UNIVERSITY FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES, TAMALE

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BYI. K. ANTWI, FGLA

UNIVERSITY LIBRARIANUNIVERSITY FOR DEVELOPMENT STUDIES, TAMALE

E-mail: ikantwi1993@yahoo.com

Paper Presented at GRASSAG ForumICT Conference Centre

University for Development Studies, TamaleSeptember 2, 2011

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Scholarly communication is a process of knowledge delivery practiced by members of the academic community. A vital part of this process is the broadest possible sharing of academic publications among scholars and students.

According to the American Library Association (ALA), scholarly communication is the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated tothe scholarly community, and preserved for future use.

According to Wikipedia (2010) Scholarly communication is the creation, transformation, dissemination and preservation of knowledge related to teaching, research and scholarly endeavours.04/21/23 UDS 3

The most common method of Scholarly Communication is by writing up the findings of research into an article to be published in a scholarly journal

Other methods Seminar E.g. Departmental, Faculty, Inter Faculty seminarsConferences E.g. Professional associations, UniversitiesReportsSerials Books (by a single author or by several authors)Web PublishingMulti Media formats such as sound and video recordings

(Particularly in the Arts and Humanities)

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METHODS OF DISSEMINATING METHODS OF DISSEMINATING SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATIONSCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION

Cont’d

• Bibliographies, indexes and other reference works

• Synoptic Journals (containing summaries longer than abstracts

• Reviews and review articles (reviewing new publications or trends in the literature)

• Institutional publications (annual reports, books, research papers)

• Government publications • Technical bulletins

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Write for a Journal

Don’t look for a Journal

Regular Journal

Timeliness

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SELECTING A SELECTING A JOURNALJOURNAL

One of the most important determinants of a manuscript being published is sending it to the appropriate journal

Some journals may publish long (20-25 pages) articles

Others publish shorter papers

There are journals that will permit many illustrations (such as maps, tables). Others will not

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SELECTING … SELECTING … CONT’DCONT’D

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The first question to ask yourself is what type of audience you want to reach.

It is important to make an initial decision about whether you want to publish in a general, inter-disciplinary or specialty journal.

You also need to decide whether you want to publish in a relatively new journal or in a well-established journal and a journal that comes out weekly, monthly or quarterly.

Finally, you need to have a good idea about whether your results will be more relevant to an international or local audience.

CHOOSING A JOURNALCHOOSING A JOURNAL

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CHOOSING CHOOSING ……CONT’DCONT’D

The journal that you choose will have important implications for the time that it takes for your paper :

• To be published;• The impact that it will have; and• The prestige that it will bring back to you [The visibility factor]

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CHOOSING..CONT’DCHOOSING..CONT’D

New Journals

•May be more likely to accept papers

•Often have low impact factors

•May have limited circulation

•May not reach a wide audience

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• One thing is certain – you will never get published in a prestigious journal if you never submit your work there. [Peat, Baur and Keena, 2002]

CHOOSING..CONT’DCHOOSING..CONT’D

PEER REVIEW

PEER REVIEW

• A key element of the process is ensuring the research meets a level of quality and is of scholarly merit.

• This is normally done through a process called peer review, where other researchers in the same discipline review the research write up and decide if it is of sufficient quality.

Peer review (also known as refereeing) is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field.

Peer review requires a community of experts in a given (and often narrowly defined) field, who are qualified and able to perform impartial review.

 MENTORINGDefinitionMentoring is defined as a developmental

relationship that involves organisational members of unequal status or, less frequently, peers (Bosionelos, 2004 in Bozeman & Feeney, 2007).

Mentoring is an intense long-term relationship between a senior, more experienced individual (the mentor) and a more junior, less experienced individual (the protégé)(Scandura, & Pellegrini, (2007).

The mentor is usually a senior, experienced employee who serves as a role model, provides support, direction, and feedback to the younger employee regarding career plans and interpersonal development, and increases the visibility of the protégé to decision-makers in the organisation who may influence career opportunities(Noe, 1988).

InternalExternalNetworking

The term ethics is often synonymous with morals. Therefore, ethics refers to the study of morals.

According to Burns & Bush (1998: 38), ethics determines which behaviors are deemed appropriate under certain circumstances as prescribed by codes of behaviour that are set by society.

Ethics is simply defined as norms for conduct that distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable behaviour.

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WHAT IS ETHICS?

• Research misconduct is taken to mean all practices that seriously

deviate from those that are commonly accepted within the academic community for proposing, conducting or reporting research.

• Generally misconduct of research includes:1. The fabrication or falsification of data

2. Plagiarism or the presentation of documented words of another as one’s own, without attribution, appropriate for the presentation and without duly acknowledging the source.

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RESEARCH RESEARCH MISCONDUCTMISCONDUCT

3. Intentionally omitting references to the relevant published work of others for the purpose of inferring personal discovery of new information.

4. Misleading ascription of authorship to a publication including the listing of authors without their

permission.

5. Attributing works of others who have not contributed to the research.

6. The lack of appropriate acknowledgement of the work primarily produced by a research student, trainee or associate

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Research..CONT’DResearch..CONT’D

7. Interfering with any research property of another person,

including without limitation, the apparatus, reagents, biological material, writing, data, hardware, software,

or any other substance or device used or produced in the conduct of research.

8. Misrepresentation as in stating or presenting a material of significant falsehood.

9. Misrepresentation as in omitting a fact so that what is stated

or presented as whole, states or presents a material of significant falsehood.

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Research..CONT’DResearch..CONT’D

10. Deliberate inclusion of inaccurate or misleading information relating to research activity in curriculum vitae, grants applications, job applications or public statements, or failure to provide relevant information.

11. Presenting and seeking to publish the same manuscript in two or more different journals.

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Research..CONT’DResearch..CONT’D

PLAGIARISM“Taking over the ideas, methods, or written

words of another, without acknowledgment and with the intention that they be taken as the work of the deceiver." American Association of University Professors, (Sept./Oct., 1989).

“Plagiarism is the appropriation of another person’s ideas, processes, results, or words without giving appropriate credit, including those obtained through confidential review of others’ research proposals and manuscripts.” (Office of Science and Technology Policy, 1999).

Plagiarism of Text

“ Copying a portion of text from another source without giving credit to its author and without enclosing the borrowed text in quotation marks”(Roig, 2011)

Unethical to lift the work of another person verbatim without permission and claiming a right to the work; this is Plagiarism.

Conform to the fair use principleExperts and colleagues will use your work

LIST OF GUIDELINES ON ETHICS AND PLAGIARISM

1. An ethical writer ALWAYS acknowledges the contributions of others and the source ofhis/her ideas.

 2. Any verbatim text taken from another author must be

enclosed in quotation marks. 3. We must always acknowledge every source that we use

in our writing; whether weparaphrase it, summarize it, or enclose it quotations.

4. When paraphrasing and/or summarizing others’ work we must reproduce the exact meaning of the other author’s ideas or facts using our words and sentence structure.

 

5. When in doubt as to whether a concept or fact is common knowledge, provide a citation.

6. Authors who submit a manuscript for publication containing data, reviews,conclusions, etc., that have already been disseminated in some significant manner (e.g.,published as an article in another journal, presented at a conference, posted on the internet) must clearly indicate to the editors and readers the nature of the previous dissemination

7.Self Plagiarism

8. Authors are strongly urged to double-check their citations. Specifically, authors should always ensure that each reference notation appearing in the body of the manuscript corresponds to the correct citation listed in the reference section and that each source listed in the reference section has been cited at some point in the manuscript.

9. Only those individuals who have made substantive contributions to a project merit authorship in a paper.

10. Academic or professional ghost authorship in the sciences is ethically unacceptable.

Does not contribute anything new to knowledge Containing unreliable data Not providing the profile and background of the

respondents used for the study Methodology was scanty Data collected from biased samples Containing data that were not appropriate to the

study Study not having focus

• Covering many topics without providing a focus Not making use of data e.g. not making references to the

variables. Not being specific. E.g. Using expressions such: Most,

Majority, Few.

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MAJOR REASONS FOR MAJOR REASONS FOR REJECTIONREJECTION

Manuscripts not well edited.Correct paragraphingCorrect sentencingCorrect headings and sub headingsCorrect grammar

REMEDIES• Patience• Assistance

― Mentors― Colleagues― Language experts― Proof Reading

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Rejection..CONT’Rejection..CONT’DD

• There are two possible articles you can write: (a) the article you planned to write when you designed your study or

• (b) the article that makes the most sense now that you have seen the results.

• They are rarely the same, and the correct answer is (b).

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WHICH ARTICLE WHICH ARTICLE SHOULD YOU WRITE?SHOULD YOU WRITE?

• The primary criteria for good scientific writing are accuracy and clarity. If your article is interesting and written with style, fine. But these are subsidiary virtues. First strive for accuracy and clarity.

• The first step toward clarity is good organization, and the standardized format of a journal article does much of the work for you.

• It not only permits readers to read the report from beginning to end, as they would any coherent narrative, but also to scan it for a quick overview of the study or to locate specific information easily by turning directly to the relevant section.

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HOW SHOULD YOU HOW SHOULD YOU WRITE?WRITE?

AUTHOR RESPONSIBILITIES

To submit only proof read, original, non fraudulent work

To submit one journal at one timeTo list all references used (No plagiarism)To have followed ethical research practicesTo respond to comments/criticism positivelyTimelinessTo acknowledge all sources of fundingTo comply with submission regulations

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Familiar sayings Well-known quotations

These do not require documentation

Common knowledge is decided by experts in a given discipline

Facts that can easily be verified in a readily

available reference work should not be documented

Any time you use any source extensively, you should cite it in a way that shows clearly just how you used it

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COMMON KNOWLEDGECOMMON KNOWLEDGE

Giving Fair Credit Acknowledging Borrowing Indebtedness to Sources Used A book or an article is the intellectual property of

persons who wrote and published it To fail to give credit where is due is PLAGIARISM Enables Readers to retrace your steps Helps your Reader Know the Territory

• Sometimes welcomes a newcomer to a field of research

Helps Your Reader See How You Have Used Your Sources

Relying on single sources Relying on multiple sources

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FUNCTIONS OF FUNCTIONS OF DOCUMENTATIONDOCUMENTATION

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o State the problem and rationale clearly.o Cite current and appropriate literature.o Use the best methodology and use it correctly.o Tie the paper into some conceptual schema.o Analyze the problem correctly and accurately.o Write clearly and jargon-free.o Organize the paper well.o Never submit duplicate manuscripts simultaneously to any

journals.o Avoid plagiarism at all costs.o Learn from mistakes [Brunn, 1988]

POSTSCRIPTPOSTSCRIPT

ADVICE TO PROSPECTIVE ADVICE TO PROSPECTIVE AUTHORSAUTHORS

CONCLUSIONThere are eight main features of academic writing that are

often discussed. Academic writing is to some extent:

complex, formal, objective, explicit, hedged, and

responsible. It uses language precisely and accurately.

ComplexityWritten language is relatively more complex than spoken language. It has a more varied vocabulary.

FormalityAcademic writing is relatively formal. In general this means that in

an essay you should avoid colloquial words and expressions.

CONCLUSION CONT’D

PrecisionIn academic writing, facts and figures are given

precisely.

ObjectivityWritten language is in general objective rather thanpersonal. It therefore has fewer words that refer to the writer or the reader. This means that the main emphasis should be on the information that you want to give and the arguments you want to make, rather than you.

Conclusion. CONT’DExplicitnessAcademic writing is explicit about the

relationships inthe text. It is the responsibility of the writer in

English tomake it clear to the reader how the various

parts of thetext are related. AccuracyAcademic writing uses vocabulary accurately.

CONCLUSION…CONT’DHedgingIn any kind of academic writing you do, it is necessary to make decisions about your stance on a particular subject,or the strength of the claims you are making. Different subjects prefer to do this in different ways. ResponsibilityIn academic writing you must be responsible for, and must beable to provide evidence and justification for, any claims youmake. You are also responsible for demonstrating an understandingof any source texts you use.

(http:www.uefap.com/writing/feature/featfram.htm) Accessed on September 1,2011)