Ethical Documentation

Ashlyn Swoboda, Sky Iglehart, Elijah Ellison

17 March 2023

Ethical documentation is the act of properly referencing facts from research conducted by other people. Proper ethical documentation is applicable to both professional and academic settings. In an academic setting, ideas, words, research, or claims made by others is considered intellectual property and must be documented appropriately.  In professional settings, ethically based documentation of product design can avert danger to others. Academic writing and research in a university setting is meant to prepare students for tasks at a much larger scale in the industry. Bad documentation habits learned in education can translate disastrously to a professional setting. Ethical documentation contributes to an accurate representation of the original source, which enables stronger writing that addresses issues surrounding miscommunication within an academic setting. 

Ethical documentation in academic writing helps prevent plagiarism. It helps preserve the integrity of the content in any academic writing such as: journals, essays, etc. Ethical writing and documentation make academic writing more persuasive and credible. Documenting research is very important because credible facts allow people to rely on academic research to be authoritative. Ethical documentation is crucial to achieving clear, non-biased conclusions to research. Providing essential information is a fundamental practice for respected writers and researchers. The accuracy of university writing is developed through proper ethical documentation since correctly documenting sources provides confidence in the writing and in the validity of the ideas presented. Accurate writing practices can alter the perception of the student author and university as plagiarism and academic dishonesty are unethical. Unethical behavior and cheating are perceived by students and faculty as the same, however small differences in definition can lead to large changes in outcome (Carpenter, D.D et al. 7). A value gap exists between faculty members and students as to what constitutes unethical documentation, which allows for the definition of ethical documentation to remain fluid (Carpenter, D.D et al. 10-11). Peer pressure in rigorous engineering courses is an identified reason why students engage in unethical activities and perpetuates the culture of academic dishonesty (Carpenter, D.D et al. 13-14). University practices are designed to prepare students for industry or further education where ethical documentation is applied to larger, more dangerous scales. Since university writing is crucial to standard scientific practice, proper documentation has real world applications. If unethical practice is not regulated, accuracy of the ideas presented is compromised and harm could be done. Ethical documentation contributes to an accurate representation of the original source, which enables stronger writing that addresses issues fully.  

Those who are found guilty of academic fraud gain notoriety, and their exposure can ruin the careers of those associated with them. A prolific case of academic fraud is the work of Diederik Stapel, a former Dutch social scientist. Stapel’s research was marked by unusually high effect sizes, i.e., the relationship between variables was always very strong. His colleagues even remarked that the data was so well-fit that it must have been fabricated. Studies conducted by Stapel earned him renown among his contemporaries. Stapel based his work on data he had allegedly collected in the field, but discrepancies alerted his colleagues to his misconduct. For example, according to Stroebe and colleagues, Stapel reported the mean age of a group of schoolchildren to be 19 and used identical sets of fabricated data for multiple papers. Eventually, at least 34 of his studies were found to be based on fake data and he was dismissed from his job at Tilburg University. Not only was Stapel removed, but PhD student research based on his work had to be redirected. The media reaction stemming from the case decreased the credibility of psychology in the public mind (Stroebe, et al. 671-672). Cases of academic fraud cause damage to careers and to scientific institutions, depriving society of potential productivity. Therefore, students should be aware of the consequences of data facbrication in their academic lives.

Academics are incentivized by academic systems to publish fraudulent research. Promising credentials and data can attract government funding in the range of millions of dollars. Harvey identifies the pressure to obtain funding as the primary motivation for academic fraud, citing Hersen and Miller,

we are not convinced that sufficient attention has been accorded to what we believe is the heart of the problem: the commercialism of academia and its attendant issues. Thus, in the remainder of this chapter we will direct our attention to such issues, including academia as big business, “publish or perish,” [and] publish positive results or perish. (qtd. in Harvey)

Shuchman cites a meta-analysis by Fanelli, claiming that 34% of researchers surveyed admitted to “dropping data points based on a gut feeling” and that 72% had seen fraudulent activity (Fanelli as qtd. in Shuchman). Evidently, the operation of academic institutions as businesses encourages manipulation of data, a practice which pervades a significant portion of the scientific community. Academic fraud is detrimental to the scientific field, but systems of funding encourage such activity. Ergo, students should be aware of the culture surrounding data manipulation and refrain from using dishonest means to attract funding.

Many times, unethical documentation is done unintentionally, especially considering the inexperience of undergrade students and gaps in knowledge that can cause a student to contribute to the problem. Learning how to properly contribute to scientific morality is essential to solving the issue of unethical documentation.

P-Hacking, also known as "selective reporting," is misrepresenting data in a way that is misleading to the audience. This causes the audience to agree with one side of an argument because the information was manipulated into something that it is not. This form of unethical documentation can be detrimental for the audience if misleading information is used in important research. "How a writer presents information in a document can affect a reader’s understanding of the relative weight or seriousness of that information. For example, hiding some crucial bit of information in the middle of a long paragraph deep in a long document seriously de-emphasizes the information. On the other hand, putting a minor point in a prominent spot (say the first item in a bulleted list in a report’s executive summary) might be a manipulative strategy to emphasize information that is not terribly important. Both of these examples could be considered unethical, as the display of information is crucial to how readers encounter and interpret it," (Beilfuss). 

Ethical documentation in an academic setting is necessary for retaining scientific integrity and public trust and ensuring the public's well-being. Morality within STEM documentation has real consequences as demonstrated by the Ford Company and has the subsequent response of the loss of credibility and trustworthiness of experts as shown in the case of Stapel. The decline of expert credibility is the direct response to issues within the documentation process. The steps to undo the poor representation of information in the past starts with learning how not to repeat them in the future. The personal bias, external pressures, agendas, and often lack of knowledge of documenters results in fraudulent and unethical practices. Redefining and reorienting modern ethical practices and condemning immoral methods will subsequentially improve public perceptions of the scientific community and restore ethics in documentation. 

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