Excerpt
CONTENTS
1 ABSTRACT
2 INTRODUCTION
3 THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
4 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE RESEARCH QUESTION
5 CONCLUSION
LIST OF REFERENCES
1 ABSTRACT
To find out whereas quotations in academic articles and/or monographs solely out of secondary and not primary sources are problematic from the perspective of academic ethics in general and business ethics in particular one will first have a closer look on the key terms. An academic article is a scientific text published in a scientific journal and supervised by other scientists. A monograph is a scientific text about a single subject by one author. Sources are distinguished in primary and secondary sources; primary sources are scientific research results which are published at first hand containing. Secondary sources refer to a primary source which was published by another author and not collected by the author himself. For an evaluation of the use of the sources in a business or academic environment ethical standards and moralities are used. Within academic ethics sscientists have the duty to act responsibly and to define moralities for their practice and the way they do research and publish their results. On the other hand the business ethics defines right or wrong behaviour in a business context. To discuss whereas the use of secondary sources is problematic one will analyse the involved parties which are the users of the sources, the author of the primary source, the author of the secondary source and the scientific community. Within all parties involved in the problem there is always a least privileged party according to John Rawls. On the one hand using solely sources could be interpreted as one kind of plagiarism even if the source is cited correctly. Further the readers do not make an own effort into research because she takes the easy way out using solely secondary sources. The readers have to wonder whether it is legitimate to rely on the author of the secondary source that he summarized, analysed etc. the primary source correctly. It would have a massive negative impact on academic and business ethics if the author of the secondary source made a mistake in summarizing, analysing or wrong conclusion drawing. As a result, wrong information would be used for following work in business areas or research in academic areas. On the other hand the access to primary sources may be difficult or even not possible, so the use of a secondary source is the only way to use the information. Further one has to wonder whether it is it legal to intervene to solely use secondary sources as it violates the copyright law. The DFG sets standards for citing to avoid scientific misconducts such as plagiarism providing the scientific community with rules for correct scientific citation. Both academic ethics and business ethics are affected by this argumentation as the golden rule, the categorical imperative as well as the veil of ignorance which are applied in the argumentation can regulate the cohabitation of human beings. If everybody would strove for ethical correct actions and if everyone would follow ethical actions and act legal and legitimate there will not be any problem in using primary and secondary sources within academic texts and monographs.
2 INTRODUCTION
Scientific misconducts cause a higher alertness by the scientific community. Famous examples for scientific misconducts are the cases of plagiarism by the former politician Gutenberg1 in 2011 or Anette Schavan2 in 2013. They have violated against citation rules and plagiarised the work of a primary or secondary source, because they did not named the author. This is one problem that might come up within the scientific citation practice. Another problem will be discussed within this essay.
This essay task is to find out, why quotations in academic articles and/or monographs solely out of secondary and not primary sources are problematic from the perspective of academic ethics in general and business ethics in particular. This essay intends to find out the problem arising through using secondary sources. To answer the research question we will first introduce a theoretical base and define key terms. The key terms are primary as well as secondary sources and business and academic ethics. Secondly we will derive the implications for the research question. To answer the research question we will apply the strategy of law analysis “Wer will was von wem woraus” (engl: “Who wants what of whom and on which rights?”). Further philosophical approaches are applied within the argumentation. For a better understanding, we will call the user of the sources Lisa3. Lisa is involved because she uses solely secondary sources. Furthermore the problems and the legal basis and theoretical background (based on which rights) will be provided to discuss the arguments in favour and against (change of perspectives). The results of the discussion are summarized in the end of this essay.
3 THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
Within the theoretical foundation we will have a closer look on relevant key terms. The research question deals with the use of sources used in academic articles or monographs. An academic article is a scientific text published in a scientific journal and supervised by other scientists.4 Scientists publish results of their researches in academic articles, reviews or discuss other publications or develop a theory based on research.5 The other affected medium is the monograph which is a scientific text about a single subject by one author.6 Both mediums demand a high effort on the analysis of sources by the scientist which form the basis for the research practices.
The scientific literature differentiates between primary and secondary sources.7 Primary sources are scientific research results which are published at first hand containing “information obtained by research or observation, not taken from other books.”8 Examples for primary sources are dissertations, research papers or the book “Faust” by the German author Goethe9. The Ithaca College Library names historical and legal documents, eyewitness accounts, results of experiments, statistical data, pieces of creative writing, interviews, surveys, audio and video recordings, speeches and art objects as examples for primary resources.10 On the other hand secondary sources refer to original sources of information which were published by another author and not collected it himself or herself.”11 Examples for secondary sources are reviews discussing a research paper or a commentary upon Faust.12 They describe, discuss, interpret, analyse, evaluate, and summarize primary sources.13 An example of violation against the use of listing primary and secondary sources is the former German politician Annette Schavan. She has listed various primary sources in her dissertation but these sources were originally taken from secondary literature.14 The Faculty Council of the Philosophy Faculty of Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf decided to deprive doctorate from Annette Schavan due to a variety of plagiary offences.15 Violation against citation is also a violation against ethics (especially academic ethics) and moralities. The difference between morals and ethics is that morals are norm, rules and principles about bad or good actions and attitudes in regard to society.16 Ethics on the other hand analyses the morals and ethos. It goes deeper in the action and show humans behior.17 Academic ethics are part of the approach of the applied ethics.18 Applied ethics become more significant for scientist, as it gives a practical perspective and orientation. Further it utilizes a theoretical ethical framework for different action situations and offers examples for medical ethics, business ethics, research ethics or social ethics.19 The scientific practice can cause moral scruples and asks for moralities. Scientists have the duty to act responsibly and to define moralities for their practice and the way they do research and publish their results.20 A grounded scientific work demands a critical discussion of the scientific findings, the control of the results as well as to ensure that the work has a high quality and topicality.21 Further it documents scientific findings and enables these findings, provides access to a greater amount of people.22 As a result, scientists have the responsibility and accountability for the content of their work.23 In addition to that they have the responsibility for other scientists and the scientific community as well.24 Further they have to be aware of the consequences of their actions for the society25 and for individuals26 and to protect the intellectual property of other scientists.27 The academic ethics do not provide any moralities or recommend actions for challenging situations. But it offers the possible perspectives for the challenging situation. The violation of these can cause a penalty such as disciplinary actions or even criminal consequences.28
Ethical approaches applied on economy are named business ethics.29 Business ethics is defined as a right or wrong behaviour in a business context.30 It is distinguish between descriptive and normative ethics. The descriptive ethics describes the current perception of ethics and moral within a society.31 Normative ethics regulates and sets standards for actions and differentiates ethical and unethical actions. Business ethics implies according to Caroll et al (2006) more aspects as the concepts of justice and fairness that was described by Rawls.
4 IMPLICATIONS FOR THE RESEARCH QUESTION
To answer the research question32 we will first define the involved parties and their motives. Involved parties in the ethical sense all Stakeholders who have claims to the subject33 (here the cuse of solely secondary sources). This ethical Stakeholder analysis ask whether the parties are affected or do have an impact on the issue. This analysis aims to realize the condition where the greatest possible happiness can be granted for the individual and the society.34
Lisa35 is involved because she uses solely secondary sources. More involved parties besides Lisa is the author of the primary source who is may not be cited by Lisa in her article or monograph. Third there is the author of the secondary source whom Lisa quotes in her text. Further there is the scientific community like readers and users of these sources such as (scientist, companies, professors, PhD candidates, students, etc.) who believe in correctness of the publications of the scientist.
We will start with the involved readers (here Lisa) who uses secondary sources for their work, e.g. an essay. Lisa writes an essay about Goethe and his work but with all efforts she has no access to a primary source. As the information she needs to cite is too important to leave it out of the essay and the only possibility is to use a secondary source, she decides to use the secondary source. Her intention to use a secondary source could be to take the easy way out and use the more easily to understand secondary source which analyses and summarised the primary source (e.g. she uses a comment on Goethe’s Faust instead of reading the entire book). A reason for that might be a lack of commitment or time. All these intentions might lead to a violation of scientific source use and can cause a scientific misconduct.
[...]
1 Preuß, R., & Schultz, T. (2011, 02 16). Guttenberg soll bei Doktorarbeit abgeschrieben haben. Retrieved 03 07, 2016, from Süddeutsche Zeitung: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/plagiats vorwurf-gegen-verteidigungs minister-guttenberg-soll-bei-doktorarbeit-abgeschrieben-haben-1.1060774
2 Horstkotte, H. (2013, 01 22). Was Sie über den Fall Schavan wissen müssen. Retrieved 03 07, 2016, from Zeit Online: http://www.zeit.de/studium/hochschule/2013-01/schavan-plagiat-duesseldorf
3 Lisa stands for readers and users of sources
4 Svernström, M. (2013, 10 03). What is an academic/scholarly article? Retrieved 03 08, 2016, from Karlstad University: https://www.kau.se/en/library/search/help-searching/faq/what-is-academicscholarly-article
5 Ibidem.
6 Hornby, A. S. (2010). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (8th ed.). p. 991. Oxford: Oxford University Press distribution by Cornelsen Verlag.
7 Kämper, D. A. (2009). Grundlagen des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens. p.13. (D. f. Systems, Ed.) Retrieved 03 02, 2016, from Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen: https://www.fsi.uni-tuebingen.de/_media/studium/skripte /grundlagenwissenschaftlichenarbeitens_ws08.pdf
8 Hornby, A. S. (2010). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (8th ed.). p. 1204. Oxford: Oxford University Press distribution by Cornelsen Verlag.
9 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) was a German author, poet and playwrighter. He provided the Sturm und Drang movement with its first major drama, and in 1774 with its first novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, in which he created the prototype of the Romantic hero (N.N., Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Biography, 2005).
10 Ithaca College Library. (2012). Primary and Secondary Sources. (I. C. Library, Ed.) Retrieved 03 07, 2016, from http://library.ithaca.edu/sp/subjects/primary
11 Hornby, A. S. (2010). Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English (8th ed.). p. 1380. Oxford: Oxford University Press distribution by Cornelsen Verlag.
12 Kämper, D. A. (2009). Grundlagen des wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens. p.13. (D. f. Systems, Ed.) Retrieved 03 02, 2016, from Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen: https://www.fsi.uni-tuebingen.de/_media/studium/skripte /grundlagenwissenschaftlichenarbeitens_ws08.pdf
13 Ithaca College Library. (2012). Primary and Secondary Sources. (I. C. Library, Ed.) Retrieved 03 07, 2016, from http://library.ithaca.edu/sp/subjects/primary
14 N.N. (2013). Dokumentation von Plagiaten in der Dissertation von Annette Schavan. Retrieved 03 07, 2016, from https://schavanplag.wordpress.com/#Ungenannt
15 Bleckmann, P. D. (2013, 02 05). Promotionsprüfungsverfahren Prof. Dr. Schavan. Aktuelle Sitzung des Fakultätsrats der Philosophischen Fakultät und Presseerklärung vom 05.02.2013. p. 1, (J. Kohl, Compiler) Düsseldorf, Germany.
16 Göbel, E. (2010). Unternehmensethik: Grundlagen und praktische Umsetzung. In E. Göbel, Unternehmensethik: Grundlagen und praktische Umsetzung (Vol. 2, pp. 8). Stuttgart, Germany: UTB
17 Ibidem, p. 14
18 Düwel, M. (2006). Einleitung - Angewandte oder Bereichsspezifische Ethik. In M. Düwell, C. Hübenthal, M. H. Werner, M. Düwell, C. Hübenthal, & M. H. Werner (Eds.), Handbuch Ethik (Vol. 2, p. 247). Stuttgart, Germany: J.B. Metzler Verlag.
19 Düwel, M. (2006). Einleitung - Angewandte oder Bereichsspezifische Ethik. In M. Düwell, C. Hübenthal, M. H. Werner, M. Düwell, C. Hübenthal, & M. H. Werner (Eds.), Handbuch Ethik (Vol. 2, p. 243, 246f.). Stuttgart, Germany: J.B. Metzler Verlag.
20 Reydon, T. (2013). Wissenschaftsethik - Eine Einführung. p. 98. Stuttgart: Eugen Ulmer KG.
21 Sandberg, B. (2012). Wissenschaftlich Arbeiten von Abbildung bis Zitat: Lehr- und Übungsbuch für Bachelor, Master und Promotion. p. 50. Berlin: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag.
22 Ibidem. p. 51
23 Ibidem. p. 51
24 Reydon, T. (2013). Wissenschaftsethik - Eine Einführung. p. 98. Stuttgart: Eugen Ulmer KG.
25 Reydon, T. A., & Hoyningen-Huene, P. (2011). Philosophie und ihr Verhältnis zu den Einzelwissenschaften. Warum Philosophie? p. 132 (P. F. Hannover, Editor) Retrieved 03 12, 2016, from Philosophie Universität Hannover:https://www.philos.uni-hannover.de/fileadmin/institut_fuer_philosophie/Personen/Hoyningen/ Aufsaetze/173_Philosophie_Verhaeltnis_Einzelwissenschaften.2011.pdf
26 Reydon, T. (2013). Wissenschaftsethik - Eine Einführung. p. 98. Stuttgart: Eugen Ulmer KG.
27 Ibidem. p. 98
28 Sandberg, B. (2012). Wissenschaftlich Arbeiten von Abbildung bis Zitat: Lehr- und Übungsbuch für Bachelor, Master und Promotion. p. 51. Berlin: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag.
29 Göbel, E. (2010). Unternehmensethik: Grundlagen und praktische Umsetzung. In E. Göbel, Unternehmensethik: Grundlagen und praktische Umsetzung (Vol. 2, pp. 55f, 73f.). Stuttgart, Germany: UTB
30 Carroll, A. B., & Buchholtz, A. K. (2006). Business & Society - Ethics and Stakeholder Management (6th. ed.). p. 174. Mason, Ohio: Thomson South-Western.
31 Göbel, E. (2010). Unternehmensethik: Grundlagen und praktische Umsetzung. In E. Göbel, Unternehmensethik: Grundlagen und praktische Umsetzung (Vol. 2, pp. 55f, 73f.). Stuttgart, Germany: UTB.
32 Research Question: Why are quotations in academic articles and/or monographs solely out of secondary and not primary sources problematic from the perspective of academic ethics in general and business ethics in particular?
33 Göbel, E. (2010). Unternehmensethik: Grundlagen und praktische Umsetzung. In E. Göbel, Unternehmensethik: Grundlagen und praktische Umsetzung (Vol. 2, pp. 55f, 73f.). Stuttgart, Germany: UTB.
34 Ibidem.
35 For a better understanding, we will call the user of the sources Lisa.