Intellectual honesty
Intellectual honesty is the basic principles of scientific research which focus on ensuring the research is conducted accurately. It avoids any manipulation in the data collection and interpretations. intellectual honesty contributes to maintain the research integrity and vice versa. To make research accurate and effective the intellectual honesty and research integrity plays significant role. actually many researchers in academic specifically in social sciences strives to avoid intellectual honesty and research integrity. By avoiding intellectual honesty their research are unsuccessful.
Intellectual honesty focuses on the following principles
Objectivity
Objectivity indicates the research work done on the observable evidence(evidence must be easy to observe), measurable evidence(data must be easy to measure properly), and verifiable evidence(data should be verified easily and properly). Objectivity avoids the biases that can be caused by use of personal opinion, and perception in analyzing the data or judging the evidence. Hence objectivity plays an important role in making research focused and accurate.
Example
The objective of the research is to find the causes of inflation and if the data collected does not belong to the causes of inflation then the research can not give an accurate result that achieves the purpose. Sometimes researchers add personal judgements or manipulate the data which creates biases and causes falsification. Falsification in research can not solve the research problem.
Truthfulness
The word truthfulness itself describes what it belongs to. Research conducted with genuine information gives accurate results that achieve the research purpose. The research conducted with false or manipulated information gives inaccurate results and can not achieve the research purpose.
Example
In social science subject areas of research, it is possible to manipulate the data easily. However the manipulated data in research can not solve the research problem. It is not limited to that single research only. When other researchers refer to such research due to concern it will influence new research also.
Transparency
Research must be transparent means every process, method, and research data should be informed so that the literature is genuine and can guide other research to make innovations or extensions. The researcher must maintain transparency in data collection methods, data interpretation, and all the courses of action taken in research.
Example
Data collected for research in social science through questionnaires by specific methods guide other researchers. The research study conducted without transparency will not be useful in future research studies.
Acknowledgement of sources
It is very important to give credit to the sources from where the data or input is taken for the completion of research. it avoids the plagiarism. The use of plagiarism will make research ineffective or unsuccessful. It will not solve the research problem and reduce the scope.
Example
Many researchers in social sciences use paraphrase tools to rewrite the previous thesis to get the PhD. This will limit the scope of the research and increase the falsification of the research study. Original researchers whose material is taken by other researchers without giving credit can be claimed but rewriting is the concept that bypasses plagiarism. This is the common technique many researchers use to create their research.
