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On Being a Scientist A Guide to Responsible Conduct in Research: Third Edition (2009) / Chapter Skim
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Research Misconduct
Pages 15-18

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From page 15...
... Office of Science and Technology Policy, which has been adopted by most researchfunding agencies, defines misconduct as "fabrication, falsification, or plagiarism in proposing, performing, or reviewing research, or in reporting research results." According to the statement, the three elements of misconduct are defined as follows: • Fabrication is "making up data or results." • Falsification is "manipulating research materials, equipment, or processes, or changing or omitting data or results such that the research is not accurately represented in the research record." • Plagiarism is "the appropriation of another person's ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit." In addition, the federal statement says that to be considered research misconduct, actions must represent a "significant departure from accepted practices," must have been "committed intentionally, or knowingly, or recklessly," and must be "proven by a preponderance of evidence." According to the statement, "research misconduct does not include differences of opinion." Some research institutions and research-funding agencies define scientific research misconduct more broadly. These institutional definitions may add, for example, abuse of confidentiality in peer review, failure to allocate credit appropriately in scientific publications, not
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From page 16...
... Suspicion quickly fell on a young researcher named Jan Hendrik Schön, who had helped create the materials, had made the physical measure ments on them, and was a coauthor on all the papers. Bell Laboratories convened a committee of five outside researchers to examine the results published in 25 papers.
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From page 17...
... When researchers intentionally deceive their colleagues by falsifying information, fabricating research results, or using others' words and ideas without giving credit, they are violating fundamental research standards and basic societal values. These actions are seen as Fabrication in a Grant Proposal Vijay, who has just finished his first year of graduate school, is apply ing to the National Science Foundation for a predoctoral fellowship.
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From page 18...
... To complete the background section of the proposal, Lee copies a few isolated sen tences of a journal paper written by another author. The copied sentences consist of brief, factual, one-sentence summaries of earlier articles closely related to the proposal, descriptions of basic concepts from textbooks, and definitions of standard mathematical notations.
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Key Terms

  • research misconduct
  • journal paper
  • research materials
  • research ethics
  • research record

  • reporting research
  • fabricating research
  • considered research
  • research records
  • entire research

  • scientific misconduct
  • reviewing research
  • research standards
  • five outside
  • omitting data

  • allocate credit
  • giving appropriate
  • called ffp
  • credit appropriately
  • suffer grievous

  • introduce spurious
  • include differences
  • articles closely
  • suspicion quickly
  • define scientific

  • spurious results
  • named jan
  • violating fundamental
  • agencies define
  • damaged reputations


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