what is considered to be right and morally proper by the society as a whole. In an education environment, ethical issues includes amorous links or relationships between staff members of students, meeting deadlines of academic assignments, competition within the stipulated framework (Aggarwal & Bento, 2000).

In research work, there are also ethical guidelines which limit and guide research work such as the methods of collecting information for instance. As a prospective student advisor on ethical behaviors in an academic field, I would advise him or her to abide by the set rules and processes of the school. For instance, the guidance about having proper and respectful relationship with other students by avoid racial, religious, financial, social, political or sexual undertones which are usually emotive and elicit a lot of emotions.

In principle, I would advise such students to be considerate, follow the school rules and operate modestly with other students while relating with them. In research, the modes and methods of collecting and storing data or retaining such information is an ethical issue. This is critical to avoid theft of information and data previously used by other researchers (Fox & Ward, 2008). The place where a student research gets such information becomes critical and important for the research process and its authenticity.

This calls to attention the issue of authorship or copyright laws which ought to be respected and considered by the student researcher. Part IIPlagiarism refers to the approach or act of copying and taking the works of someone else and then using such work as if they belonged to the person who has copied them. It includes integrating the thoughts, ideas and opinions of another scholar or scholar and then passing or including such ideas, thoughts and opinions into the works of one without giving any recognition or appreciation to them.

In the academic, scholarly and research cycles, it happens when the author or a person copies information from books of the internet word by word with the intention or aim of pretending that one was the owner and original author or initiator of such (Collberg & Kobourov, 2005). In some other instance, people paraphrase, rewrite, take words or summarize the ideas and thoughts of other scholars and thinkers without recognizing or appreciating the source of the information. This would be acceptably avoided by factoring in internal or in text citation where the person quotes the ideas and thoughts of another person but then acknowledges the author by mentioning their names immediately after such words or quotes.

Self-plagiarism is the notion where a student uses his or her previous works for future or subsequent assignments. This is so when a student or a person tries to use his or her previous thoughts and ideas or opinion so as to answer questions or do research in future assignments and academic works (Roig, 2011). In principle and brief, self-plagiarism kills creativity and discourages any attempts by a person be innovative and creative. In brief, self-plagiarism exists and it is an unethical practice of rewriting the thoughts of a person for subsequent research works and practices.

ReferencesAggarwal, A. K., & Bento, R. (2000). Web-based education. Web-based learning and teaching technologies: Opportunities and challenges, 2-16. Collberg, C., & Kobourov, S. (2005). Self-plagiarism in computer science. Communications of the ACM, 48(4), 88-94.Fox, N., & Ward, K. (2008). Health, ethics and environment: a qualitative study of vegetarian motivations. Appetite, 50(2), 422-429.Roig, M. (2011). Avoiding plagiarism, self-plagiarism, and other questionable writing practices: A guide to ethical writing.