ETHICAL STANDARDS IN WRITING A
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
FORMULATION OF A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
AND RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS
Ethical Standards in Writing a Review of Related Literature
In research writing, systematic reviews of related literature require citation- proper
citation. Improper or no citation at all may fall under an ethical issue which we call as
intellectual dishonesty. There is a need to recognize the sources of the information
that we are citing, and there are proper ways to do this.
The primary ethical issue that we often encounter is the issue on plagiarism.
Plagiarism is defined as “using somebody else’s words, images, data, ideas, or other
original creations without acknowledgement or permission and claiming them as your
own original work.”
What is Citation?
A citation is the way you tell your readers that certain materials in your work
came from another source. It also gives your readers the information necessary to find
the source you used as it provides the following information:
1. The name of the author
2. The title of the work
3. The name and location of the company that published your copy of the source
4. The date your copy was published
5. The page numbers of the material you are borrowing
Styles of Citation
1. Chicago/Turabian Documentation Style- these are sometimes called
documentary note or humanities style. They place bibliographic citations at the
bottom of a page or at the end of a paper.
Example:
Steven Nadler, A Book Firged in Hell: Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth
of the Secular Age (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011), 8
2. American Psychological Association (APA) Style- provides a standard system for
giving credit to others for their contribution to your work. It’s what we call a
“parenthetical” documentation style, meaning that citations to original sources
appear in your text. This allows the reader to see immediately where your information
comes from, and it saves you the trouble of having to make footnotes or endnotes.
The APA style calls for three kinds of information to be included in in-text
citations. The author’s last name and the work’s date of publication must always
appear, and these items match exactly the corresponding entry in the reference list.
The third kind of information, page number, appears only in a citation to a direct
quotation.
Three options for placing citations:
1. Idea-focused
Place the author(s) and date(s) in parenthesis at an appropriate place in or at
the end of a sentence.
Example:
Researchers have studied how children represent mathematical problems (Alibali &
Fisher, 2009; Siegler, 1976).
2. Researcher-focused
Place only the date in parenthesis.
Example:
Alibali [Link]. (2009) asked, “Did the participants adopt the taught strategies?” (p.96)
3. Chronology-focused
Integrate both the author and date into your sentence.
Example:
In 2009, Alibali, Philips, and Fischer reported that third and fourth-grade students
improved their problem representation when they were taught the equalize strategy
but did not improve their problem representation when they were taught the add-
subtract strategy.
Formulation of a Conceptual Framework and Research Hypothesis
What is a conceptual framework?
It is a bit like a recipe or a blueprint. It provides an outline of how you plan to
conduct the research for your thesis, but it goes further than that by also positioning
your work within the larger field of research. Writing a conceptual framework can not
only help to guide your thesis to ensure that your research stays on track, but it also
helps to guide fellow researchers or advisers who are analyzing your thesis.
What are the steps in developing a conceptual framework?
1. Conduct a review of related literature.
2. Create a flowchart.
3. Write a narrative.
In a nutshell, a conceptual framework is…
a. A set of coherent ideas to make it easy to communicate to others;
b. An organized way of thinking about how and why a project takes place and about
how we understand its activities;
c. A basis for thinking about what we do and about what it means, influenced by the
ideas;
d. An overview of ideas and practices or a set of assumptions, values, and definitions;
and
e. Encapsulates why we use certain methods and how we would analyze the data.
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What is Hypothesis?
Hypothesis is an informed speculation, which is set up to be tested, about the
possible relationship between two or more variables. The nature of hypothesis can be
described as follows:
1. It can be tested.
2. It is not an ethical issue.
3. It is not too specific and not too general.
4. It is a prediction of consequences.
5. It is considered valuable even if proven false.
How Do We Formulate a Hypothesis?
1. If you can’t measure it, then you can’t form a hypothesis about it.
2. A hypothesis takes the form of an if-then statement.
3. Assess the hypothesis.
4. Operationalization.
Alternative (Ha): Positive Hypothesis
Null Hypothesis (Ho): Negative Hypothesis
References:
Melegrito, M.F. & Mendoza, D.J. (2016). Applied Research: An Introduction to Quantitative
Research Methods and Report Writing, pp. 87-100.
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