Customer Reviews

Responsible Conduct of Research

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This is clearly the most comprehensive and up-to-date single volume on the subject. It deals with researchers' responsibilities toward the scholarly community and the broader society as well as toward human subjects. The focus might be too heavy on biological and medical research for some tastes, but the general principles derived from the study of biological research are applicable to investigations in the social and behavioral sciences.

I have a hard time reading this book. Part of it is due to the extreme annoyance I feel at the authors insistence on citing everything with the authors full last name and year. Whatever happened to footnotes? I rarely read a scientific paper with such a laborious citation system. Add to that the prevalence of citations of books/studies written by the authors themselves and you are left with a bitter feeling in your mouth about the self-importance of the writers. Also, some of the prose is meandering and lopsided, and one has to pay extra attention to the non-linear path each chapter takes. If I did not have this assigned as the book from which my last class in graduate school would take quiz questions, I would not have bothered.
If you are looking for a useful ethics book and you don't have to use this one, I wouldn't recommend it.