The Ethical Use of Information

Information is a valuable source of knowledge and considered as one of the

society’s most important resources. Day-to-day, bits of information are emerging,
shaping our world. Of course, thanks to the modern technologies today, it became a
piece of cake to answer the common everyday information needs and as well as to
the more baffling, complex and mind-tingling problems of life. But, as the
information and technologies develop rapidly, and the information world becomes
increasingly complex, people need to access the information effectively and
efficiently and to use the information to accomplish a specific purpose with a sense
of recognizing the moral principles of human. Well, it simply contracts to ethical use
of information or using the information ethically.
As a student, there are lots of activities that should be accomplished on time
during school days, and sometimes time and knowledge is not enough to finish them
all. As a result, I have left with no choice but to call my school buddy, the Internet.
My buddy help me answer my assignments, from complicated numbers up to the
world of letters, from the ancient times up to the current era. But, over time, I
discovered much of it is false and unrighteous. Consider Wikipedia as an example,
this website is open for plagiarism and copyright issues.
Once upon a time I had enjoyed and loved spending my time reading articles
on Wikipedia. It almost had answers to everything. But, all of a sudden, all the good
points created at the back of my mind started to go downfall. Well, it all started with
the Research stuff in our school. Of course, as an avid reader of Wikipedia, it is an
obvious and mere fact that I will search and collect ideas from there, but instead of
ideas, the annoying thing here is, I almost got charged with plagiarism and copyright
issues. It is for the reason that, the oh-so-righteous-author of a certain article do not
give the proper acknowledgement and citation to the original author. Oh, well, the
deed’s been done, and in spite of that, it was a lesson learned from my part.

From that experience of mine, it should be noted that ethical issues in the
information technology is one of the most poorly developed areas in theoretical
terms. The main problem is not the web pages on the World Wide Web but the source
itself. People must understand that words and ideas are part of our intellectual
property; like a car or any other possession, we believe our words belong to us and
cannot be used without our permission. An important principle in academic writing
and in the ethical use of information is citing the sources you have used.
“Citing a source means that you show, within the body of your text, that you
took words, ideas, figures, images, etc. from another place.” (Citing sources:
Overview. Retrieved from https://libguides.mit.edu/citing). It is important because
it is a way to show how a responsible scholar you are by giving the credit to the
researchers and acknowledging their ideas and concepts on a certain article. It would
show your readers that you’ve undergone proper finding and listing of sources to get
your information. Also, it would be a way to avoid plagiarism and copyright issues,
which nowadays, are very popular specifically to students.
The ethical use of information should be practice and learn by everyone
because it promotes the aims of research such as truth, conciseness, realism and
knowledge. Values that are essential to collaborative works are also included to the
whole package such as trust, accountability, mutual respect, and fairness. It suggests
to be ethical and at the same time to encourage collaboration. Lastly, ethical use of
information ensures that researchers can be held accountable to the public or to be
responsible to our own actions and accept commitments in order to do no harm to
the property of others.