Chapter Four: Writing Science Ethically

Roig, M. (2015). Avoiding Plagiarism, Self-Plagiarism, and Other Questionable Writing Practices: A Guide to Ethical Writing. Office of Research Integrity, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. http://ori.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/plagiarism.pdf

Authoritative guide cited several times in Chapter Four.

Kim, J. G., Kong, H. K., Karahalios, K. G., Fu, W-T., & Hong, H. (2016). The power of collective endorsements: Credibility factors in medical crowdfunding campaigns. In CHI 2016 – Proceedings, 34th Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 4538-4549). (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems – Proceedings). Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858289

Based on interview research, describes influential strategies that crowdfunders use successfully to garner donations. Pertinent to the focus of Chapter Four on claims and “over-claims” in STEM research.

Caulfield, T., Marcon, A., Murdoch, B., Brown, J., Perrault, S., Jarry, J., Snyder, J., Anthony, S., Brooks, S., Master, Z., Rachul, C., Ogbogu, U., Greenberg, J., Zarzeczny, A. & Hyde-Lay, R. (2019). Health Misinformation and the Power of Narrative Messaging in the Public Sphere. Canadian Journal of Bioethics / Revue canadienne de bioéthique, 2 (2), 52–60. https://doi.org/10.7202/1060911ar.
https://cjb-rcb.ca/index.php/cjb-rcb/article/view/141/75

Useful article in describing strategies for counteracting misinformation. Emphasizes the role that scientists need to play in this counteracting effort.

Flaherty, C. (2019, August 5). “Abstract ‘Spin’.” Inside Higher Education. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/08/06/study-says-authors-exaggerate-their-findings-paper-abstracts.

Summarizes new study: “Study says authors exaggerate their findings in paper abstracts, and that’s a problem when readers take them at face value.” Exemplifies concerns expressed in Chapter Four. Use of linked source by this summary exemplifies accessibility of peer-reviewed literature by non-scientist readers, as described in Chapter Five.

Flaherty, C. (2019). Ghostwriting Peer Reviews, IHE, 11/1/19, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/11/01/ghostwriting-peer-reviews-advisers-more-common-you-might-think?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=d5533472d0-DNU_2019_COPY_03&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-d5533472d0-197362777&mc_cid=d5533472d0&mc_eid=df866340bc

About new study that illuminates the practice of professors assigning grad students to write peer reviews of new MSS. that the professors have agreed to write.  Speaks to misrepresentation and to failure to give credit to grad students for their work. Source study in ELife:

McDowell, Gary S.,John D Knutsen, June M Graham, Sarah K. Oelker, Rebeccah S. Lijek (2019). Research Culture: Co-reviewing and ghostwriting by early-career researchers in the peer review of manuscripts. ELife, Oct. 31, 2019.

Hiltzik, Michael (2020). A Vaccine for the Coronavirus? Don’t Rush It. Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2020.

Opinion article that relates the development of polio vaccines in the 1950s to the current drive to find a workable vaccine for COVID-19. Emphasizes the need for scientific rigor and patience.

Hotez PJ (2016) Texas and Its Measles Epidemics. PLoS Med 13(10): e1002153. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002153

Research review that explains the dangers of the “anti-vaxxer” movement and recapitulates research that shows the lack of correlation between vaccines, in particular those against measles, and autism spectrum disorder. Also relevant to Chapter 7.

A popular journalism essay based on the Hotez article was published in 2017 in the Texas Monthly, written by Laura Bell.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/scientist-stop-measles-texas/

Jellison, S., Roberts, W., Bowers, A., Combs, T., Beaman, J., Wayant, C., & Vassar, M. (2019). Evaluation of spin in abstracts of papers in psychiatry and psychology journals. BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjebm-2019-111176

This is the study summarized and linked to the Flaherty article. Note how the Introduction defines terms (e.g., “spin”) for the benefit of non-specialist readers. This practice exemplifies “audience splitting,” as described in Chapter Five of WSTFC.

Lunsford, K. J. (2019, August 15). Ownership, Authorship, & Copyright. Retrieved from http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/24.1/coverweb/lunsford-et-al/index.html.

Articles and reviews on intellectual property issues mainly in regard to digital content and pedagogy.

Offit, Paul (2005). The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to the Growing Vaccine Crisis. Yale University Press.

Book that informs the Hiltzik article, above.

Piller, Charles, and John Travis (2020). Authors, elite journals under fire after major retractions. Science, 12 June 2020, Vol.  368, Issue 6396, 1167-1168.

Article that describes the retraction of three papers and a preprint from The Lancet and NEJM following concerns about the unavailability and possible misrepresentation of data sets for studies related to COVID-19.