ACADEMIC RESEARCH and WRITING

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ACADEMIC RESEARCH and WRITING

• Peter Paolucci, Ph.D.

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TWO TYPES OF SOURCES

• POPULAR
• ACADEMIC
• Neither necessarily has truth but one is more
  legitimate
• See http//www.kyvl.org/html/tutorial/research/inf
  osources.shtml for more examples and (/-) of
  both

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TWO TYPES OF LIBRARIES

• PUBLIC
• UNIVERSITY
• Housing two very different kinds of materials

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ACADEMIC PUBLISHING

• Books
• Journals (published monthly)
• Peer review process
• Sent to several 3rd party experts for scrutiny
• Returned with rejected, publish with minor revs,
  major revs, or as is

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ALAN SOKOL

• Published an article through peer review process
  that was BS
• Only one article by one journal BUT
• Made critical world wonder about the whole
  process
• Where does truth live?
• What is the relationship between truth and
  legitimacy?

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PUBLISHING SCANDALS

• Sokal's Hoax (see next slide)
• The Scandal of Poor Medical Research (1/7)
• About the Peer Review Process
• The Abuse of Science

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INTERNET / LIBRARY KEY DIFFERENCES

• Librarians standardize everything, incl. booleans
  (and, or, adj, not)
• but
• Internet search engines standardize little (they
  compete)

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LIBRARY SCIENCE

• Is all about standardization
• ISBN numbers
• Library of Congress
• Standard subjects

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INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES

• 3 Kinds
• Generic (Yahoo)
• Meta search other engines (Metacrawler)
• Dedicated (Lawcrawler). See http//searchenginewat
  ch.com/

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SEARCH ENGINES

• Each
• collects
• filters
• stores
• eliminates
• serves data
• differently
• See http//www.learncanada.org/e2nginez/

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PROBLEMS WITH SEARCH ENGINES

• Research and promotion 2 sides of same coin
• Sometimes what you find has nothing to do with
  your research skills

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HOW YOU ARE MANIPULATED

• Research and promotion 2 sides of same coin
• What you find has little to do with your research
  skills
• Promotion can be
• Passive (in the HTML code)
• Active (submitting abstracts or buying ads which
  are measured in CPMs)

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TWO APPROACHES

• Searching with purpose
• takes HUGE amounts of time
• Exploratory (relying on serendipity)
• takes STAGGERING amounts of time more than
  you have in any course

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SOLUTIONS

• The answer is NOT in the library or on the
  Internet
• Its
• in your head !

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OBJECTIVES

• Thoroughness
• While youre at it, research more than you need
• Explore more than is necessary
• Bring home (copies of) everything you come across
• Accuracy Meticulousness
• Record all meta information (author, title,
  journal, URL, date, call , page , editor, which
  library)
• Where you were
• What the date is

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OBJECTIVES

• Balance fairness
• Choose a variety of sources, opinions and
  viewpoints
• Always choose current sources, but older ones
  are not always wrong or outdated
• Clarity in complexity
• Retain paradoxes, dilemmas and inconsistencies
• Dont oversimplify

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INTENTION

• Not always to narrow down your data, but to
• open up possibilities and generate choices

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SCRUTINIZE SOURCES

• The key is
• TRANSPARENCY
• Who wrote it? Credentials?
• When? Why?
• Are sources used documented and traceable?

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EVALUATE SOURCES

• Thoroughness
• Accuracy
• Balance
• Clarity
• TRANSPARENCY

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PREDICT !

• Speculate specifically about what you could find
  what you're likely to find
• Even if wrong, its better to approach research
  with articulated assumptions

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KNOWLEDGE / WISDOM

• Knowledge
• Mere data (who, where, what, when)
• Wisdom data thats been
• scrutinized
• labelled
• categorized and clustered (linked relationally
  and to other data)
• Wisdom Why and how

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MAP IT!

• Try to locate data in a schematic or map showing
  its relation to
• other data
• other problems
• other concepts
• other ideas

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IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDER ESTIMATE

• The time and trouble it will take (power of bad
  luck)
• The power of serendipity (power of good luck)

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PROCESS

• Predict
• Search (gather more than you need)
• Evaluate
• Document / record
• Cluster/group/categorize

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SOME GOOD SOURCES !

• How to do research
• Advice on Research Writing
• Scott Library resources (York)
• Style, formatting documentation (Monash U)
• Academic Integrity (avoiding plagiarism)

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