This document provides an overview of research skills for students completing a dissertation or project. It discusses finding and evaluating sources, referencing styles, and tools like Mendeley and Zotero for managing references. The document offers tips on developing search strategies, assessing different types of sources, and keeping track of bibliographic information. It emphasizes that proper referencing is important for giving credit to other authors' work and receiving credit for one's own research.

1. Research
Survival Guide:
Mastering your
Dissertation or
Project
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2. Liz Osman
College Librarian
Annie Gleeson
Senior Library Assistant

3. In this session…
•
•
•
•
Finding material
Evaluating print and online sources
Referencing
Tools to make referencing easier

4. Photo by Libatcam
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Photo by Libatcam
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5. Ask us
to buy
books!

6. Useful…
…but watch out!

7. Photo by Libatcam
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Museums, archives & rare books

8. Photo by Nightowl
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The literature search

9. What is a literature search?
A detailed and organised,
step by step search for all the
material available on a topic

10. How do I know what to search for?
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11. Research topic
Research question
Concept
Concept
Concept
Synonyms
Variant
spellings

12. Impact of advertising
Does television advertising have any influence
on the eating habits of teenagers?
Eating
habits
Television
Advertising
Teenagers
Youth?
Adolescent?
Teen?
Young people

13. Are you getting too many results?

14. …or too few?
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15. Evaluating sources

16. Books
Why was the book written?
Who published the book?
When was it published?
Is the book well organised?
Has the book got a bibliography?
Who is the target audience?

17. Journal articles

18. Databases

19. Newspapers Be aware of bias

20. How trustworthy or accurate are
the results?

22. Websites
Why was the site written?
Who wrote the content?
When was it last updated?
Who is the target audience?

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29. Why is referencing important?

30. of Cambridge students
have plagiarised during
their time at University
Michael Stothard ‘1 in 2 admits to Plagiarism’, Varsity (October 2008)

31. did not know that failing
to cite sources could be
considered plagiarism
Michael Stothard ‘1 in 2 admits to Plagiarism’, Varsity (October 2008)

32. Why is referencing important?
GIVE credit –
for the work that
you are building
on
GET credit –
for the work that
you have done
yourself

33. How do I do it?

34. Referencing means…
You need to include a citation every time
you use another author’s work in your essay.
To do this, you will either put the reference
in brackets (Smith 2014, p. 123) or you will
use footnotes/endnotes.1
1
Smith, J. Reference Like a Boss (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2014) p. 123
…in-text references

35. Referencing means…
Copyright Licensing Agency. “Copyright Licensing Agency
(CLA) : Licences for Education,” 2012.
http://www.cla.co.uk/Licencesforeducation.
Curley, Duncan. Intellectual Property Licences and Technology
Transfer: A Practical Guide to the New European
Licensing Regime. Intellectual Property Series.
Oxford: Chandos, 2004.
Pedley, Paul. Digital Copyright. 2nd ed. London: Facet
Publishing, 2007.
Secker, Jane. Copyright and E-Learning : A Guide for
Practitioners. London: Facet, 2010.
…a bibliography

36. When should I
start to think
about
referencing?
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38. What information do I need?
For books… author/editor, full title, page numbers,
publisher, date and location of publication, edition
For articles… author, article title, page numbers
journal title, date, volume/issue/number of the
journal
For websites… author, date of publication, website
title, full web address, date accessed

39. How do I keep track?

41. Both have…
• Desktop application – Windows/Mac/Linux
• ‘Cite while you write’ plug-ins for the most
popular word-processing programmes
• Ability to create groups to share references,
PDFs, comments etc. with peers
• Back-up and synchronisation across
different devices

42. But…
• Zotero is alternatively available in an online
only version as a Firefox extension
• Mendeley has an official iPad/iPhone app,
with 3rd party apps available for Android. No
official Zotero apps, but 3rd party available
for both Android and iOS.
• PDF annotation feature in Mendeley.

43. A detailed comparison of several
reference managers:
http://library.wisc.edu/citationmanagers/comparison.html
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44. in action

45. For more information…
Pop in and see us in the Library, or email
library@homerton.cam.ac.uk
The UL runs further research skills courses:
http://training.cam.ac.uk/cul
This session was adapted from some of
Emma Coonan’s presentations at:
http://researchcentral.wordpress.com/