Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity and Professional Ethics

Strategies to Promote Academic Integrity and Professional Ethics

Section 1: Writing Sample: The Connection Between Academic and Professional Integrity

Relationship between Academic Integrity and Writing

The relationship between academic integrity and writing is strong and undeniable. It underpins academic success and influences ethics and conducts around scholarly matters. Academic writing must remain objective while presenting and evaluating issues since academic integrity emphasizes honesty, credibility, respect for knowledge, and the appreciation of others’ ideas (National League for Nursing, 2012). It depends on critical reasoning and research, not subjective personal feelings and opinions. Academic writers must also avoid plagiarism to show their commitment to integrity. They do this by reading and understanding others’ work and paraphrasing them while crediting the original authors. Academic integrity and writing are also connected in that neither can exist without the other. Academics communicate with others in their field primarily through writing. They publish research papers in professional journals and write and publish books. Without integrity, it would be impossible for leading academics to publish credible, reliable, and authentic papers that enhance the truthful pursuit of scientific knowledge. 

Relationship between Professional Practices and Scholarly Ethics

Professional practices and scholarly ethics are inseparable. There is a need to communicate with peers to share ideas, concerns, and news about the latest trends in almost every profession. Therefore, each professional must respect scholarly ethics by adhering to academic writing rules, which require formal diction, impersonal language, and precision (Walden University Academic Skills Center, n.d.). Scholarly ethics may vary from one community of scholars to another but generally express a commitment to integrity, transparency, honesty, accountability, and competence. In the sciences, professionals emphasize reproducibility and originality in arts. Professional practice and scholarly ethics are so intertwined that one is a part of the other. Being ethical scholarly is a professional practice requirement. When all professionals practice scholarly ethics, they share credible and reliable information, leading to advancement in that field of practice. Agnostic to discipline, scholarly ethics and integrity connote purity, wholeness, and coherence.

How Grammarly, SafeAssign, and Paraphrasing Contributes to Academic Integrity

Grammarly, SafeAssign, and paraphrasing contribute to academic integrity in various ways. Grammarly helps the writer identify and eradicate potential issues in a written work (Walden University Writing Center, n.d.b). It flags grammatical and syntax errors and makes content-specific suggestions to correct them. Grammarly also helps the writer with wordiness, spelling and usage, style, tone, punctuation, and plagiarism. SafeAssign does the same thing. It compares a submitted assignment with various academic papers to identify potential overlap areas (Walden Office of Student Affairs, n.d.a). The originality report generated by SafeAssign provides detailed information that helps the writer identify and correct matches found between existing sources and the submitted paper. With this report, the individual can avoid plagiarism and write more credibly and authentically. Paraphrasing is also a useful tool for academic writing. It allows a writer to capture another writer’s ideas without copying them word for word. A successful paraphrase is the writer’s explanation and interpretation of another person’s ideas. It contains proper citations.

Section 2: Strategies for Maintaining Integrity of Work

Strategies for Maintaining Academic Work Integrity and Ethics as an MSN Student

I have various strategies for maintaining academic work integrity and ethics as an MSN student. These strategies focus on various aspects of academic work, including class attendance, researching, writing, completing assignments, and collaborating with others. One of the strategies is creating a schedule to help with time management (Glasper, 2016). It will ensure I wake up early, attend all classes, and finish and submit assignments on time. The second strategy I will employ is to consult regularly and extensively. My professors, supervisors, and fellow students have knowledge and skills they can share to help me succeed as a student and maintain work integrity. With the guidance of qualified individuals, students act with honesty, fairness, responsibility, accountability, trust, and respect (American Psychological Association, 2020). I will discuss lectures and class content with other students in the classroom, sharing information with them. I will not share my work with another student as part of their assignment as this amounts to collusion – a type of academic dishonesty. Other forms of dishonesty to avoid are cheating, fabrication, falsification, sabotage, and plagiarism (Glasper, 2016). I will live by the students’ code of ethics, not to destroy lives.

Strategies to Maintain Professional Work Integrity and Ethics in my Career as a Nurse

The foundation of professional work integrity and ethics is academic work integrity and ethics. Professionals who work with integrity as students are more likely to continue being ethical professionals. Therefore, my first strategy to maintaining professional work integrity is adhering to professional nursing requirements. Nurses' ethical code of conduct will guide the work of a professional, ensuring that they succeed (American Nurses Association, 2015). The second strategy I will use is upholding nursing laws and regulations. Governments worldwide have instituted laws and regulations that help professionals do their jobs more effectively. I will abide by them. The next approach I will take is to abide by ethical conduct in nursing. The four main principles of ethical nursing are beneficence, autonomy, non-maleficence, and justice (Alba, 2018). I will ensure that I follow these requirements just as I faithfully follow academic requirements.

References

Alba, B. (2018). Factors that impact on emergency nurses’ ethical decision-making ability. Nursing Ethics, 25(7), 855–866. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733016674769

American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements. Retrieved from https://www.nursingworld.org/coe-view-only

American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000

Glasper, A. (2016). Does cheating by students undermine the integrity of the nursing profession? British Journal of Nursing, 25(16), 932–933. https://doi.org/10.12968/bjon.2016.25.16.932

National League for Nursing. (2012). Ethical principles for nursing education. Nursing Education Perspectives, 33(1), 65. Retrieved November 14, 2018, from http://www.nln.org/docs/default-source/default-document-library/ethical-principles-for-nursing-education-final-final-010312.pdf

Walden University Academic Skills Center. (n.d.). ASC success strategies: Plagiarism. Retrieved November 14, 2018, from https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/ASCsuccess/ASCplagiarism

Walden Office of Student Affairs. (n.d.a). SafeAssign tutorials. Retrieved from https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/studentaffairs/academicintegrity/safe-assign-turn-it-in

Walden University Writing Center. (n.d.b) Grammarly: Overview. Retrieved November 14, 2018, from https://academicguides.waldenu.edu/writingcenter/grammarly