Interdisciplinary

National Workshop
Role of Ethics
In

Quality Research
January 30, 2017
Session I: 11.30 am
Organized by

RKSD(PG) College, Kaithal, Haryana, India

Dr. Nirmal Kumar Swain

Associate Professor
Dept of Lib. & Inf. Science
Maharshi Dayanand University
Rohtak 124001, Haryana, India
Ph: 01262-393017 (O)
M: 9416516771
E-Mail: drnkswain@gmail.com

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

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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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

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

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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,
MLA, 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.

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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.
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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.
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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.

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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.
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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 others
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.
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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.

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Publishing successfully
Find 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
Ulrichs Periodicals Directory provides
information on this of a journal, publisher
information, open access status, and what
databases index the journal.
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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?

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

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Evaluating Journal Quality

Principles of Transparency
Peer review process: All of a journals 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 journals 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 journals scope.
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Continuing . . .
Editorial team Journals shall provide
the full names and affiliations of the
journals editors on the journals Web site
as well as contact information for the
editorial office.

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

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Thank you

See you sometime at some place.

Bye for now

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