General Guide

1. Literature search

Any research begins with searching of relevant existing body literature on the topic of interest. Knowing exactly where to start searching for information is thus very much important.

Start with research databases

Scopus and Web of Science are good databases to start with for any research topic and literature review. However, both these databases are subscription based proprietary database.

Alternative equivalent effective sources are –

§ Dimension.ai

§ Lens database

§ OpenAlex

§ Consensus (AI based search Engine)

§ Scite_

§ BaseSearch

Besides the above, visit our Subject Guide sections.

2. Assessing Journals, Articles and Author Influence

Rise of E-Journals in conjunction with open access model, have reshaped the ways in which scholars share and use journal articles. More than ever, understanding the criteria for assessing journal quality is critical in determining the overall value of any publication.

How does one know that something is of good scholarly worth? Traditional measures, such as peer review, impact factors, and the reputation of the journal, continue to be hallmarks within the academic community.

Visit

In addition to these standards, new techniques of journal ranking and a rising interest in article-level assessment have emerged. Increasingly, alternative metrics (sometimes referred to as “altmetrics”) are being considered in evaluating journal quality, tracking the diffusion of scholarship through non-traditional sources such as no. of download, views, share and blogs, social media.

Many journals like PLOS One gives article level metrics. You may also visit

Predatory Open Access and Hijacked Journals

Jeffrey Beall, metadata librarian at University of Colorado Denver, has taken the initiative to compile and maintain a website that lists predatory OA publishers and journals :

"This is a list of questionable, scholarly open-access publishers. We recommend that scholars read the available reviews, assessments and descriptions provided here, and then decide for themselves whether they want to submit articles, serve as editors or on editorial boards”

“Hijacked journals mimic legitimate journals by adopting their titles, ISSNs, and other metadata . Usually, hijacked journals mirror legitimate journals without permission from the original journal” (Source: Retraction Watch). Please click here to see the List of Hijacked Journals

3. Research Ethics

Please visit the university homepage to see the university guidelines regarding research ethics. Visit also COPE guidelines .

Plagiarismis a kind of research misconduct where a researcher presents someone else’s works, thoughts or ideas as his own, without giving due acknowledgement to the sources. Please visit Academic Integrity Tutorials of NIU.

Integrate PubPeer in your browser to avoid citing retracted article.

4. Bibliography Management

Automatic Citation Tool

Bibliography management tools (also known as citation or reference management tools) help you organize your research sources and generate bibliographies in multiple citation formats.

The following open source tools are widely used for bibliography management:

Mendeley(Widely used in Science)

Mendeleyis a PDF and citation manager that indexes and organizes your research library into a digital bibliography. The program includes a collaboration component that allows you to share citations with other researchers. Mendeley is both a desktop application and a web-based application.

Documentation and tutorials:

Zotero(Widely used in Humanities and Social Science)

Zotero is a web-based, open-source citation management tool that is designed to store, manage, and cite bibliographic references, such as books and articles. In Zotero, each of these references constitutes an item. Items can be everything from books, articles, and documents to web pages, artwork, films, sound recordings, bills, cases, or statutes, among many others. Zotero is both a desktop application and a bowser extension with plug-ins to word processing programs.

Zotero is available with basic features for free, with a fee structure for additional storage. Two options are available:

  • Zotero for Firefox, a Firefox browser extension.
  • Zotero Standalone is a desktop application that integrates with Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Firefox but without the integrated features of Zotero for Firefox.

Documentation and tutorials:

MyBib : A free bibliography and citation generator.

Choosing a citation management tool

All of the tools will help you organize your research references and all include a plug-in for word processing programs to format citations and create bibliographies. But some of the tools offer other features, such as support for collaboration, a web-based interface, and mobile applications.

The following comparison charts may help you choose a tool that is best for you:

5. Choosing a citation style

For most papers, you will need to format your bibliography according to the citation style specified by your instructor or publisher. The following citation styles are followed widely in global academic communitiesa used at Stanford include:

  • MLA (Modern Language Association)
  • APA (American Psychological Association)
  • Chicago (The Chicago Manual of Style)

For more information about citation styles –

Please see Cornel University Library site

And Purdue Online Writing Lab site

6. Tools for Research

§ Visit Effective Writing Practices Tutorials of Northern Illinois University

§ Visit Online Writing Lab of Purdue University

§ AI Tools for Detection, Research and Writing –

o Elicit

o Explainpaper

o Paperpal

o ChatPDF

o For more AI tools visit Texas Tech University Library Guide

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