Writing and research
MutebSTST
RES500-W02-TheSourcesofInformation.pptxWeek 2
The Sources of Information
RES 500 Academic Writing and Research Skills
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Reading, Note-taking and guarding against plagiarism
Any study involve reading what other have written about your area of interest, gathering information to support your arguments and writing about your findings.
Much reading about research topic may give ideas about the research others have done and their approach and methods.
The bulk of reading should come early on in the investigation.
Make notes of what seem to you to be important issues and highlight them.
Make it quite clear in notes which is the quotation and which is paraphrase.
Plagiarism is using other people’s words as if they are your own.
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Reading, Note-taking and guarding against plagiarism Cont…
Important to acknowledged, including paraphrases of other people’s words and of other people’s ideas.
Ensure never use other people’s words or ideas as your own without acknowledgement in note-taking and in recording exact details of references.
Ask yourself whether you can trust what you read.
What does the research/report/document actually say, and what evidence is provided to support the findings?
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Referencing
There are several perfectly acceptable ways of recording sources of other information.
For books (APA)
Author’s surname and forename or initials.
Date of publication.
Title (underlined or italics) and which edition, if appropriate.
Place of publication.
Name of publisher
For example:
May, Tim (2001) Social Research: Issues, Methods and Process, 3rd ed. Buckingham: Open University Press.
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For journal articles (APA)
Referencing Cont…
The author’s surname, forename or initials and the date of publication. After that
The title of the article (sometimes in inverted commas, sometimes not);
The title of the journal from which the article or chapter is derived (generally underlined or in italics, though again, not always);
The volume number of the journal, the issue and page numbers.
For example, for a journal article:
Whitehead, N. (2003) ‘Herbal remedies: integration into conventional medicine’, Nursing Times, 99(34): 30–33.
For chapters in books (APA)
Wragg, T. (2002) ‘Interviewing’, in M. Coleman and A.R.J. Briggs (eds) Research Methods in Educational Leadership and Management. London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
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For conference proceedings (APA)
Bickman, L., & Ellis, H. (Eds.). (1990). Preparing psychologists for the 21st century: Proceedings of the National Conference on Graduate Education in Psychology, University of Utah, 1988. Hillsdale, NJ: L. Erlbaum.
Creating, editing and storing references
Software such as EndNote, ProCite and Reference Manager are used these days to keep track of references.
EndNote gives the facility to create, store, organize, retrieve and cite references in our reports.
Its library (database) holds more than 30,000 references and it allows us to search and manage the online
bibliographic databases.
Cards have less weight and cost, fit comfortably into a pocket and can be used anytime.
Methods used by other researchers may give you ideas about how you might organize and categorize your own data.
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Refining your search
The library search
Consult your library catalogue and the library web page.
Library web pages give information about:
Passwords
Information about the databases and journals subscribed.
Copyright regulations relating to the use of electronic resources
Books
Book titles can be misleading, but the contents lists will give you a good idea of what the books are really about and the language used.
Photocopy the list of references/bibliographies at the end of books.
Note possible keywords and add a note to remind you where you found the book.
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Refining your search Cont…
Journals
Look at the list of contents at the front of the journals, read abstracts and make a note of any interesting items and possible keywords.
Take a photocopy of lists of references and, if copyright conditions permit.
Some search engines may accept phrases; others will not.
Individual and grouped keywords
Two important search engines are Yahoo (http://search.yahoo.com/) and Google Scholar
(http://www.scholar.google.com/).
Note the URL and add it to the ‘Favorites' list in your computer so you can find it again, if necessary.
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Copyright and licensing restrictions
Be careful about copyright and licensing restrictions.
Database helplines should inform you what you can download, print and use, and what you cannot.
Focusing your keywords
Not finding useful results, try alternative keywords.
If some items relate to journal articles, the name of the journals are generally given.
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Top ten guide to searching the Internet
1. Give yourself plenty of time.
2. Be optimistic.
3. Be prepared with search limiters.
4. Know your search engines.
5. When you find something do not lose it!
6. Do not underestimate the news.
7. Avoid spam.
8. Networking – the old-fashioned type.
9. Referencing.
10. Patience and persistence!
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Literature Review
The literature review section examines:
Recent (or historically significant) research studies.
Company or industry reports act as a basis for the proposed study.
It begins with discussion of the related literature and relevant secondary data moving to more specific studies that are associated with your problem.
It might reveal that the sponsor can answer the management question with a secondary data search rather than the collection of primary data.
Literature review is integral part of entire research process.
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Literature Review Cont…
Avoid extraneous details of the literature.
Do a brief review of the information.
Always refer to the original source.
If find something of interest in a quotation, find the original publication.
Emphasize on important results, conclusions, relevant data, trends and particular methods or designs that could be duplicated or should be avoided.
Literature review helps to explain emerging results.
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Literature Review Cont…
Discussion should be done on the following with in the literature review process:
How the literature applies to the study you are proposing.
Discuss the weaknesses or faults in the design.
How you are going to avoid similar problems.
At the completion summaries the important aspects and interpretate them in terms of your problem.
Explain the need for the proposed work.
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Literature Review Cont…
A literature review tells about:
What procedures and methods used by other similar to the ones that you are proposing.
Which procedures and methods have worked well for them.
What problems they have faced.
Thus, making us in a better position to select a methodology that is capable of providing valid answers to our research questions.
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References
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1. Business Research Methods by Donald R Cooper, 12th Edition.
Chapter 20 - Presenting Insights and Findings: Oral Presentations, PP 538-574
2. Doing Your Research Project: A Guide for First-Time Researchers in Education, Health and Social Science, 5th Edition
Chapter 4 - Reading, referencing and the Management of information, PP 65-86
Chapter 5 - Literature Searching, PP 87-103
