HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING

DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

FBE – 601

Introduction: Research and Publication Ethics Concepts

N15227187 - Aykut Artaç

30.10.2017

Signature:
 SUMMARY

This report includes the research and publication ethics in science community, advantages of
research ethics, publication cheats and violation of ethics as an introductory level. The report
includes two main parts. The ethics in research concepts is explained in the first part. The
second part includes the research cheats and frauds. There are lots of violations of publication
ethics, and it is very sensitive topic to ensure all of the researchers’ efforts, and it maintains
the scientific development of humanity. The topic is the key topic for all of the researchers,
especially, young and/or new researchers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………1
2. SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND ETHICS…………………………………….......2
2.1 Scientific Researches……………………………………………………….......2
2.2 Ethics in Research and Publication………………………………………….3
3. COMMON CHEAT AND FRAUDS…………………………………………………...6
3.1 Plagiarism……………………………………………………………………..6
3.2 Image Manipulation………………………………………………………….6
3.3 Research Fraud……………………………………………………………….7
3.4 Salami Slicing………………………………………………………………....7
3.5 Simultaneous Submission……………………………………………………....7
3.6 Publication Bias…………………………………………………………………………....7
4. CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………….......8
5. REFERENCES……………………………………………………………………...9
 1. INTRODUCTION

This report includes ethics concepts in scientific research and publication. First of all,
definition of scientific research is the most important basis for understanding ethics concepts
in scientific research. Also, there are some reasons to be an ethic person since the scientific
research is a universal thing, providing benefits for all humanity.

In academy, research and publication ethics pave the way for progression in science
and technology. Reliable researches are progressive tool about improvement of civilization
level; so, publications have to satisfy conditions about ethics. Academy has got a great role of
this situation.

Researchers make some money to maintain their lives; so the ethical issues shine out
with that situation. Works, done by the researchers have been using in some commercial
companies, government organizations, or international foundations to develop some products,
cures, technologies, policies or edicts. If the research includes fraud and plagiarism, the
research provides unfair profit to author. Also, the author cheats the community who are
interested in with author’s work. So; it is also damages ethical and moral values.

As a researcher / engineer in the beginning of the career, I wrote the report with
information from qualified sources, and learnt these topics clearly. When I will be an author
of a paper, I will be very proud for contributing to the universal knowledge of humanity.

There are two main chapters in this report. First chapter includes that the research and
ethics concept and why an author should have to behave ethically. The second one includes
some common cheats like, plagiarism, research fraud and salami slicing. This chapter is
introductory to these cheats.

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 2. SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH AND ETHICS
2.1 Scientific Research

There are lots of universities in the World, and all of them have one primary goal;
doing researches perfectly. Clearly, the scientific research is defined as, ‘the systematic
investigation into and study of materials and sources in order to establish facts and reach new
conclusions.’ [1] Since the nature of science, there is no only an experiment or survey to
define some knowledge; so, the research processes are iterative. Moreover, some researches
may not provide convenient results, also scientists are published their failures to illuminate
their community and blaze a trail for more precise researches. For instance, a paper in the
Journal of Impact Mechanics discusses that the shockwave of the explosion. The authors state
that this experimental shockwave data can be loaded as an implicit numerical model.
Nevertheless, this numerical model cannot be consistent with experimental data. The authors
publish this paper to show that another numerical model can be used for simulating explosion.
Science is growing exponentially. All of the past and present works are a cause of future
works.

Figure 1- Procedure of Scientific Research [2]

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 2.2 Ethics in Research and Publication

Scientific researches and publication issues are really complex processes and they
want serious effort to do it in a right way. However; some people, who takes the easy way out
makes some cheats and frauds to publish papers. This behavior damages the ethics in research
and publications, and the behavior has some effects on the author, and on the knowledge of
science. Researchers should behave ethically to provide maximum benefit for science.
Furthermore it is really important for ethics and moral values. The reasons of ethically
publishing are;

- Ensures scientific progress:

Clearly published researches always improve the scientific progress, since the purpose
of the research is progress. When there is no duplication or fraud, the paper always
states some newer things. Also scientific community thrives only with clear-written
papers.

- Protects and improves life and the planet:

Ethic publishing is enhances the World and humanity. Industries and companies need
trusted information to develop new products, technologies, cures, medicines etc...
Furthermore, when the new technologies, improving life quality paves the way for
new researches by decreasing experiment time, cost etc…, so the scientific
development is a cycle. The biggest example for that cycle is the space industry. All
of the physics and engineering fields are used extremely to produce space crafts and
vehicles and tools. When these crafts have been produced, they services to science
fields like biology, physics, geology, geography, chemistry, engineering and also
medicine. This is the perfect cycle to improve the civilization level of humanity.
Social sciences also provide good products such as policies, edicts etc… Nonetheless,
lots of fraudulent papers have been sorted out from useful literature. This process
delays the scientific process and it decreases useful effort of the community.
Furthermore, these fraudulent papers cause some harmful effects during development
processes.

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- Encourages ethical behavior:

Doing the right thing is the best way to live. Being a researcher has lots of
responsibilities. Researchers have responsibilities to themselves, people who pay for
their work, and their community. Firstly, they have to respect themselves. Researchers
must work clearly, and they must be hardworking people if they must. This is the
fundamental of the ethics. Secondly, they make money by their work; so, researchers
are responsible for their work as a commercial thing. Moreover, as previously
mentioned, their work may cause harmful and catastrophic failures, they have an extra
responsibility. Lastly, researchers have to prepare their unique work. If they steal their
colleague’s work, they block the progress, and this is robbery; so, it has no ethics
value.

- For good reputation:

If the researchers do the work clearly and perfectly, they gain more reputation, and
they can be an authority in their scientific field. These published papers are permanent
records of the scientists’ work; they have to prepare it clearly for good reputation.
There is a minor part of the scientists who steal and do frauds, is the less reputation,
and their whole effort during their career is worthless. Doing the right thing is the most
important issue.

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Figure 2- Achievements of the Research Ethics

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 3. COMMON CHEATS AND FRAUDS

There are some common issues, will be introduced, about research and publication
ethics. These are;

- Plagiarism
- Research Fraud
- Salami Slicing
- Simultaneous Submission
- Publication Bias

3.1 Plagiarism

Plagiarism is one of the most common issues in the publications. It means that the
author uses another author’s work without any permission. These work pieces includes data,
words and/or paragraph and, concepts. The author can take word-to-word from another work,
and can take some tables, materials etc… One of the most plagiarism issues is paraphrasing
meaning to take all of the idea with different literary structure. Most of the journals want the
declaration of authors’ notice which is the originality of work. [3]

3.2 Image Manipulation

Image manipulation is newer misconduct in the publication history. [4] It means that
the graphical manipulation on an image, created by and another author. It likes plagiarism;
however it includes only image or figure usage without any permission.

Figure 3- Image Manipulation History [4]

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 3.3 Research Fraud

Research fraud shows that the data, used in scientific work is not obtained from
experiments, observations or surveys. Data is directly manipulated to obtain expected results.
This method is often used for to change results negative situation to positive situation. In
some cases, some of the data sets, gathered from experiment are omitted.

3.4 Salami Slicing

Salami slicing refers that, a work, representing one meaningful paper, is sliced and
obtained more papers. [5] Salami slicing pollutes the scientific literature, since the quasi-same
articles have been published; moreover, it wastes readers’ time. As previously mentioned,
each slice is quasi-same, since the only hypothesis, and methodology are same.

3.5 Simultaneous Submission

Some researchers try to publish their work two or more journals. Scientific works,
referring a hypothesis, experiment, results etc…, have to be published once. If a work
published in the different journals, the publication ethics is violated.

3.6 Publication Bias

Sometimes, publisher does not want to use scientific works which has no adequate
results. This issue is named as publication bias. Publisher does not prefer that work since the
results of the work is meaningless. However, these works show very important points,
improving the scientific development process. So, the publication bias is also violated the
ethics.

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 4. CONCLUSION

This report focuses on the importance of ethics and introduction to publication ethics
violations. The ethics provide continuous and sustainable scientific development, and good
products, cures, policies for all humanity.

However, some researches, constituting a little minority, do some things to publish

researches easier. These things violate the publication ethics. There are some regulations to
publish a paper, nevertheless some papers have violations.

Figure 4- Image Manipulation History [6]

Figure 4 demonstrates that the ethics violations and its change during the years. Rate
of scientific development increases, and data manipulation is increased with this rate
increment.

Therefore, this work illuminates me about the research ethics and its benefits. The
contribution of the scientific knowledge is not easy; the only way to provide beneficial
research is working clearly and perfectly.

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 5. REFERENCES

[1] Taylor, Paul & Barr, Daniel - COPE Asia Pacific Seminar, June 2014 Student researchers
and publication ethics

[2] Web Source (Figure) https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/science-

fair/steps-of-the-scientific-method

[3] Graf, Chris, & Wager, Elizabeth & Bowman, Alyson & Fiack, Suzan & Scott-Lichter &
Diane & Robinson, Andrew - Best Practice Guidelines on Publication Ethics: a Publisher's
Perspective – Int. J. Clin. Pract. Suppl. 2007 Jan; 61(Suppl. 152): 1–26

[4] Wager, Elizabeth – Publication Ethics: The Last 20 Years, 2009

[5] Ethics in Research & Publication – Elsevier

[6] Hames, Irene et al, Peer Review Congress, 06/2013