Interdisciplinary National Workshop

Role of Ethics In

Quality Research January 30, 2017Session I: 11.30 am

Organized by

RKSD(PG) College, Kaithal, Haryana, India

Dr. Nirmal Kumar Swain

Associate ProfessorDept of Lib. & Inf. Science

Maharshi Dayanand University Rohtak – 124001, Haryana, India

Ph: 01262-393017 (O) M: 9416516771

E-Mail: drnkswain@gmail.com

A Session Conducted bySession I: 11.30 am

Importance of Literature Review Citation and Impact Factor Plagiarism Publishing successfully in reputed journals and reasons of rejection of paper

On the following topics

Importance of Literature Review

Myth and Reality What is Literature Review Why Literature Review How to write a Literature Review

Myth

Students and for many of us the general perception about ‘literature review’ is that it is very much required for any kind of research work especially while doing a doctoral thesis, but myth surrounds for its negligible importance and further inspire not to spare good time and effort for this aspect of research. Ultimately students are unhesitant for copy and paste indulgence.

Reality Literature review, rather helps

the researchers to know, collect, analyze what are those literature and publications exist related to their own topics of interest. This not only provide the areas related but also the researchers find the guidance to strengthen their weakness and build up the potency, which is the creativity of every individual researcher.

What is Literature Review

literature review is a survey and often critical evaluation of scholarly communications, articles, books, book reviews, dissertations, conference proceedings and other sources available in different formats relevant to a particular issue, topic , area of research, theory, methodology, summary and findings. The primary purpose is to offer overall information regarding significant literature published on the topic of your interest.

Why Literature Review While beginning your research any researcher needs to know what are the works have already been conducted or exist This shows whether any research can be conducted or not The existing work can be reviewed in its proper context in terms of research question, methodology, data availability , analysis and interpretation Helps in avoiding duplicacy , saves manpower money and time Point the way forward for further research

How to write Literature Review

No specific technique rather based on trend : discipline specific, country specific, university specific or as per the guidelines, guided by the research supervisor or yourself based a logic and uniformity. the Indian trend is by ascending or descending order after categorizing the topics into subtopics. by grouping authors on similar conclusions

Continuing…

highlight the methods used, note areas in which authors are in agreement and disagreementhighlight exemplary studies and gaps in researchshow how your study relates to previous studies that means you are in right track conclude by summarizing what the literature says

How long the Literature Review Often wonder how long should be the Literature Review in a PhD thesis. Should this be in a separate chapter or part of ‘Introduction’ chapter? As such there no fixed criteria, it depends upon the theme you are taking up. Most cases in Indian PhD, it is a separate chapter. Sometimes it part of introductory chapter also. It works as a filler to make the thesis bulk.

Continuing …How old and new literature to be included. Again without believing any fixed criterion, one must include at least last 10 years of publication to maintain the recency as an idea or discourse is not obsolete in ten years period. One is free to even include twenty to fourty years old literature, if it is conceptual or theme based. And pioneer works will not be dared to discard. To maintain the discussion thread it is insisted to include old works.

Citation and Impact Factor

Citation is to cite or acknowledge writings of others in your own writing, may be from a book, research paper, thesis or any academic writings.

At two points a researcher need to be careful.

One is at inside the text/body which is called ‘in-text’ citation and another is at the end the ‘text’ in the form of source details of the hint provided at ‘in-text’. The source details are written under the heading ‘references’, ‘works cited’, ‘notes’ etc.

Continuing … The process of citation is to be uniform

through out the work hence need a rule. These rules are called ‘style’, and there are many rules called ‘style manuals’.

There could be many style manuals, APA, MALA, Chicago Manuals, Harvard Styles, in social sciences , preference in choosing depends upon your choice, in terms of the disciplines, suggested by the supervisor and demand of the publication platform . One even can create his/her uniform rule or style manual. If restrictions are not there.

Impact Factor Impact factor is relatively a new

concept and newer to Indian phenomena and further newer to the non-science academic environment of India. When many people stated writing, whose writing is good and better is considered, then question of how much ‘impact’ , a publication has in the academic or society is evolved.

Factor… Hence the concept of ‘factor(s)’ influence

the impact became popular. The immediate answer is when many people read , not only read but take use of a particular literature in terms of ‘citing’ is at the forefront, which is the first instance of recording of your using a literature. So in common parlance ‘more number of citations’ became the criteria, though some intricacies are involved in it, still it is the fundamental approach for a good piece of literature. Self-citation is one of them.

Continuing … The impact factor is measured

through the frequency in which the ‘average article’ in a journal is cited in a particular ‘year’. Impact factors measure the impact of a ‘journal’, not the impact of individual articles.  For the measuring the help of indexing and abstracting journals and tools are needed.

Continuing …

Citation analysis in involved in counting ‘number of times’ an ‘article’ is cited by other works if we want to measure or ‘how good’ or ‘how bad’, the impact of a publication or author.  The irony is however, there is no single citation analysis tool that collects all publications and their cited references.  In that case impact of an author or a publication, one needs to look in multiple databases for a clear picture.

Consequences of Plagiarism

Consequence comes later the plagiarism case happened. Plagiarism believes in write of your own, means, own language, if wish to borrow something from other’s writing, then duly acknowledge the author of the borrowed materials. Acknowledging must be through the process of certain acceptable techniques, this saves from plagiarism though intricacies are still involved.

Continuing … In the consequence your thesis

will be rejected and case of academic fraud will registered and cases will be tried as the rules of that country. Along with rejection of thesis , debar from the research works from that university and state may happen in that case.

Publishing successfullyFind journals in your field.

Journal Citation Report (JCR) list journals by category and you can examine their impact factor within that field SCIMago Journal and Country Rank lists journals by category and you can examine their rank within that field Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory provides information on this of a journal, publisher information, open access status, and what databases index the journal.

Continuing …Use the following criteria to help select

reputable scholarly journals Examine the Journal Impact Factor, Journal Citation Reports, SciMago Be cautious of solicitations through email Evaluate through the Journal Website What ethical commitments has the journal made?  

Continuing … If it is an open access journal, is the journal a

member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association OR adhere to its Code of Conduct

Consult Ulrich’s Periodical Directory which can provide information about the history of a journal, publisher information, open access status, and what databases index the journal. A refereed journal will have a "refereed" icon next to the title. Talk to your colleagues - ask if the feedback provided by the journal and its reviewers.

Continuing . . . Seek out the acceptance rate of the journal Ethics in Publishing

Evaluating Journal Quality

 

Principles of TransparencyPeer review process:  All of a journal’s content, apart from any editorial material that is clearly marked as such, shall be subjected to peer review. Peer review is defined as obtaining advice on individual manuscripts from reviewers expert in the field who are not part of the journal’s editorial staff. Governing Body:  Journals shall have editorial boards or other governing bodies whose members are recognized experts in the subject areas included within the journal’s scope.

Continuing . . .

Editorial team Journals shall provide the full names and affiliations of the journal’s editors on the journal’s Web site as well as contact information for the editorial office.

Continuing . . . Publishing schedule: The periodicity at which a journal publishes shall be clearly indicated.Archiving: A journal’s plan for electronic backup and preservation of access to the journal content

Thank you

See you sometime at some place. Bye for now