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Searching the Internet

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Search engines

1. Searching the internet is the quickest way to locate data when researching for an essay or term paper. For this you will need a search engine. The most popular without a doubt is Google, but there are others – such as Alta-Vista, Yahoo, and Infoseek.

2. Remember that anybody can put data on the Net. You need to evaluate the quality of the information you recover.

3. Always give full details of the source of any information you use. There are new conventions for citing electronic sources.

4. A search engine will scan its database (or the Net itself) for whatever word(s) you type in the FIND box. It will then return a number of ‘hits’ – possibly rated according to likely significance.

5. Most of the popular search engines use slightly different methods and databases. If you don’t find what you want with one, try another. Some will quote the first few lines of an extract.

Search techniques

6. Be as specific and ‘narrow’ as possible in defining your request. General and ‘wide’ requests will result in too many hits. For example…

7. Say you were researching pineapple production in Brazil in 1997. A search on ‘pineapple’ might result in 10,000 hits. You have ten thousand documents to evaluate!

8. But choosing ‘pineapples+Brazil+1997’ narrows the search to documents which include all these terms.

Boolean terms

9. Most search engines will recognise the use of terms which help you to narrow your request.

10. ‘Bacon AND tomato’ will locate documents which contain both these terms.

11. ‘Bacon OR tomato’ will locate documents which contain either of these terms.

12. ‘Bacon NOT tomato’ will locate documents which contain one term, but not the other.

13. You can also use keyboard symbols to refine a search. The wildcard [*] is powerful but should be used with care. A search for ‘Colum*’ would return Columbus, Columbia, Columbian, Column, and so on.

General points

14. Letter case doesn’t matter with most search engines. ‘Smith’, ‘smith’ and ‘SMITH’ are all the same.

15. Don’t assume the data you are looking for must be available on line.

16. Thousands of pages are added to the Web daily, but the total is still far less than the volume of printed material in big libraries.

17. Many search engines will now allow you to narrow your searches by

  • language (Spanish, English French)
  • date (in last 2/3 days, week, month)
  • continent (co.uk, com.ca, ac.au)
  • source (Web, newsgroups, companies)

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Self-plagiarism – how to avoid it

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how to understand and avoid self-plagiarism

What is self-plagiarism?

Self-plagiarism is literally copying your own work. It can occur when quoting your own work without acknowledgement, or when you use the same piece of work for two different purposes.

Plagiarism is commonly defined as “taking someone else’s ideas or words and trying to pass them off as your own original work”. Self-plagiarismMost people understand the rules. If you quote from somebody else’s work, you put the words in quote marks and acknowledge the source, either as part of your text or in an endnote or footnote. Details of how to use quotations accurately are a separate issue. These conventions allow a reader to check the validity of the claims being made, the accuracy of the quotation, and to see (if necessary) how the quotation was used in its original context.

However, what if the words quoted were written by the same author of the text in question? Does this constitute plagiarism? If plagiarism is thought of as an issue of ‘ownership’, it would seem that it’s impossible to steal from yourself. But a number of cases exist where the re-use of your own work can easily become self-plagiarism.

Self-plagiarism in academic writing

It’s not normally permitted to submit a piece of work witten for one course and award as a submission for part of another. That is, a dissertation on The Poetry of Thomas Hardy written for a BA in English Literature cannot be re-submitted as part of the requirements for a separate MA course in’ Landscape and Literature’.

Even though the writing is an original piece of work by the author, academic rules forbid the re-use of material in this way. Dissertation and thesis rules normally stipulate that the material submitted for the award of a degree must not have appeared anywhere else before. Attempts to use the same material for two different purposes is sometimes known as ‘double-dipping’.

Academic authors are under a great deal of pressure to publish more and more of their research findings. This sometimes leads to the practice of publishing the same research data, with a slightly different analytic commentary. This is classed as duplicate or redundant publishing, and is severely frowned on by publishers. It is sometimes know as ‘Salami-slicing’.

The converse of this practice is known as ‘data augmentation’. This occurs when an already-published piece of work is re-published with new data, as if it were a new piece of work. This too is frowned on by the academic community and is regarded as a form of self-plagiarism.

Self-plagiarism and copyright

When a piece of work is published, copyright is automatically established, and rests with the original author. In contracts between publishers and authors, the author normally agrees to share copyright with the publisher. This means that the publisher is free to publish and re-use the author’s material (usually to the author’s benefit) and the author is normally allowed to maintain ownership of the work.

But if the author then re-cycles the work in question and publishes it elsewhere, this creates a case of both self-plagiarism and breach of copyright – since the original publisher may share copyright to the material.

Text recycling

Some parts of an academic paper may relate to research methods and procedures. The researcher describes accurately the sequence of events, the materials used, and the procedures of the research project. It’s quite likely that these will be the same in another experiment or piece of research of a similar kind.

There is therefore a great temptation to use templates of ‘boilerplate’ descriptions which can be re-used from one piece of research to the next. This is currently a contentious area of self-plagiarism, but it is worth noting that is is very easy to detect.

Citation stuffing

Academic authors are often rated according to how many times their work is quoted in academic papers and journals. Authors therefore have an built-in temptation to quote from their own work as much as possible – no matter how relevant it might be to the subject under discussion. In its worst cases, when authors articifically quote themselves for the sake of increasing the number of their own citations, this is therefore regarded as a form of self-plagiarism.

Fortunately, this is reasonably easy to detect, but it is a practice which is likely to continue so long as it is encouraged by publishers – who themselves also have an interest in their papers and journals being cited, thus enhancing their reputation.

You can perhaps see that there are very subtle links between academic honesty, accuracy of quotation, referencing, and the economics of both publishing and academic career structures. It is not the polite gentleman’s club that many people might imagine.

Internet publishing

Self-plagiarism is a very easy trap to fall into on the Internet. It’s possible to write an article, then publish it to a web site or a personal blog. Having done that, there is nothing to stop you posting the same article on another web site which aggregates similar materials. The article appears twice – with or without acknowledgement. This creates what in academic publishing is known as duplicate or redundant publication.

Unless you are a well-known author, few people are likely to complain, but it is worth noting that since Google will index the same article twice, the web page will immediately be given a lower ranking by Google, because it contains ‘duplicate material’. In terms of search engine rankings, the second instance of the article is competing against the first.

Newspaper journalists are faced with this problem all the time. But many of them now make a clear distinction between the articles they write as part of their contract with the newspaper, and the occasional smaller pieces they post onto personal blogs.

Re-cycling

Some people argue that if a piece of writing is published in a different context, for a different audience, then there can be little possibility of offence. The text may be re-edited to suit the new audience. But strictly speaking, this would still be plagiarism, unless the original source was acknowledged with a note such as: “This article first appeared as ‘Travels through Norther Italy’ in Atlantic Monthly Vol XII, number 28.”

Commercial publishing

One newspaper or magazine will occasionally reprint and article which has already been published elsewhere. The publisher usually does this fully conscious of the fact – and the article is likely to be followed by a note to its original source: “This article first appeared in Weekend magazine July 2010. The author may even be paid twice, but would not be accused of plagiarism, because no attempt to conceal the original source is being made.

Books which go out of print are occasionally re-printed by a separate publisher who see further commercial potential in the work. In such cases there will be an acknowledgement on the page listing publishing details – such as ‘First published by Acorn Books 1992’.

© Roy Johnson 2011

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Semicolons in essays

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sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. If you are in any doubt at all concerning the correct use of semicolons – then avoid using them entirely. They are the most commonly misused and misunderstood mark of punctuation.

2. It is perfectly possible to write clearly and effectively using only the comma and the full stop. Do this if you are in any doubt about the use of the semicolon (and the colon).

3. Remember that the semicolon represents a pause which is longer than a comma but shorter than a full stop (and a colon). It is normally used to separate clauses which could stand alone, but which are closely related.

4. It is used when the second clause expands or explains the first:

Neither of us spoke; we merely waited patiently in silence to see what would happen next.

5. It is used when the clauses describe a sequence of actions or different aspects of the same topic:

There was a sharp, bracing air; the ground beneath us was dry; the sea was calm and clear.

6. It is used before clauses which begin with ‘nevertheless’, ‘therefore’, ‘even so’, and ‘for instance’:

He usually took great care; even so he made a few errors.

7. It is used to mark off a series of phrases or clauses which themselves contain commas:

For this exercise you will need the following materials: some scrap paper; a pen, preferably blue or black; some A4 envelopes; and some good, white, unlined writing paper.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Sentences in essays

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1. Short, clear, and simple sentences are usually more effective than those which are long and complex. Avoid piling up clause upon clause. In the majority of essays, you should aim for clarity and simplicity in your written style. If in doubt, remember this rule: Keep it short. Keep it simple.

2. Punctuate your work firmly, making a clear distinction in your writing between marks such as the comma, the semicolon, and the full stop.

3. Remember that all sentences without exception must begin with a capital letter and end with a full stop.

4. Remember that the common word order (syntax) of a simple sentence written in English is as follows:

subject – verb – object

The cat eats the goldfish
Elephants like grass
We are the best team

If you are in any doubt at all, follow this pattern. Sentences which go out of grammatical control often lack one of these elements, or they have them placed in a different order.

5. You should avoid starting sentences with words such as ‘Again’, ‘Although’, ‘But’, ‘And’, ‘Also’, and ‘With’. These words are called conjunctions, which normally belong in the ‘middle’ of a sentence, not at its beginning. Sentences which begin with a conjunction are very often left grammatically incomplete.

6. Remember that speech and writing are two different forms of communication. Avoid the use of a casual or conversational style when writing. For instance don’t string together clauses which are grammatically unrelated. This is quite normal in speech, but it should be avoided in formal writing.

7. What follows is an example of a statement which has too many unrelated clauses, which goes on too long, and which eventually skids out of grammatical control.

Less smoking would undoubtedly lead to redundancies in the tobacco industry, a consequent rise in the number of unemployed, more people dependent upon State benefits to be supported by a government with subsequently reduced income.

8. The same arguments can be expressed far more clearly and effectively by splitting them up into two separate and shorter sentences. (I have also made one or two minor changes to enhance the sense.)

Less smoking would undoubtedly lead to redundancies in the tobacco industry and a consequent rise in the number of unemployed. More people would then become dependent upon State benefits, which would have to be paid out by a government with a reduced income.

9. Most problems in sentence construction are caused by two or three closely related factors:

  • The sentence is much too long.
  • Too many unrelated clauses.
  • The sentence starts with its verb or object, rather than the subject.
  • The sentence start with a conjunction (‘although’, ‘because’).

10. The solution to this problem is worth repeating:

Keep it short. Keep it simple.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Signposting in essays

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sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. In most essays (up to 3000 words) you should avoid ‘signposting’ your argument. That is, you do not need to use expressions such as

‘Later in this essay I will be discussing…’
‘Let us now go on to consider…’
‘As I demonstrated earlier…’
‘We will now turn to evaluate another example…’

2. Just state clearly the point of your arguments and leave them to speak for themselves, uncluttered by any direction indicators. You do not need to offer a commentary on what you have already said, or what you will be saying later. In a well-planned essay, this progression should be self-evident from the arrangement of your work.

3. A sound essay plan and a coherent structure will reveal the logic of your argument and the relationship of its parts. If you have, for instance, four main topics to discuss, simple state clearly what those topics are, then deal with them separately, one after the other.

4. Each new topic should be clearly identified or defined as soon as you begin dealing with it. This statement will provide all the indication needed of your intentions. Remember that each paragraph should deal with just one principal stage or item of your argument. Each new topic requires a separate paragraph.

5. If you wish to some light indication of structure, it is perfectly acceptable to use formulations such as

‘The first reason … The second…’
‘On one hand … on the other…’
‘However, the main argument against this is…’

These statements will demonstrate that you have control of your argument.

6. Remember that although an essay may take many hours to write, it will only take a few minutes to read. Signposting is only necessary in very long pieces of work. Even then, skillful writers will integrate any direction indicators into their work as unobtrusively as possible.

7. The conventions on signposting may vary slightly from one subject to another. In some of the sciences it is necessary to announce in advance what you will be writing about. However, these pieces of work are likely to be closer to experimental reports than continuous prose arguments.

8. Similarly, in some branches of psychology or linguistics, students may sometimes be required to offer a meta-critique of a written assignment. They will be expected to describe what they are writing. This is to demonstrate their awareness of the processes in which they are engaged.

9. With these few exceptions, you should not normally comment on the manner in which you have written an essay. Your tutor doesn’t need to know in what order you assembled your evidence, or what difficulties you encountered during its composition. Some students try to disarm possible criticism by announcing in advance how difficult the question was to answer. Your tutor will already know its degree of difficulty, and doesn’t need to be told again.

10. However, you may wish to argue that the question raises a certain number of difficulties or crucial issues. This is acceptable – so long as you say what they are. You should then go on to discuss their relevance to the subject in question, and maybe even suggest some answers to them.

11. The conventions on signposting in report writing are different. Reports are normally written to a pre-determined structure or set of headings. These provide the sequence of events which in a conventional essay have to be constructed by the author.

12. A report of an investigation or an experiment will also have its own sequence of events, so it will be quite acceptable to use expressions such as ‘First the X was added to the Y … and then Z occurred … The results were then analysed and are shown in Table One’.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Spelling checkers used for essays

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sample from HTML program and PDF book

1. Most word-processors have spelling checkers these days. You should use the checker before printing out your documents. This should form part of your regular editing procedures.

2. Checking your work with a spell-checker will help to highlight and correct commonly mis-spelt words such as ‘accommodation’, ‘parallel’, ‘recommend’, and ‘silhouette’.

3. The checker will also highlight mis-keyed words such as ‘hte’ for ‘the’ or ‘nad’ for ‘and’. You may either choose the correct word from a list, or the processor may offer you the opportunity to reverse the mis-keyed letters. [The latest even perform this function automatically.]

4. It will not be able to recognise specialist terms and unusual proper nouns – names such as Schumacher, Derrida, or Nabokov. These will not be in the processor’s memory. You will have to check the correct spelling of these yourself, as you would do with any other unusual words.

5. Remember that a spell-checker will not alert you to a mistake if you write ‘They washed there own clothes’ instead of ‘They washed their own clothes’. That’s because the word ‘there’ is spelt correctly even though it is being used ungrammatically in this sentence. The same would be true of ‘It is over hare’ instead of ‘It is over here’. That’s because ‘hare’ exists in its own right as a correctly spelt word.

6. Most spell-checkers will spot unwanted double words such as ‘going to to the fair’, and will offer you the opportunity to delete the second occurrence. But they will not notice anything wrong with a word broken by a space such as ‘to morrow’. That’s because these two terms exist in their own right as separate words.

7. The checker will not alert you to any mistake if you key the word ‘practice’ instead of ‘practise’, because both words exist separately. The same would be true of ‘advise’ and ‘advice’. [Most grammar-checkers will alert you to these common problems.]

8. If you decide to add to the processor’s memory names which are frequently used in your own subject discipline (Freud, Jung, Adler or Marx, Engels, Bukharin) make sure that you enter them correctly spelt.

9. Beware of adding too many names which might be thrown up in the checking of your document. Some proper nouns may be the same as mis-spelt words. If you were to add ‘Fischer’ to the dictionary as a name, this would mean that the spell-checker would not alert you to a problem if you mis-keyed ‘fisher’ as ‘fischer’.

10. Beware of adding to your processor’s dictionary just because it is easy and seems a profitable thing to do. You might for instance add your own postcode of ‘SE9 6OY’ – but if you then mis-keyed the word ‘TOY’ as ‘6OY’ the spell-checker would not then be able to pick up your mistake. It would assume that you wished to regard ‘6OY’ as an acceptable ‘word’.

11. A spell check is usually performed after all your text has been generated and edited. However, there are good arguments for using the checker at earlier stages. Layout and spacing might be affected; the document will be in a reasonably good condition at any given stage; and it may eliminate the necessity for a search and-replace procedure at a later stage.

12. Finally, here is a cautionary (and amusing) ditty which might help you to remember some of these points:

‘My New Spell Checker’

Eye halve a spelling chequer
It came with my pea sea
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rare lea ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I am shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect awl the weigh
My chequer tolled me sew.

[Sauce unknown]

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Structure in essay plans

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1. The structure of a piece of writing is the (sometimes underlying) order of its parts. Good structure usually means that a persuasive or logical sequence of these parts has been created. This is often best established by creating the structure in essay plans.

2. The basic structure of most essays can be very simple:

  • Introduction
  • Argument(s)
  • Conclusion

3. Provided that the individual topics of your argument(s) are arranged in a clear and meaningful order, this basic model should create a firm structure.

4. The order of the parts is often determined by the nature of the subject in question. This order might be created by:

  • logical progression
  • increasing significance
  • equal significance
  • chronological order
  • narrative sequence
  • category groupings

Arranging the parts

5. Imagine you were writing an essay about French wine. You have decided to discuss four red wines and four white wines. The structure for this essay is created by diving the examples into white wines and red wines – as shown here.

Introduction

Part One – Red wines
* wine 1
* wine 2
* wine 3
* wine 4

Part Two – White wines
* wine 1
* wine 2
* wine 3
* wine 4

Conclusion

6. This is clear, simple, and uncomplicated. But you could also create a slightly more interesting structure by arranging the wines by region. This is the arrangement shown here.

Introduction

Loire
* red wine
* white wine

Bordeaux
* red wine
* white wine

Cotes du Rhone
* red wine
* white wine

Bugundy
* red wine
* white wine

Conclusion

7. It’s the same number of examples, but the arrangement is slightly more complex. This might also make the essay more interesting. Notice how each item is kept separate – so they don’t get mixed up. And each one would be discussed in a paragraph of its own.

8. Next – this process can be taken one step further with a slightly more complex question. You might often be asked to write an essay considering the arguments for and against some topic or proposition. For instance – “Consider the arguments for and against congestion charges in city centres.”

9. There are two ways you can arrange the structure for an essay of this type. Here’s the first, which we’ll call Strategy A.

Introduction

Part One – In favour of congestion charges
* [traffic] reduces volume
* [ecology] less air pollution
* [economy] generates local income
* [politics] positive social control

Part Two – Against congestion charges
* [traffic] public transport alternatives
* [ecology] transfers problem elsewhere
* [economy] reduces profitable activity
* [politics] punishes tax-payers

Conclusion

10. The arguments in favour of congestion charges are kept separate from the arguments against. The structure is simple, clear, and uncomplicated. Notice that the same topics (traffic, ecology, economy, and politics) are covered in both the case ‘for’ and ‘against’. Next – look at an alternative strategy, Strategy B.

11. You can see that in this example the structure is arranged in the form of TOPICS – and each one contains an argument for and against the proposal.

Introduction to congestion charges

TOPIC 1
* [traffic] reduces volume
* [traffic] public transport alternatives

TOPIC 2
* [ecology] less air pollution
* [ecology] transfers problem elsewhere

TOPIC 3
* [economy] generates local income
* [economy] reduces profitable activity

TOPIC 4
* [politics] positive social control
* [politics] punishes tax-payers

Conclusion

12. It’s fairly important if you are using this structure to keep a balance. And the topics must be clearly identified and matched. That is, you must not put an argument FOR economy alongside one AGAINST traffic

13. If there is no natural order for your topics, you might deal with them in order of their importance. You could deal with the smaller, less important items first. This leaves the larger, more important issues until the end of the essay. Discussing the detail first in this way leaves the larger items for general consideration in approaching your conclusion.

14. On the other hand you might wish to deal with the major item(s) first, then turn to a consideration of the detailed evidence which supports the argument you are making. Using this approach, you could then return to your main points again and give them further general consideration as your conclusion.

© Roy Johnson 2003

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Students Must Write

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writing skills guide for coursework and examinations

Robert Barrass begins this guide Students Must Write with the important observation that students are judged largely on the quality of what they write. It is therefore very much in their interests to sharpen their writing skills for all forms of academic work. He starts from basics, covering taking notes in lectures, and how writing about something helps you to understand and remember it. His advice is punctuated with well-chosen quotations from famous writers, indicating that they struggle too. They write, re-write, plan, edit, scrap drafts, and treat writing as a process. It’s not a one-off action. He analyses examples of slack writing and shows both the weaknesses and how they might be overcome.

Students Must WriteThere’s also a chapter on words – choosing items of vocabulary to make your writing more effective. To support this he adds some wonderfully useful lists of misused words, circumlocutions and malapropisms – but they are somewhat buried inside the chapters when I think they could have been highlighted to greater effect.

There is a particularly good chapter on how to deal with numbers, diagrams, graphs, charts, and tables. This includes such nice points as the order of presenting the slices of a pie chart – clockwise, starting from the largest at noon. [Bet you didn’t know that!]

His tips on exam technique are sound enough – as is his advice on longer pieces of work such as dissertations and reports. He even covers writing letters – applying for that job after you have graduated. And he ends with tips on using word-processors, a few words on punctuation, and a brief guide to spelling and how to overcome some of the common problems.

This is a book for people who want a general stroll through the process of language and writing. It moves from one topic to another in a casual manner. There is a downside and an upside to this approach. The downside is its weakness in terms of organisational rigour. But the upside is that it might make some of the issues of writing less intimidating for the very students to whom this book is addressed.

© Roy Johnson 2005

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Robert Barrass, Students Must Write: A Guide to Better Writing in Coursework and Examinations, London: Routledge, third edition, 2005, pp.232, ISBN: 0415358264

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Studying at a Distance

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learning skills for further and higher education

Distance learning is nowadays much more than receiving correspondence course units through the post. Radio and TV broadcasts, video tapes, CD-ROMs, email, online courses, and Web-based conferencing are all common means of learning. This book offers support and learning skills for anybody undertaking this form of education – which goes under lots of different names. Having taught distance learning courses for over thirty years myself, I can confirm that Christine Talbot covers all the important issues. She starts with preparation for studying, showing you how to assess your existing skills and identify what you will need. This also involves becoming aware of the different modes of learning.

Studying at a DistanceNext comes a chapter on E-learning, now rapidly expanding to include submitting electronic assignments, conferencing, and using virtual learning environments. This is becoming a more and more important part of most distance learning courses – for economic as well as technological reasons. She tells you what equipment you will need, how to plan your time, and how to make the best use of the support and resources available to you.

There’s also coverage of the core skills required for any form of course in further or higher education – note-taking, essay writing, and revision and examination skills.

The guide ends appropriately enough with advice on tackling a research project – probably the largest piece of work you will have to undertake below post-graduate level.

This is a short and readable guide which offers a clear explanation of how to prepare for independent study. It will be particularly useful for those people returning to education after a gap of some years.

© Roy Johnson 2010

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Christine Talbot, Studying at a Distance, Maidenhead: Open University Press, third edition 2010, pp.256, ISBN: 0335238068

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Studying Fiction

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guide to the basics of literary analysis – plus short stories

Many adult students have spent most of their lives reading fiction in the form of stories and novels. However, when it comes to making a formal academic study of literature – especially at undergraduate level – it’s hard to find the right words in which to express your understanding of a text. That’s why this book was written. Studying Fiction is an introduction to the basic concepts and the technical terms you will need when making a study of prose fiction.

Studying Fiction It shows you how to apply the elements of literary analysis by explaining them one at a time, and then showing them at work in a series of short stories which are reproduced as part of the book. The materials are carefully graded, so that you start from simpler literary concepts, then work gradually towards more complex issues. The guide contains stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, Katherine Mansfield, Thomas Hardy, Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, and Charles Dickens. All of them are excellent and very entertaining tales in their own right. The guidance notes help you to understand the literary techniques being used in each case.

Eight chapters deal separately with issues such as the basics of character and story; point of view, symbolism, irony, and theme; literary language and ‘appreciation’; the techniques of close reading; the social context of literature; narrators and interpretation; and an explanation of literary terms.

The book works as a form of self-instruction programme. You first of all read the story; then a particular literary concept is explained in relation to the story; a series of questions are posed [with answers] which allow you to test your understanding; and the chapter ends with suggestions for further reading.

OK – this is what’s called an ‘author’s own review’, so I’ve tried to be as unbiased as possible. If anybody else wishes to produce a review, I’ll be happy to add it. Alternatively, you can read somebody else’s review at Amazon here

© Roy Johnson 2000

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Roy Johnson, Studying Fiction, Manchester University Press, 1994, pp.226, ISBN 0719033977

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