Introduction
In this paper, I want to pay attention to the promotion of ethical practices and social justice in psychological research. Today, many people with different backgrounds are interested in conducting their individual projects and discussing their topics of interest. However, in their intention to introduce new perspectives and share their judgments, some researchers might neglect the principles of social justice and ethical goals intentionally or unintentionally. This paper focuses on plagiarism and the techniques to avoid research mistakes in the field of psychology.
How to Avoid Plagiarism and Mistakes in Psychology Research
Introduction to Research Planning and Strategy
When a person initiates a research project, a number of critical steps are required to introduce a thoughtful plan and strategy. It is necessary to understand all definitions and be theoretically prepared for work. Here are my findings on the major concepts in psychology, ethics, and research. According to Pratt (2019), ethical behaviors are characterized by five goals, namely establishing relationships between participants and researchers, promoting mutual respect, considering health needs, promoting research findings, and empowering human rights. Social justice is defined as a foundational moral commitment that promotes a fair framework for ethical decision-making (Pratt, 2019; Walsh, 2015). Still, even this awareness does not predict the mistakes like plagiarism.
Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism
What should we know about plagiarism to predict failures in psychological research? Well, first, we need to understand when plagiarism occurs and then think about how to avoid it. The World Association of Medical Editors (2019, as cited in Ghayas et al., 2022) explains plagiarism as “the use of others’ distributed and unpublished thoughts, words … without authorization and presenting them as novel” (para. 8). In simple words, plagiarism is a fraud when a person takes someone’s work or ideas and represent them as their own.
Techniques to Prevent Plagiarism in Research
A common answer on how not to plagiarize is not to use others’ projects and focus on personal findings and approaches. However, it is easy to say than to do this way because most research projects are based on someone’s conclusions and discoveries. Walsh (2015) explains the connection between research and ethics by underlining the quality of ethical relationships with society. He distinguishes the codes’ orientation to prevent the violation of human rights and the necessity to impede justice (Walsh, 2015). Several techniques can be offered to avoid plagiarism, namely, a proper citation of all external sources and the use of a plagiarism checker.
The Importance of Proper Citation and Plagiarism Detection
Sometimes, it is impossible not to mention someone’s ideas to prove the urgency and importance of current psychological research. I think it is normal for researchers to refer to other projects, but they need to cite each detail and idea. It will be fair to respect the already made achievements, and the reader will appreciate your decision to demonstrate what has already been found in the field. Still, some writers might unintentionally plagiarize when using similar constructions or statements. In this case, the technique of an online plagiarism checker can be applied to detect all cases of plagiarism and add some improvements. Explanations of decisions and discussions with professors would help improve the project and share credible and reliable data in psychological research (Call et al., 2022). All these techniques and steps are not hard to take, but the outcome will be great and contributing.
Conclusion
In this paper, I was able to combine my own knowledge about plagiarism, ethics, and social justice with the statements by scholarly researchers and apply the APA citation style to refer to each idea. I hope this information will be useful in terms of improving your research processes and ethical practices. Ethics and research always go together, and if you neglect one concept, the failure of another is a question of time.
References
Call, C. C., Eckstrand, K. L., Kasparek, S. W., Boness, C. L., Blatt, L., Jamal-Orozco, N., Novacek, D. M., & Foti, D. (2022). An ethics and social-justice approach to collecting and using demographic data for psychological researchers. Perspectives on Psychological Science. Web.
Ghayas, S., Hassan, Z., Kayani, S., & Biasutti, M. (2022). Construction and validation of the research misconduct scale for social science university students. Frontiers in Psychology, 13. Web.
Pratt, B. (2019). Social justice and the ethical goals of community engagement in global health research. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 16, 571-586. Web.
Walsh, R. T. (2015). Bending the arc of North American psychologists’ moral universe toward communicative ethics and social justice. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology, 35(2), 90-102. Web.