{"id":427,"date":"2026-05-27T15:20:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T14:20:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/?p=427"},"modified":"2026-04-27T20:57:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T19:57:21","slug":"on-the-ethics-of-editing-someone-elses-research-for-a-blog-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/on-the-ethics-of-editing-someone-elses-research-for-a-blog-post\/","title":{"rendered":"on the ethics of editing someone else\u2019s research for a blog post"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Recently, I felt more angst than usual around my role as an editor when editing someone else\u2019s research report as a post for our blog.\u00a0\u00a0Initially, I\u00a0 identified my key question as:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What are the ethical concerns around\u00a0representing\u00a0someone else\u2019s research through your own lens?<\/i>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

We discussed this issue as a blog editorial team, considering that, whilst the report of another academic\u2019s research aims, methodology, findings and recommendations is not a critique, how much of the editor\u2019s own viewpoint should be allowed to seep into this, and how much should be\u00a0 purely descriptive?\u00a0 \u00a0As our discussion reached no conclusion, our team suggested I write my reflections around this issue\u2026<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Firstly, I was reminded of a friend and colleague who lamented that his lengthy interview given for BBC radio was then clipped into a few seconds.\u00a0 \u00a0I suggested, and he agreed, that when something is \u2018out there\u2019, it becomes someone else\u2019s property.\u00a0\u00a0But to what extent can this apply here?\u00a0\u00a0This research was not my academic property; yet I needed to edit it to fit the requirements of our blog post, particularly in relation to its length and accessibility for a wider audience.\u00a0\u00a0And, of course, there aren\u2019t just personal ethics to consider, but those attached to data protection law.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Around\u00a0this time,\u00a0we had the big editing scandal \u2013 the editing for\u00a0BBC\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>Panorama<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u00a0of Donald Trump\u2019s Washington speech of 6<\/span>th<\/span> January, 2021, which led to the resignation of Director General, Tim Davie and Chief Executive, Deborah Turness and resulted in the threat from Trump of a lawsuit.\u00a0\u00a0The legal claim, I understand, is that in juxtaposing two separate parts of Trump\u2019s speech without <\/span>explanation,\u00a0 <\/span>Panorama<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 misrepresented Trump\u2019s meaning.\u00a0 \u00a0So, of course, accurate representation of intended meaning \u2013 as far as the editor understands it \u2013 should be paramount.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However,\u00a0in snipping, paraphrasing,\u00a0sifting\u00a0and explaining,\u00a0through\u00a0the lens of\u00a0their own personal and professional viewpoint,\u00a0to meet length and accessibility requirements for\u00a0the\u00a0wider audience,\u00a0is it\u00a0perhaps\u00a0inevitable\u00a0that the editor misrepresents the original, intended meaning \u2013 at least to an extent?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My search for\u00a0further insight\u00a0into\u00a0this issue\u00a0led me to the research of\u00a0<\/span>Ken Hyland and Hay Zou (2022)<\/span><\/a>,\u00a0investigating\u00a0how authors\u00a0represent\u00a0themselves in academic blogs to non-specialist audiences, based on a corpus of 75\u00a0such\u00a0cross-genre blogs.\u00a0\u00a0They see what I termed (above) \u201cviewpoint\u201d as \u201cstance\u201d,\u00a0defining\u00a0stance as a\u00a0means of\u00a0the researchers\u00a0promoting themselves to a wider\u00a0readership,\u00a0for which they need to repurpose their original research to project towards the expectations of\u00a0the new\u00a0audience.\u00a0\u00a0They comment: \u201cThere is no \u2018faceless\u2019 discourse as we always take some position as to what we say, even if we present it in an impersonal and objective way.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0For example, they found that repurposing for an academic blog meant employing less definite language\u00a0to create space for those with opposing viewpoints to debate issues raised.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Hyland and Zou\u2019s\u00a0study\u00a0concerned authors repurposing their own research for a blog post.\u00a0\u00a0In my context, I am acting as an intermediary, presenting the stance on behalf of the researcher.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I then abandoned my search amongst academic sources to enquire how\u00a0<\/span>Chat GPT<\/span><\/a>\u00a0would answer my\u00a0specific question:\u00a0<\/span>What are ethical concerns when editing someone else\u2019s work for a blog post?\u00a0<\/span><\/i>(As a blog\u00a0editorial\u00a0team\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0debated\u00a0our feelings around\u00a0Artificial Intelligence (AI)\u00a0<\/span>here<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and in particular Chat GPT.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Chat GPT\u2019s\u00a0answer\u00a0was specific to my context and appeared to advise what had seemed obvious to me, in summary,\u00a0to credit the original author, obtain their consent and\u00a0then,\u00a0\u00a0the thorny issue,\u00a0to preserve original intent and meaning, to\u00a0avoid\u00a0\u201c<\/span>altering the tone, message, or context in a way that could misrepresent the author’s ideas\u201d.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I then realised that, whilst the answer to my initial question regarding the ethics of the editing process seems clear,\u00a0it raises a key problem of\u00a0<\/span>how;\u00a0<\/span><\/i>in an attempt to ethically edit someone else\u2019s research for my blog post,\u00a0<\/span>how<\/span><\/b>\u00a0do I avoid misrepresentation of original intention,<\/span>\u00a0or, at least,\u00a0Hyland and Zou\u2019s forever taking\u00a0<\/span>some position about what we say<\/span><\/i>?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I considered and adopted\u00a0two potential\u00a0practical\u00a0solutions to this problem.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0My first might be considered a \u2018cop out\u2019,\u00a0to\u00a0include\u00a0brief quotations from the original.\u00a0\u00a0Secondly, as\u00a0advised\u00a0by our blog editorial team,\u00a0I appended\u00a0my own response\u00a0in relation to how the research resonates with my experience, so declaring my own interpretation and stance, but separating this\u00a0from the edit itself.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Any thoughts?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Blog By Dr Jane Cobb<\/p>\n

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Photo by Mikhail Nilov from Pexels: https:\/\/www.pexels.com\/photo\/person-in-black-and-white-checkered-shirt-using-laptop-6894007\/\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Recently, I felt more angst than usual around my role as an editor when editing someone else\u2019s research report as a post for our blog.\u00a0\u00a0Initially, I\u00a0 identified my key question as:\u00a0 What are the ethical concerns around\u00a0representing\u00a0someone else\u2019s research through your own lens?\u00a0\u00a0 We discussed this issue as a blog editorial team, considering that, whilst … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “on the ethics of editing someone else\u2019s research for a blog post”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[53,54],"class_list":["post-427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pgrblogger-editorial","tag-ethics","tag-jane-cobb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":441,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427\/revisions\/441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/welspgr\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}