Learning about research and information from the Covid-19 pandemic. No.6 Research builds on earlier research so remember to reference.

Research and referencing

Have you heard the story of how Pythagoras came up with his new theorem while bathing and jumped out of the bath crying "Eureka"? (See the start of the TED-Ed video below if you want to hear the story).

Unfortunately, it is highly unlikely that it worked like that and neither does any research and discovery which is carried out today. It is thought Pythagoras travelled widely and is highly likely to have been influenced by the architecture and construction work in places like Egypt and Babylon where he would have seen the principle working in practice. He may have been the first to prove it, however.

Research always builds on earlier research.. Scientists won't suddenly just come up with a treatment or vaccine for Covid-19 by sitting on a beach somewhere waiting for inspiration, they will be using previous research on subjects like viruses (especially Coronaviruses), the human immune system, DNA and what was done in previous pandemics for example, as well as testing new vaccines. The idea of using the blood from someone (full text is available on Gale Infotrac/ FE News) who has recovered from Covid-19 and giving it to someone who has the disease was tried in the Spanish flu pandemic in 1918 when they did not have a vaccine. The Covid-19 scientists may have been using some trial and error with this idea too but the idea was based on something that worked in the past. Scientists are currently sharing information regularly and if you look at any of the Covid-19 research sites (e.g. Cambridge Fighting COVID website and the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium) you will see academics quoting and referring to other scientists' work as well as talking about the work they are doing themselves. They show how they have used previous research and other researchers' work.

How is this relevant to my research?

• It is always good academic practice to cite in text and reference everything you read and refer to in your assignments or presentations. Not to do this is plagiarism.
• Referencing shows you have read widely and if you show how it backs up your conclusions, your arguments are more likely to be objective and credible.
• References help someone reading your work follow the research back and give them other places to go for their research (just as you can use references in an author's bibliography for research).
• Your lecturer may disagree with your point of view but if you can show where you have found your information you are unlikely to be marked down.
• Referencing saves you copying and pasting large swathes of text (and going over your word count!) into your assignment as you can refer to some research, cite it and just summarise the relevant points in your own words. (Those who want to know more can check using the reference).
• Cite the author and year of publication throughout your assignment and then the full reference at the end (listed in alphabetical order by author).
• ARU and UCP use the Harvard referencing system and their website has examples for all sorts of resources you may use.
• The LRC has a referencing tutorial with quizzes you can do in the How do I? section of the LRC web pages on the Student Portal.

Learning about research and information from the Covid-19 pandemic. No.2. The most current information is found online.

For the most current and up-to-date information, look online.

While books and journals are useful and valuable for background reading, they are not the best resources for keeping up to date where new discoveries are being made and communicated everyday as is the case with the fight against the Covid-19 virus.

The last few weeks have seen universities and research institutes create new websites, twitter feeds and blogs to help share information as quickly as possible so others working on the virus can benefit from what they have learned. Together by sharing information they hope to build on each other's research and create tests, treatments and vaccines as quickly as possible. They can also be share the information quickly globally. An example of  scientists and academics from different institutions working together in the UK is the COVID-19 Genomics UK Consortium. 

The Cambridge Fighting COVID website is sharing information through a weekly update (via zoom and then the recording is made available afterwards). It may be considered by some to be raw and unpolished communication in this form (it is not edited with revisions like a book) but it is current, useful and credible (i.e. provided by the scientists and researchers themselves).

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/covid-19-virus-coronavirus-pandemic-4922384/

How does this apply to student research?

When researching a topic for an assignment, even if you use books and journal articles, it is always useful to refer to the most up to date developments too. Look online for trustworthy websites and social media.

In order to keep up to date whilst pulling together resources for your research, you may want to consider:-

• following key twitter feeds, blogs or Instagram accounts etc. 
• setting up alerts in library/ LRC databases so you are emailed when something new appears in the database on your chosen topic. 
• setting up saved searches you can re- run at intervals to pick up anything new.
  In order to do the last 2 options, you will usually need to set up an account within the database (this may be a further step to your OpenAthens login).

For recent events, newspaper articles and reputable news websites will be the best place to look. Websites like the BBC will even have some analysis on how things are understood at the time as events unfold but be aware time may prove that analysis to be wrong. (A historian would find this useful in itself as evidence of how people were interpreting the events at the time).

Over time more and more research on Covid-19 will probably be published formally in journals and books by the experts involved but I suspect at the moment there isn't time!

Buying essays online and plagiarism

Buying essays online 

This week there has been discussion about the use of online essay-writing services which offer to write essays for payment "plagiarism free". By this they mean that the essays are written to order and are less likely to be recognised as plagiarism when checked by educational software. It does not mean that what they do is ethical or that students using them are not cheating. Universities and Colleges have strict policies on this and if you are caught you can be disciplined or even expelled from an institution.

Photograph CC0 https://pixabay.com/en/writing-write-person-paperwork-828911/

What is plagiarism?

Plagiarism is passing off something someone else has created as your own work whether intentionally or not or if you have their permission or not. ARU's Academic Honesty Policy identifies "the situation where someone has deliberately and knowingly allowed or paid another person to do their work" as fraud. It also states that "handing in something for assessment which has been produced by another student or person" is plagiarism.

How do I avoid plagiarism?

For the majority of students who do write their own assignments, there is still the need to avoid plagiarism. To do this, you need to reference everything you use whether published or not, whether written, drawn, composed, created etc. It could be a television programme, it could be an image, it could be a paragraph in a book or a section from a website. It is always best to put ideas in your own words but whether you quote directly, paraphrase or summarise, you must write a reference. It is best to do this as you use each source (so you aren't trying to remember everything at the end) and then collect them together in to one author alphabetical sequence at the end of your assignment.

The LRC at PRC have created a plagiarism and referencing learning package together with a plagiarism quiz and a referencing quiz with exercises to help you create references. These are on our 24/7 Moodle page. ARU also has one of the best guides to Harvard referencing on their website and this is what UCP students should be using. Qualified librarians can also come in to a class and deliver a session with practical activities if this is preferred. 

Stephen Hawking and Finding Theses

Stephen Hawking and Finding Theses

Stephen Hawking

This week we heard the news that cosmologist and scientist Stephen Hawking died at the age of 76. He worked as a Professor at Cambridge University and became famous for his research in to cosmology - especially black holes. His book A Brief History of Time became a bestseller.

Black hole CC0 https://pixabay.com/en/black-hole-nebula-stars-space-2483571/

The BBC have put together a Stephen Hawking quiz if you want to test your knowledge of the famous scientist.

In October 2017, Cambridge University put Hawking's PhD thesis online for the first time and the demand to read it crashed the system. It was read two million times.

Theses

What is a thesis?

According to the Collins Dictionary the definition of a thesis is a long piece of writing based on your own ideas and research that you do as part of a university degree, especially a higher degree such as a PhD. 

Are they useful?

• They are valid academic sources of information and can be used as sources of background reading and research for dissertations and assignments.
• They are published sources of information with copyright restrictions and must be cited and referenced when used as part of your academic work. ARU has instructions on how to do this using the Harvard system on their website.
• Theses will have reading lists and bibliographies like books and journals which may lead you to other sources/ authors you can read.
• Looking through recent theses in your field may give you an idea of the sorts of issues currently being researched. It may help you pinpoint what you want to choose for your research topic or give you background for a job interview.
• Some research written up in theses may also be summarised in academic journals so you may want to search the author (or the Professor who supervised the research) in a journal database too to see if you can find more context or read a summary.

Where are they stored? How do I find them?

Most universities have their own repository - usually online. ARU's for example is here. These online databases/ websites give open access to a University's research. Stephen Hawking's PhD thesis is on Apollo - the name Cambridge University have given their online repository.

However, you can be forgiven for thinking that trawling through every University's online repository one by one - especially if you don't know which University to look for - is not ideal. These online resources make this easier.

EThoS (Electronic Theses Online System) is the British Library's online repository for over 475,000 doctoral theses awarded by universities across the UK. Most are available in digital format but details of how to get a copy is given if the digital copy isn't available.

NDLTD (Networked Digital Library or Theses and Dissertations) offers access to theses mainly from America and Canada but there are some from other countries.

Finally...

We leave this week's blog with a quote from Stephen Hawking

On life...
❝One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don't throw it away❞ - Interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer, June 2010

Focusing your topic

Help with choosing an assignment topic and breaking a topic down.

LRC staff have been going in to a lot of groups over at UCP (University Centre Peterborough) and also holding 1:1 dissertation sessions with students this year. One skill lots of students find difficult is deciding exactly on what specific topic to pursue. As it was World Thinking Day this week, we thought it an ideal opportunity to think a little about this in our blog. Please note: the examples used below are used to show a process rather than as a recommendation of a good title. Always check your topics with your tutor.

1) Start with a large general topic of interest - something you are naturally interested in, but also which is relevant to your course.
 For example, Marketing, Social media,  employment law, blood, health and safety, mental health.

Image (CC0) by Mohamed Hassan https://pixabay.com/en/light-bulb-inspiration-ideas-2652929/

2) Is there an aspect of that topic more specifically that interests you? Can you break it down further? If you have a few options, note these down and as you start searching consider going for the topic which gives you the most results/ resources which you can use. If you are getting too many results, you probably need to consider breaking it down further.
Following on from the examples above, you might decide to focus on digital marketing, twitter, equal pay legislation, white blood cells, fire safety, depression.

3) Can you break your topic down (or be more specific) by providing a context?
For example, within a particular industry, in a particular setting, in a particular environment, within a particular sport, within a particular type of organisation, within a specific species or within a certain profession.
Continuing with my examples we might choose,

• Digital marketing in the hospitality industry
• Use of twitter by broadcasting companies
• The impact of equal pay legislation on the entertainment industry
• New developments in fire safety in the hospitality industry
• White blood cells in dogs
• How depression is portrayed in TV soaps. 

You may find results then on one context and be interested in seeing if you can apply it to another context or to make a comparison between them.

CC0 image by qimono https://pixabay.com/en/question-mark-pile-question-mark-2492009/ 

4) You then may want to be even more specific. You could define this further by age group or particular sort of restaurant, by country or time period. You could also define by a particular goal or aim. If you have started searching as you go, again, you might have seen certain issues coming up more frequently and there may be particular aspects trending currently. Choose an area where the resources exist and with information you understand. Make sure it is relevant to your course subject.

So again, how about,

• Use of digital marketing to teenagers by fast food chains.
• Comparison of the use of twitter by different Radio stations to encourage customer feedback from their audiences.
• The impact of equal pay legislation on the film industry, particularly in Hollywood.
• What changes are the hospitality industry implementing to reduce fires in kitchens?
• The causes and treatment of low white blood cell count in domestic dogs.
• How the portrayal of depression in TV soaps has changed over the last 5 years.

 If you need any help with finding resources to help you decide what to use as your topic, please ask a member of staff in the LRC. We can also combine this with a classroom session on searching for information (e.g. databases).

Dissertation Research

Dissertations

FE students are on catch up week (half term) this week but UCP students still have lectures and the LRC stays open for all students and staff who want to use us.

Over the past few weeks, LRC librarians have been in to a number of tutorials at UCP to talk to students about finding information for their dissertations. Here are a few tips from the LRC team for getting started:

Getting started on your literature review/ dissertation research

Choose a topic that you are interested in - you will be living with it for a long time.

If you know a broad area you are interested in, you might find it useful to look in a journal dedicated to the subject (if there is one) and have a look through recent contents lists for issues that are currently topical.

You need to find a subject with enough literature, but not so much that you get too many results and your research becomes unmanageable. Even if you are doing primary research, you will need to find enough literature to show the context in which your research fits.

You can refine your subject by focusing on a particular age range (e.g. teenagers, the elderly), country or area (e.g UK) or a particular time period (since 2000), for example.

Before you start searching

Plan your search terms - list synonyms (words that mean the same), acronyms (and what they stand for), wider concepts (things that affect/ are affected by your topic), narrower subjects (specifics), different forms of a word (woman, women).

Set up a system to record everything you find which is useful -why not decide to write a Harvard reference for each source you find as you go along so that it isn't a massive task at the end. Note key page numbers too so you can find sources again.

Laptop image from www.pixabay.com (Stocksnap) CC0

Searching for information

Combine the different terms you listed in your planning in different combinations and search the ARU Digital library and the PRC LRC catalogue on Moodle.  (You can also use Google Scholar if you prefer but you won't find links to the PRC catalogue on there and you need to log in to the ARU Digital Library first to view anything, anyway. Note down other keywords and phrases that you find authors have used as you discover them and integrate them in to your searches. There is always likely to be some trial and error involved and different search terms will yield different results.

Books are a good starting point to familiarise yourself with a topic. Use the bibliographies in these to find other authors and sources which might be useful (note them down as you find them).

For success in your dissertation, you want to be using a range of different, yet appropriate, resources. Have you tried searching for theses or conference proceedings, for example? How about open access databases or  websites of accredited organisations?

Get a quick idea of whether a resource is relevant by reading the abstract.

Be disciplined - it is easy to go off on a tangent - keep to your topic. Only reassess what you are searching for if you are getting too few or too many results.

Asking for help

Remember that the librarians in the LRC at PRC are here to help you if you are having problems finding what you need or indeed if you are justlooking for some other places to explore. We can also suggest ways to put searches together to retrieve the most relevant results. We can help you quickly there and then or set up a 1:1 appointment for a more in depth session.