Reading, Referencing and
The Management of
Information
Session outline
• Reading
• Guarding against plagiarism
• Referencing
• Creating, editing and storing references
electronically
• The management of information
Reading
• Read as much as you can about your topic in
the time you have
• Try not to exceed your time limit. It’s easy to
read on and on in the search for
enlightenment.
• Improve of your reading skills
READING TECHNICS /TYPES OF
READING
• Skimming is a reading technique that provides
understanding of the whole text without reading
it from word to word.
• It involves discovering the main ideas of a text by
reading first and last paragraphs and topic
sentences, and paying attention to other details
on the page like titles, bold type or italics,
photograph captions, etc.
• Scanning is a reading technic that one uses to find
specific information without reading the whole
text. It involves looking down and around a page
quickly and efficiently searching for important
words, facts or phrases to find specific
information.
• Scanning often comes before skimming. For
example, scanning can be used to determine if a
resource has the information you are looking for.
Once the resource is scanned, it can then be
skimmed for more detail.
READING TECHNICS /TYPES OF
READING
Light reading
Reading for leisure tends to be 'light':
 Read at a pace which feels comfortable.
 Read with understanding
 Skim the boring, irrelevant passages.
An average light reading speed is 100-200 words
per minute. This form of reading does not
generally require detailed concentration.
READING TECHNICS /TYPES OF
READING
Word by word type reading
This type of reading is time consuming and
demands a high level of concentration. People use
this type of reading for unfamiliar concepts,
scientific formulae etc.
Reading to study
Its aim is to understand the material in depth. The
method involves five simple steps; Survey, Question,
Read, Recall and Review.
-Survey: skim through to gain an overview and not key
points.
-Question: devise questions you hope the text will
answer.
-Read: slowly and carefully.
-Recall: from memory, write down the main points made
by the chapter.
Review: revisit your questions -compare these to your
recall and establish how well the text has answered them;
fill in any gaps by further reading and note-taking.
TIPS
Depending on the reading technic and aim, students
can:
 Underline important, key sentences, and
definitions.
 Highlight words or whole paragraphs
 Use special marks on the margin to indicate
importance, relevance, or reference to other parts
 Take notes in a notebook
 Draw visual representations of the text like charts
and graphs etc.
Guarding against plagiarism
Plagiarism is using other people’s words as if they are
your own.
 Remember that all sources have to be acknowledged,
including paraphrases of other people’s words and of other
people’s ideas.
 The issue of plagiarism has become a major issue in
schools and in higher education.
 The development of materials on the Internet has greatly
increased the number of plagiarists who, apparently, can
see nothing wrong in submitting such material as their own.
 This has become such an issue that plagiarism software
has been developed and now is regularly used, particularly
in universities, to check examination and assignment texts.
Referencing
 Decide on a system of referencing sources.
 The Harvard method is probably the easiest to
deal with, but check whether your institution has
its own rules.
 When you record sources, make sure you always
note the author’s name, forename or initials, date
of publication, title, place of publication and
publisher.
 There are variations for books, articles in
collections and journal articles.
For books
• Author’s surname and forename or initials
• Date of publication
• Title (underlined or italics) and which edition, if
appropriate
• Place of publication
• Name of publisher
For example:
• May, Tim (2001) Social Research: Issues,
Methods and Process, 3rd edn. Buckingham:
Open University Press
For journal articles
The author’s surname, forename or initials and the date
of publication are the same as for books but then, you
are required to give
• the title of the article (sometimes in inverted commas,
sometimes not);
• the title of the journal from which the article or
chapter is derived (generally underlined or in italics,
though again, not always);
• the volume number of the journal, the issue and page
numbers.
For example, for a journal article:
Whitehead, N. (2003) ‘Herbal remedies: integration into
conventional medicine’, Nursing Times, 99(34): 30–33.
For chapters in books
• For a chapter in a book, something on the
following lines would be appropriate:
• Wragg, T. (2002) ‘Interviewing’, in M. Coleman
and A.R.J. Briggs (eds) Research Methods in
Educational Leadership and Management.
London: Paul Chapman Publishing.
Citing journal articles and other materials taken from CDROMs or the Internet
Remember that if you make a record of electronic journal
articles, in addition to giving the full reference details as
above, you also need to indicate that the sources were
obtained from a CD-ROM
or online. For example:
• Name of author
• Title of article (not underlined/italicized)
• [CD-ROM] or [Online] in square brackets
• Journal information (journal title underlined or italicized)
• Date of article
• Available from: or retrieved from: . . . name of service, URL
of web site and date it was accessed. The URL (universal
resource locator) is the unique address of the server on
which the document is stored.
Creating, editing and storing
references electronically
 Software such as EndNote, ProCite and Reference
Manager has been available
 Bibliographic software has many advantages for
researchers. For example, EndNote gives us the
facility to create, store, organize, retrieve and cite
references in our reports.
 You may find that your library will provide you
with on-campus access to and support for one or
more of the established systems.
The management of information
• Establish a system of indexing and crossreferencing.
• There’s no point in doing a large amount of
reading if, at a later date, you can never find
what you are looking for.
Quality Search Tools
 Quality search tools are not free; however,
most libraries subscribe to or buy on-line access
to these “information services” and offer them to
their patrons
 Information services offer access to databases
of materials that have been edited or refereed
How do you find the information you desire?
•Use the library catalog (SDL) to find out what
the library subscribes to.
•Use periodical indexes (information services)
to find articles.
•Use Internet search
information on the web.
engines
to
find
Common Information Services
SDL: Providing, organizing
and making electronic
information
sources
accessible to faculty staff,
researchers, students and
professionals working in
higher
education.
Seek & Evaluate the Information
Use the online library information services to
search for “key words”.
If you aren’t sure where to start, ask the librarian
for assistance. Note—each library may offer
different services, so always check the library
catalog when you are new to a library.
Seek & Evaluate the Information
Questions to consider:
Is the information you’re finding . . .
• The right content?
• The right quality?
• The right time period?
Are you using . . .
• The right sources?
• The right keywords?
• The right tools?
Use & Evaluate Information
Use the Info:
Evaluate the Info:
Read it
Take notes
Listen to it
Take citations
View it
Determine whether it
is information you
need.
Synthesize the Information
Integrate the information
collected from various
sources to answer your
research question. This
is the key component to
producing
a
quality
research paper.