Research ethics

Research is reliable and ethically acceptable only if it has been conducted in accordance with good research practices. Using proper referencing is research ethics at its most concrete. Next, let's take a closer look at what referencing is based on.

Copyright and citation right

Academic writing requires knowledge of the basics of copyright right from your first essay. When you refer, for example, to an article, you are referring to a published work. In principle, you can refer to anything and write about it in your own words. Direct quotations, on the other hand, are based on the right to quote. Quoting, i.e. direct quotation, is permitted when the quote has a factual connection to your text and the quoted work has been published earlier. The right to quote applies to everything that has been made public, such as published articles and books.

Not everything on the internet is public. Drawing the line is difficult and case-specific.

  • For example, for Facebook and Instagram, the definition is particularly challenging due to frequently changing terms of use.
  • Twitter posts are defined as public. In practice, this means that you can take a direct quote from a Twitter post.

An academic text is a conversation with sources

An academic text is built on the discussion that you, as a writer, have with previously published texts. Used sources should always be relevant to your work in some way. They can support the content of your text, or you can comment and compare them. By keeping your references open and transparent, your work can be evaluated by the scholarly community, and become a part of this scholarly discussion. This is practiced, for example, in thesis seminars.

Research Integrity

Finnish guidelines on Research Integrity are drawn up by the Finnish National Board on Research Integrity (TENK) together with the Finnish research community. Different countries have their own guidelines. These guidelines articulate the principles of good research practice, such as:

  • honesty
  • ethics
  • diligence and accuracy in research work
  • openness
  • compliance with requirements set for scientific information
  • the rights, principles, responsibilities and obligations of the members of a research team
  • taking data protection into account

Referencing in accordance with good research practice

  • Always use original research, i.e. the work that is generally accepted in the scholarly community as the first publisher of the research result. The conclusions presented in previous studies are easily changed through interpretations.
  • The use of original research also indicates that you know the classics of your discipline.
  • The use of the latest research, on the other hand, shows that you have internalized the importance of the continuum of scholarly debate.
  • By referencing in accordance with good academic practices, you demonstrate, among other things, that you have mastered systematic information seeking and understand its significance as part of your own research process.

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