Ethics and Practice of Knowledge Integrity in Communicating Health and Medical Research

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Scott A. Mogull

Abstract

 


Rhetoric of health and medicine (RHM) knowledge integrity is explored in the context of preparing RHM students, researchers, and practitioners to be careful curators and communicators of information from the medical literature. More specifically, the goal of this article is to provide a systematic framework for researching and citing claims, or “facts,” from the medical literature with transferrable skills beyond the academy. In this article, this framework is examined through the lens of science communication ethics and writer ethos to guide individuals while navigating between automation of literature databases and human agency. Furthermore, this article explores the proper citation of research claims from different genres that are published in the “medical literature” with attention to conserving the authors’ original voice. Collectively, this framework and discussion builds on prior scholarship on authorship and intellectual property in medicine. 

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