Originally published 28th September 2011:
As I mentioned in my last post, I've recently returned from the annual September Seminar at Warwick Business School. It finished with a half day workshop on the Project and Dissertation which was very helpful in that it gave me a much better idea of how to approach this daunting exercise.
Two things in particular became obvious to me - the first is that I will need to do a helluva lot of reading.
The second is I need to track what I read and keep it organised so I can make use of it to inform my decision making and reference it properly in the write-up.
As an illustration of this one of the speakers from the weekend, a WBS MBA graduate, told us how he has built a succesful consultancy business around having a well-indexed archive of relevant research as a direct result of his P&D, so this process should be rewarding in the long-run.
However, I'm a geek and therefore what sort of software to use for this is one of my first questions (I'll get onto hardware later). A quick plea for help on Twitter pointed me towards JabRef and Zotero.
Zotero was also one that was suggested by WBS, along with EndNote and ProCite. Fortunately, I have a Human Resources Management essay to write in the next month which I can use as a trial run. I'm going to try and evaluate both Zotero and JabRef - I don't think it's practical to try and use more than two, so sorry if you cheerlead for one of the others, and there are many!
I'm going to look at ease of use in the process of gathering and assimilating relevant literature, and then in how easily I can cite references in the text. As of today I have nothing so this is tabula rasa stuff.
I'll start by Googling for suggested workflows, reading the tutorials and actually trying to use these two systems. I'll be doing so on a variety of harware and platforms - desktop, laptop, netbook, Windows XP and Linux. I'll even try using my Android smartphone if I can!
Check back here in a few days for the results.
Monday, 29 April 2013
Wednesday, 10 April 2013
Internet Resources for Academic Research
Originally Published 30th September 2011
I chose to study my MBA by what Warwick call "Distance Learning". Thanks to the Open University we're all well familiar with the idea in the UK, but only those who've done it really understand the practice. Having spent nearly two years in the programme now I can honestly say I think it's a brilliant way to study. Don't get me wrong, going to University in my late-teens/early-twenties was an amazing experience - I learned a lot, about my course, myself, and other people. For me and millions of others it's a part of the growing-up process. A process I don't think I've quite finished yet!
Distance Learning is where your University send you study notes and a few important text books to cover the essentials of the course. You work through these in your spare time - in my case most of the actual reading was done on the train to and from work, but I've had at least one 'holiday' where I just sat and read for days. There are assignments to complete to gauge your progress - if you submit them you get a mark and feedback from a tutor, but they're not part of your final grade. I have to confess, due to lack of time I haven't done any of these yet. Of course, this is pretty limiting, especially for a postgraduate degree, so it's supplemented by face-to-face seminars and entire modules.
As this is a postgraduate degree we're also expected to read beyond the set texts and seek out the original books and articles that have influenced thought on the subjects we study. But how do you do this without access to a University Library? The answer, of course, is the internet. I have access to the full catalogue of the University of Warwick Library online. Through this I can get pdf versions of the vast majority of journals and articles I need. Books are a little trickier though - for practical and copyright reasons. I think the Library posts them out, but I've never used this service so can't comment on how it works.
This works really well when you have a good reference to look up, but not so well when you're trying to find an article your lecturer mentioned in passing, you're not sure how to spell the names, they garbled the title and you don't have a clue which journal it was published in. What about when you don't have any reference at all and you're trying to find something new? Well, we're all children of the information age now, so you probably saw this coming.
Google Scholar has indexed academic journals in electronic form that you can search in exactly the same way you search for a band's tour dates or a diagnosis for that embarrassing rash. They've even digitised millions of books - I'm not sure about the legality of that, but they're Google, so I guess it must be OK? If you tell Google Scholar which university you're at they'll provide links to the appropriate online library so you can download digital copies of articles. Otherwise they link to digital copies provided by other institutions, many of which let you view the abstract for free and download full text for a small fee. Finally, for full books there will often be a link to the digital version on Google Books.
The search results also give you links to the bibliographic references, essential for writing essays, and other articles which have cited the one in your results - useful for extending your reading and finding other articles which support or critique a theory.
So basically, everything you need is out there waiting for you. You're still going to have to put in the hours to read the material, and you still have to think critically and form your own opinions, but hopefully some of this will be helpful. This is the process that I'm starting now for my assessed Human Resources Management module essay. More about that in a future post.
I chose to study my MBA by what Warwick call "Distance Learning". Thanks to the Open University we're all well familiar with the idea in the UK, but only those who've done it really understand the practice. Having spent nearly two years in the programme now I can honestly say I think it's a brilliant way to study. Don't get me wrong, going to University in my late-teens/early-twenties was an amazing experience - I learned a lot, about my course, myself, and other people. For me and millions of others it's a part of the growing-up process. A process I don't think I've quite finished yet!
Distance Learning is where your University send you study notes and a few important text books to cover the essentials of the course. You work through these in your spare time - in my case most of the actual reading was done on the train to and from work, but I've had at least one 'holiday' where I just sat and read for days. There are assignments to complete to gauge your progress - if you submit them you get a mark and feedback from a tutor, but they're not part of your final grade. I have to confess, due to lack of time I haven't done any of these yet. Of course, this is pretty limiting, especially for a postgraduate degree, so it's supplemented by face-to-face seminars and entire modules.
As this is a postgraduate degree we're also expected to read beyond the set texts and seek out the original books and articles that have influenced thought on the subjects we study. But how do you do this without access to a University Library? The answer, of course, is the internet. I have access to the full catalogue of the University of Warwick Library online. Through this I can get pdf versions of the vast majority of journals and articles I need. Books are a little trickier though - for practical and copyright reasons. I think the Library posts them out, but I've never used this service so can't comment on how it works.
This works really well when you have a good reference to look up, but not so well when you're trying to find an article your lecturer mentioned in passing, you're not sure how to spell the names, they garbled the title and you don't have a clue which journal it was published in. What about when you don't have any reference at all and you're trying to find something new? Well, we're all children of the information age now, so you probably saw this coming.
Google Scholar has indexed academic journals in electronic form that you can search in exactly the same way you search for a band's tour dates or a diagnosis for that embarrassing rash. They've even digitised millions of books - I'm not sure about the legality of that, but they're Google, so I guess it must be OK? If you tell Google Scholar which university you're at they'll provide links to the appropriate online library so you can download digital copies of articles. Otherwise they link to digital copies provided by other institutions, many of which let you view the abstract for free and download full text for a small fee. Finally, for full books there will often be a link to the digital version on Google Books.
The search results also give you links to the bibliographic references, essential for writing essays, and other articles which have cited the one in your results - useful for extending your reading and finding other articles which support or critique a theory.
So basically, everything you need is out there waiting for you. You're still going to have to put in the hours to read the material, and you still have to think critically and form your own opinions, but hopefully some of this will be helpful. This is the process that I'm starting now for my assessed Human Resources Management module essay. More about that in a future post.
Mission Statement:
I'm restarting this blog primarily to document some of the useful (and, no doubt, trivial) things I've learned while doing the Project and Dissertation for my MBA. I'll also be resurrecting some old posts from a previous blog that were related to earlier stages of the MBA.
I'm studying by Distance Learning at Warwick Business School and working full time. I also have a young family, and at times it's been very difficult to balance these commitments.
The main reason for this blog is that I've found there's a dearth of online advice about the practicalities of how to go about a research project. There are some good books available on the subject (I'd recommend Real World Research by Colin Robson), but they tend to be fairly generalised.
The main reason for this blog is that I've found there's a dearth of online advice about the practicalities of how to go about a research project. There are some good books available on the subject (I'd recommend Real World Research by Colin Robson), but they tend to be fairly generalised.
I'm going to be very specific about what works for me, in particular some of the technology and workflows I use. That's the first caveat
I also want to cover some more personal aspects, how it's affected my life and career.
I also want to cover some more personal aspects, how it's affected my life and career.
I hope you enjoy reading this, please let me know what you think in the comments.
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