Referencing:

Is the process of acknowledging the sources you have used when writing your
work. Correct referencing and citation also allows the reader of your work to
easily identify those sources used in your work and to follow up on them if
necessary. It is good academic practice to acknowledge the contributions that
others have made to your work.

Referencing is the appropriate acknowledgement of:

1. Ideas and work that originate from another person.
2. Information that you have included in your work that comes from some
other source (which is not common knowledge or widely accepted).

WHAT IS THE ESSENCE OF REFERENCING

Referencing is important because it:

 Helps show that you have been thorough and careful (or rigorous) in
your academic work.

 Indicates what material is the work of another person or is from

another source.

 Indicates what material is your original work since you have provided
a citation for work that is not your own.

 Allows the reader to refer back to any external material (i.e., not your
own) that you have stated or discussed.

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  Provides the reader with an indication of the quality and authority of
the material you are referencing (e.g., published article in a
respected journal, unpublished opinion piece on a popular online
website). Of course the relevance and importance of material is
dependent on your topic.

 Let’s the reader see if you have included up-to-date work, seminal
(early and influential) work, and material central to your research.

I. When it comes to creating an APA book reference citation, there

are different ways you can do it depending on the number of
authors in the source.

Basic Book Reference Format – One Author

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When it comes to formatting for one author, you use the last name of the
author, initial first name, initial middle name (if available). (Year of
publication in parentheses). Book  title in italics.  Publisher.

Author, A. A. (Date). Title of work. Publisher.

Note: The title of the book is in italics with the first word capitalized only.

 APA Book Reference for 2 authors

With multiple editors, the format is similar to multiple authors, except you
add (Eds.) after their names.

Editor, A. A., & Editor, B. B. (Eds.). (2002). Title of book: Subtitle of book.
Publisher.

II. Example Citation Edited Books with 2

Steinberg, M., & Embruy, S. H. (Eds.). (1994). Sickle cell disease: Basic
principles and clinical practice. Raven Press.

III. When you have more than one author, you need to write out up to
20 of them. This was a change that APA made in its 7th edition of
its manual. Creating source citations for books with two or more
authors is simple.

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Example Book Citation for 2 to 19 Authors
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Diamond, H., & Diamond, M. (1987). Fit for life. Warner Book.

Example Book Citation 20 or More Authors

Beetle, F. H., Choi, M. J., Bard, L. L., Harland, A. A., Stanley, J.A., Tipman,
S.T., Jones, G., Morse, K., Johnson, T. M., Smith P., Rubin, L., Williams, L.,
van Hern, N. J., Brown, N., Lopez, T. J., Taylor, L., Jackson. I. O., Moore, R.
R., Wilson, A. T.…Rubin, L.H. (2017). Technical documentation for software
engineers.  Neal-Schuman Publishers.

IV. ARTICLES IN JOURNAL

Example: Fletcher, D. P. (2018). Disrupters: Success strategies for women who

break the mold. Entrepreneur Press.

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WHAT IS EMPERICAL REVIEW

An empirical literature review is more commonly called a systematic

literature review and it examines past empirical studies to answer a
particular research question. The empirical studies we examine are usually
random controlled trials (RCTs). A literature review is a summary of research
that has been conducted in the past on a certain subject of interest. The
purpose of the literature review is to discover the gaps in literature. The
literature review helps to form the theoretical basis of the research. Writing
the literature review for empirical papers. A ‘read’ is counted each time
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 someone views a publication summary (such as the title, abstract, and list of
authors), clicks on a figure, or views or downloads the full-text. In
dissertation or thesis work, the empherical literature review is usually the
second chapter of both the proposal and the final paper.

Essence of Empirical review:

Why is there a need for empirical research?

Empirical research is important in today’s world because most people believe in something only
that they can see, hear or experience. It is used to validate multiple hypothesis and increase
human knowledge and continue doing it to keep advancing in various fields.

For example: Pharmaceutical companies use empirical research to try out a specific drug on
controlled groups or random groups to study the effect and cause. This way they prove certain
theories they had proposed for the specific drug. Such research is very important as sometimes
it can lead to finding a cure for a disease that has existed for many years. Such research is not
just useful in science but in many other fields like history, social sciences, business, etc.

With the advancement in today’s world, empirical research has become critical as well as a
norm in many fields so as to support their hypothesis and gain more knowledge. The methods
mentioned above are very useful for carrying out such research however, a number of new
methods will keep coming up as the nature of new investigative questions keeps getting unique
or changes.

WHAT IS THE RELEVANT OF THEORY (THEORIES) IN CONDUCTING A RESEARCH WORK?

1. Theory provides significant guidelines and trails for the conduct of research by pointing to
areas that are most likely to be fruitful, that is, areas in which meaningful relationships among
variables are likely to be found. If the variables come to be selected such that no relationships

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between them obtain, the research will be sterile no matter how meticulous the subsequent
observations and inferences.

A theoretic system narrows down the range of facts to be studied. Theory provides the
researcher with a definite view point a direction which goes a long way toward helping him
enquire into relationships between certain variables selected from among an almost infinite
array of variables.

2. Another contribution of theory for research is in terms of increasing the

meaningfulness of the findings of a particular study by helping us to perceive them
as special cases of the operation of a set of more general or abstract statements of
relationships rather than as isolated bits of empirical information. A theory typically
enhances the meaningfulness of research, since seemingly unrelated findings of
isolated studies assume new meaning and significance when they are put into
proper theoretical perspective. Let us take the example of observation by Durkheim
that Catholics have a lower suicide rate as compared to the Protestants.
As an isolated empirical uniformity, the finding would not add greatly to our
understanding of suicidal behavior unless it conceptualized, that is, conceived of as
an illustration of a linkage amongst abstractions of a higher order (e.g., Catholicism-
Social Cohesion unrelieved anxieties-suicide rate).

3. The linkage of the specific empirical findings to a more general concept has
another major advantage. It affords a more secure ground for prediction than do
these empirical findings by themselves. The theory by providing a rationale behind
the empirical findings introduces a ground for prediction which is more secure”
than mere extrapolation from previously observed trends. Thus, if studies indicated
a decrease in social cohesion among a community of tribals, the theory-oriented
researcher would feel secure to predict increased rates of suicide in this group. On
the contrary, the a theoretic empiricist would have no alternative but to predict on
the basis of extrapolation.

The prediction may be concerned with estimating whether a relationship between

two variables, X and Y, which has been observed in the past, will continue in future,

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or it may be concerned with estimating whether changes in certain conditions will
lead to changes in observed relationship (among the variables).

To revert to our earlier illustration of delinquency, while Cohen points out that
there need not be a direct link between understanding the ’cause’ of a
phenomenon and finding a ‘cure,’ his theory nevertheless seems to suggest that a
measure intended to reduce gang delinquency is likely to be successful to the
extent that it either changes the standards by which working class students are
judged in school and (in the community, generally) or helps them to meet and
prove equal to those standards.

4. Whereas an empirical finding as a proposition referring to certain concrete

contextual manifestation of a phenomenon does not afford a basis for drawing
diverse inferences about what will follow, its reformulation or revamping in
theoretic terms affords a secure basis for arriving at the inferences about the varied
positive consequences in areas quite remote from the central area to which the
given finding relates. For example, the empirical uniformity that Catholics have a
lower suicide rate relative to Protestants does not by itself suggest diverse
consequences in fields of conduct apparently far removed from that of suicidal
behavior. But once this uniformity is theoretically reformulated, obsessive behavior
and other maladaptive actions may be seen to be related to inadequacies of group-
cohesion.

Thus, the lower the degree of social cohesion, higher the rate of mental illness).
The imaginative conversion of empirical uniformities into theoretic statements thus
increases the fruitfulness of research through successive exploration of its
implications (or any empirical uniformity).

Theory thus mediates between specific empirical generalization or uniformities and

broad theoretical orientations anchored in the intellectual tradition.

5. In affording broader meanings to empirical findings the theory also attests to

their truth. A hypothesis is as much confirmed by fitting it into a theory as by fitting

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 it into facts, because it then enjoys the support provided by evidence for all the
other hypotheses of the given theory.

6. Theory helps us to identify gaps in our knowledge and seek to bridge them up
with intuitive, impressionistic or extensional generalizations. As Karl Jaspers said, “It
is only when using methodologically classified sciences that we know what we
know and what we do not know.” This way, theory constitutes a crucially important
guide to designing of fruitful research.

DIFFERENTIATE BETWEEN CONCEPTUAL REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK.

CONCEPTUAL REVIEW
Conceptual review is defined as a methodology wherein research is conducted by
observing and analyzing already present information on a given topic. Conceptual review
doesn’t involve conducting any practical experiments. It is related to abstract concepts or
ideas. Philosophers have long used conceptual review to develop new theories or
interpret existing theories in a different light.

For example, Copernicus used conceptual research to come up with the concepts about
stellar constellations based on his observations of the universe. Down the line, Galileo
simplified Copernicus’s research by making his own conceptual observations which gave
rise to more experimental research and confirmed the predictions made at that time.

The most famous example of a conceptual research is Sir Issac Newton. He observed his
surroundings to conceptualize and develop theories about gravitation and motion.

Einstein is widely known and appreciated for his work on conceptual research. Although
his theories were based on conceptual observations, Einstein also proposed experiments
to come up with theories to test the conceptual research.

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Nowadays, conceptual review is used to answer business questions and solve real-world
problems. Researchers use analytical tools called conceptual frameworks to make
conceptual distinctions and organize ideas required for research purposes.

Conceptual framework
A conceptual framework is a written or visual representation of an expected relationship
between variables. Variables are simply the characteristics or properties that you want to
study.
Conceptual research framework constitutes of a researcher’s combination of previous
researches and associated work and explains the occurring phenomenon. It systematically
explains the actions needed in the course of the research study based on the knowledge
obtained from other ongoing researches and other researchers’ point of view on the
subject matter.

The conceptual framework is generally developed based on a literature review of existing

studies and theories about the topic.
A conceptual framework can be designed in many different ways. The form yours takes
will depend on what kinds of relationships you expect to find.

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