Cambridge book 12 - Test 1- Writing task 2

Some people believe that it is good to share as much information as possible in scientific research, business and academic world. Others believe that some information is too important or too valuable to be shared freely.

Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.

It goes without saying that diffusion of knowledge and its accessibility is one of the major necessities of development in all aspects of economic, scientific, industrial and what not. However, whether to what extent it would be acceptable to share knowledge and experiences at no cost is debatable.

Supporters of giving open access to scientific and market information argue that it helps students, research corporations and institutes' experimenters with remaining up-to-date with latest breakthroughs whether in their specific or other semi-related fields. Because many of these findings have been achieved by unflagging perseverance and conducting trial and error approach such as the invention of light bulb or dynamite, a considerable amount of time and money would be saved for other parallel research groups. However, at first glance it might be seemed unfair, if each individual group makes their work results freely accessible, in long-run all players in the competition field will reap the benefits of this win-win game. Moreover, many companies set aside a comparatively huge amount of money and resources to protect their data from being stolen by their rivals or cyber-thefts. By an agreement on freely sharing dispensable information a large proportion of this money could be invested in business development.

Proponents of the restriction of freely sharing information say everything has a price and personal valuable knowledge is not an exception. Information Technology (IT) as a major implementation of globalization and modernized world help business owners and shareholders with analyzing data gained from news, trends and market events to use it as a mean for more profits or even as a saleable product. What is more, in this fast paced changing and competitive global market being survive and keeping a business afloat inevitably needs to invest money and effort in keeping up with brand new technologies, predict attitude changes of target markets and continuously analyze consumer feedbacks toward products. The results as a valuable assets if be shared freely may expose companies at the risk of being ruined.

In conclusion, I personally believe that in some areas such as scientific field benefits of freely sharing of personal findings could outweigh its drawbacks, provided that have the faithful obligation of all beneficiaries. However, in business-related fields setting price for decisive and critical information or even preventing them from being released seem to be a logical decision.