How to Become a Doctorate: Ethical Behaviour in Research

The term "Ethics" means being morally conscious, honest and true. And in PhD, your research must be guided by ethical behavior.


So, lets discuss ethics and how important it is for your research.

1. Being ethical adds value to your research. If you are truthful of the information you are sharing in your dissertation/thesis, then it will be lauded and loved by generations to come. But if you conducted wrong means to gather information or have not been honest about your research, then your work lacks integrity and like many instances your dissertation/thesis will be cancelled and even your PhD.
2. Your research must respect life, welfare and safety of all living beings. Sometimes, interviewing a person calls for respecting their decision to keep their identity hidden. So, you need to adhere to it. Even before conducting an interview, make it a practice to ask consent and whether a person would like to keep their identity open or confidential. While asking for consent, any kind of gesture that marks coercion or bribery is also unethical. The interviewee must be provided with full information about the nature of your research and where all it will be used and published.
3. At times, a research may deal with curating a medicine for disease and you have to conduct an experiment on human beings. In such a case, it is unethical to wait for someone to die while wanting to see the long term effects of that disease on a human being.
4. In the field of international relations, history, political science, sociology, etc. ethics calls for respecting and protecting states, government bodies and international organizations in a way that your writing does not spread false information or sensationalise an important document.
5. All your research reports, articles published in journals, books and thesis chapters must be accurate with figures and facts wherever applicable to backup your arguments and conclusions.

Being ethical and honest is a self-satisfactory feeling. You will never be free and relaxed if you have used unfair means to conduct research.

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