Reflective Essay on Academic and Professional Integrity Principles

This reflective essay examines the concepts of academic and professional integrity, defining them as adherence to ethical and moral principles in educational and professional settings. It emphasizes the significance of integrity, highlighting its role in building trust, fostering respect, and preventing unethical practices such as plagiarism. The essay explores the application of integrity in both academic and professional contexts, outlining guidelines for proper citation, ethical workplace behavior, and the consequences of violations. It contrasts the student's prior understanding of integrity with their current knowledge, demonstrating an increased awareness of its importance and implications. The essay references several academic sources to support its arguments and provide a comprehensive overview of the topic.

Running head: REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY
Reflective essay on Academic and Professional Integrity
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1REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY
Definition
Academic and professional integrity refers to the morality and ethical practices in the
academics and professional world. As stated by Macfarlane, Zhang and Pun (2014), academic
integrity represents the commitment towards the ethical practices and demonstration of the
moral and honest behavior in the academic world. This is highly important in this field as people
should be given credit for their ideas and findings. If a paper is written with the help of other
papers containing ideas of other scholars and they were not given the credit, the work would
be considered to be plagiarized, that is, stealing others’ ideas and this is a serious offence in the
academic world. Hence, in simple terms, it can be said that academic integrity refers to the
acknowledgement of the contributions of the other scholars in the education sector and it is a
moral activity that should be practiced by all scholars.
Similar to the academic integrity, professional integrity refers to the adoption and
practice of ethical standards in the professional place. As stated by Eriksen (2015), a person
demonstrates professional integrity when he willingly and continuously acts according to the
moral values or social standards of the society. In the business world, integrity is mostly
directed towards implementation of the fair and ethical practices and professional integrity
allows a person to follow the social and moral rules while doing the job. It prevents people to
adopt unfair practices to achieve organizational goals and objectives.
Significance
Integrity is a very important characteristic of the personality of a person. The attitude
towards showing integrity either in academics or in the professional world is important as it
shows the strong moral principle and values of an individual. As stated by Cox, La Caze and
Levine (2018), integrity refers to the practice of being honest and demonstrating a constant and
rigid observance to the strong ethical and moral principles, and hence, a person showing
integrity in either academics or in the professional place are treated with respect.
In the academic world, integrity in the academics is treated as the foundation of
success. Plagiarism in the academics is strictly prohibited in almost all the universities across the

2REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY
country. By studying various literatures, I learnt more about plagiarism. I understood that
plagiarism refers to the deliberate and reckless imitation of another scholar’s works, that is,
thoughts, ideas, words, research findings as one’s own without giving credit to the actual
author (Löfström et al. 2015). Chertok, Barnes and Gilleland (2014) state that it is considered as
a serious offence as it is a form of cheating or stealing of the intellectual property of another
author, and the dishonest practices often lead to the suspension and failure of the student, who
get caught for submitting plagiarized work. Hence, integrity should be practiced by every
individual in the academic world and every information in a paper should be correctly cited
from original source.
On the other hand, in any organization, integrity is highly valued by the employers as it
is the foundation of morality and ethical practices and helps to build effective interpersonal
relationships and trusts among the employees. As highlighted by Walmsley and McCormack
(2016), professional integrity refers to doing the right thing, which would be right not only for
the organization but also for the employees, and communities in which the organization is
delivering the services. By studying various literatures, I learnt that practicing integrity in the
professional place helps the executives to leave in mental peace, which also increases their job
satisfaction, efficiency and productivity. Secondly, the level of trust is increased when the
leaders and the followers in an organization demonstrate integrity, that is, ethical and moral
work practices. Lastly, professional integrity increases the credibility of the leaders and respect
of the people increases for leaders adopting ethical leadership practices (Eberl, Geiger and
Aßländer 2015).
Application
In the universities, the students learn how to express the original ideas and cite the
correct sources for every corresponding information. They also learn to work independently
and report the results accurately and honestly. These skills are helpful even beyond their
academic career as those helps to build their personality and moral character. The dishonest
practices in the academic assignments not only would affect the valuable learning experiences
of the students, but could also lead to failing in the assignment and or expulsion from the

3REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY
university (Razek 2014). Thus, I learnt that academic integrity involves the creation and
expression of original ideas in the academic assignments, acknowledgement of the information
sources, completion of the assignments independently and acknowledgement of any
collaboration to pay respect to the other authors, honest representation of one’s own work.
Hence, universities have guidelines regarding academic integrity and the students must follow
those. Under the guidelines, proper citation of other authors’ work is the main criteria for
academic integrity (Reeves 2015).
In the professional world, companies have their guidelines on ethical practices and the
employees must abide by the rules. The guidelines and policies usually address points like
bribes, biasness and favoritism among employees, internal politics for harming employees, not
keeping promises and cheating (Gundersen and Townsend 2014). The guidelines strictly
prohibit the practices of the above mentioned issues in the workplace to maintain a fair work
environment, which would keep the employees motivated. Violation of these rules would lead
to strict penalties, such as, suspension or even termination from the job.
Comparison between present and past knowledge on academic and professional integrity
Previously, I had a vague idea about academic and professional integrity. I knew that
integrity means adoption of fair and ethical practices in the academic and professional lives. It
reflects the culture of the individual demonstrating the moral values and principles. However,
now I know how important it is to practice integrity in both fields. I learnt about the
implications of integrity in both academic and professional world and the penalties that are
imposed if one gets caught for following unfair and unethical practices. Thus, I gained an in-
depth knowledge about the significance of integrity. At the same time, practicing integrity not
only helps to maintain a fair image and reputation of the individual in academic and
professional world, but also helps to develop a strong personality that would help the individual
to live a peaceful life.

4REFLECTIVE ESSAY ON ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL INTEGRITY
References
Chertok, I.R.A., Barnes, E.R. and Gilleland, D., 2014. Academic integrity in the online learning
environment for health sciences students. Nurse education today, 34(10), pp.1324-1329.
Cox, D., La Caze, M. and Levine, M.P., 2018. Integrity and the fragile self. Routledge.
Eberl, P., Geiger, D. and Aßländer, M.S., 2015. Repairing trust in an organization after integrity
violations: The ambivalence of organizational rule adjustments. Organization Studies, 36(9),
pp.1205-1235.
Eriksen, A., 2015. What is professional integrity?.
Gundersen, L.C. and Townsend, R., 2014. Formulating the American Geophysical Union’s
Scientific Integrity and Professional Ethics Policy: Challenges and Lessons Learned. Geoethics-
Ethical Challenges and Case Studies in Earth Sciences, pp.83-93.
Löfström, E., Trotman, T., Furnari, M. and Shephard, K., 2015. Who teaches academic integrity
and how do they teach it?. Higher Education, 69(3), pp.435-448.
Macfarlane, B., Zhang, J. and Pun, A., 2014. Academic integrity: a review of the
literature. Studies in Higher Education, 39(2), pp.339-358.
Razek, N., 2014. Academic integrity: A Saudi student perspective. Academy of Educational
Leadership Journal, 18(1).
Reeves, M., 2015. Academic integrity and its limits in Kyrgyzstan. International Higher
Education, (37).
Walmsley, B.D. and McCormack, L., 2016. Stigma, the medical model and dementia care:
Psychological growth in senior health professionals through moral and professional
integrity. Dementia, 15(6), pp.1685-1702.