Effective Research & Resources Mrs. Bastone, Head of Learning Resources Autumn 2015

Independent Projects – a few tips Start with an outline of your intentions Develop your ideas through sustained and focused investigations – investigate specialist resources Demonstrate and develop analytical and critical understanding by reading differing opinions Use examples (and cite them) in your work Take good notes and keep them organised – avoid plagiarism Record all your sources in bibliography OK so I am going to talk you through good practice for an independent study assignment. Here are some general tips which will help you get the best marks and which are required by the exam boards.

QUESTIONS What’s my topic? What do I know already? What do I need to find out? Where can I look? What’s my search strategy? What’s my goal? Use the QUICK steps When starting research be logical and you will make life much easier for yourself. So you’ve been given a topic to research. You have been directed to find certain resources BUT A common approach seems to be to search the title of your project on Google and more or less copy something from one of the first three hits. Sorry, not good enough at A level. Especially since this copying business is plagiarism and we don’t tolerate that – but we’ll come to that later. The first thing to do is to BRAINSTORM your topic and make a list of your KEYWORDS Start by brainstorming your topic and working out what you need to find out. Write down keywords and phrases before searching. It might sound obvious but students often don’t do it and it can save a great deal of wasted time on the internet. The right keywords will narrow your search

IDENTIFY RESOURCES Not just Google and Wikipedia! Find your subject section in the LRC – there are lots of good books and online resources Do some searches in Oliver using your keywords LVS Netvibes page – General & Science tabs Google and Wikipedia – I’ll come on to them Subject section – use Subject Index to find the Dewey number – they are all on the Mezzanine Oliver – use your search terms – what do we have – books and websites Netvibes – general resources & subject tabs Netvibes – subject tab Mrs. Keeler will do some live searching in the second half of this presentation

Big, Powerful and Useful BUT Commercial – sponsored links at the top – businesses pay for name at top Unchecked/untested/often unattributable Can be out of date So, use it wisely Brainstorm your keywords/phrases first Think about putting words/phrases together or leaving them out – use AND, OR, NOT Try Google Advanced – restrict your search to a type of site: uk, gov, org, ac, edu AND to a date/s Use speech marks if you want an exact phrase Uk, gov, org – non-profit making, ac, edu – academic (British/American) Demonstrate Google Advanced & google scholar

Use Wikipedia with care Not necessarily reliable – anyone can edit Unattributable – you need to record source BUT look at: External links Notes References to original material Wikipedia itself is not acceptable as a source – try Credo!

Digital literacy Being able to make careful, sceptical and savvy judgements about internet content Being able to identify outright lies, scams, hoaxes, conspiracy theories, selective half-truths and mistakes Knowing how to discriminate the good, reliable, trustworthy or useful information from the bad Being able to recognise bias and propaganda Access and critically analyse online information – one part of digital literacy You can only learn to discriminate between good and bad information by experience – reading as much as you can and checking your sources with others.

Questions to ask: Who has written this site? Is the site up to date ? When was it last updated ? Is the site biased in any way ? Can the information be checked? Is it relevant to me?

Using LVS Resources Start with Oliver Then try an alternate provider Use your keywords –– then try alternate provider – gets you through to google advanced or scholar Email yourself the details of resources you use from Oliver– always keep a record. You could do something as simple as keep a word document and copy links to websites you use.

Credo Reference – the reliable Wikipedia! Credo – use “nervous system + drugs” croll down to end of article for further links and bibliography details (show Harvard)

LVS netvibes online resources English Netvibes tab Show access to Philip Allan

Plagiarism: what is it and why should I avoid it? © Oxford English Dictionary: “to take and use as one’s own the thoughts, writings or inventions of another”. Don’t copy someone else’s work and use it as your own Do paraphrase, quote etc. Do make notes from a variety of sources Do record all your sources Ofqual guide “Using Sources” – download from LVSpace

Bibliographies and Referencing You must keep a record of ALL your sources, including images, to avoid Plagiarism Various referencing styles Most subjects use Harvard based system Useful book: Palgrave’s Cite them Right Guides & templates on LVSpace Cite them right

Citations in the text In-text citations usually list either the name of the publication or the author of the work. Here are examples: ‘Inspiring a generation?’ (Fact File, 2014, p142) From your textbook : As earlier identified (Roberts, Ian (2001) Or from a website: The latest study of health professionals (http://ww.onlinehealthsurvey.org, 2009) reveals that .... If you cite in the text you need to put the full details of the resource in your Bibliography

Bibliographies A bibliography is a list of your sources at the end of your work It is arranged in alphabetical order by last name of author There is a specific order for different types of resource

References - books Author Year of publication (in round brackets) Title (in italics) Edition (only if it is not the 1st) Place of publication: publisher

References - Journals Author (surname followed by initials) Year of publication (in round brackets) Title of article in quotation marks Title of journal (in italics) Volume number (in italics) Issue (in round brackets): page numbers

References – websites Author Year the site was published/last updated (in round brackets) Title of internet site (in italics) The website address (url) Date of access

Please ask at the LRC for further help or individual tutorials This presentation and lots of other useful guides and templates can be found on LVSpace: (School/LRC/Study Stuff to Download)