Look again at the text in Exercise 4 and identify the features that make it relatively informal in style.
1 What personal pronouns does the writer use?
2 How does the writer refer to other researchers?
3 What forms of punctuation are there that do not normally appear in more formal texts?
4 What contractions does the writer use?
5 Which words have been abbreviated?
6 Does the writer use any vague or imprecise expressions? If so, what are they?
7 Does the writer use language that is informal or emotive? If so, what examples can you fi nd?
8 What categorical expression does the writer use?
Now compare it with the text below, which has been written in a more academic style.
Altruistic behaviour, that is the offer of assistance to others without the motive of personal gain, is often said to be a characteristically human trait (Carter, 1989; Ericson, 1994). Moreover, it is commonly assumed that children learn to behave altruistically from their parents (Carter, 2004). However, the fi ndings of recent studies of chimpanzee behaviour suggest that altruism may be more instinctive than previously thought. Warneken and Tomasello (2006), for example, have documented numerous instances of chimpanzees assisting other chimpanzees to locate a food source without the expectation of a reward.
Choosing relevant materials
The availability of so much information also means that it is important to learn how to quickly identify whether a text is relevant to your research topic. Titles of academic texts are often very descriptive of their contents, so that is a good place to start. For example, the article from Exercise 3 entitled ‘Is altruism a genetic trait?’ is based on a research article which has the longer more descriptive title: ‘Altruistic Helping in Human Infants and Young Chimpanzees’.
Imagine you are looking for information to answer the essay question Assess the European Central Bank’s response to the 2008 global financial crisis. Your key word search has returned the following items. Which items do you think are relevant? Which are not? Why not?
Remember to look carefully at the essay question to identify the focus of your research. Notice how the instructions set the limits of your investigation in terms of
1 International financial crises: causes, prevention, and cures
L.H. (2000) The American Economic Review, 2000 – JSTOR
2 The aftermath of financial crises
Reinhart, C.M. & Rogoff, K.S. - 2009 - nber.org
3 Structural causes of the global financial crisis: a critical assessment of the ‘new financial architecture’
Crotty, I (2009) Cambridge Journal of Economics. CPES
4 The regulatory response to the financial crisis
Goodhart, C.A.E (2008) Journal of Financial Stability. Elsevier
5 [BOOK] Naudé, W.A. (2009) The financial crisis of 2008 and the developing countries - econ.tu.ac.th
Using abstracts to choose relevant articles
Most databases will supply the abstract of articles as well as bibliographic information. Reading abstracts is a very useful way of determining whether an article is relevant to your topic.
Imagine that you have been asked to research the impact of social networking sites on the psychological health of young people between the ages of 12 and 16. Is the abstract below a useful source of information? Why or why not?
Facebook, as one of the most popular social networking sites among college students, provides a platform for people to manage others’ impressions of them. People tend to present themselves in a favorable way on their Facebook profile. This research examines the impact of using Facebook on people’s perceptions of others’ lives. It is argued that those with deeper involvement with Facebook will have different perceptions of others than those less involved due to two reasons. First, Facebook users tend to base judgment on examples easily recalled (the availability heuristic). Second, Facebook users tend to attribute the positive content presented on Facebook to others’ personality, rather than situational factors (correspondence bias), especially for those they do not know personally. Questionnaires, including items measuring years of using Facebook, time spent on Facebook each week, number of people listed as their Facebook “friends”, and perceptions about others’ lives, were completed by 425 undergraduate students taking classes across various academic disciplines at a state university in Utah. Surveys were collected during regular class period, except for two online classes where surveys were submitted online. The multivariate analysis indicated that those who have used Facebook longer agreed more that others were happier, and agreed less that life is fair, and those spending more time on Facebook each week agreed more that others were happier and had better lives. Furthermore, those that included more people whom they did not personally know as their Facebook “friends” agreed more that others had better lives. (246 words)
Source: Chou, H. G., & Edge, N. (2012). “They Are Happier and Having Better Lives than I Am”: The Impact of Using Facebook on Perceptions of Others’ Lives. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15(2), 117–121.
To determine whether a book is relevant to your topic, check the back cover or inside the front cover for a summary of the contents. If this is not present, or if it does not give you enough information to decide whether the book is relevant, you may need to survey the book or article to verify that it contains information that you are looking for.
For more information on abstracts and on surveying, see Chapter 4.
Managing your materials
As you do your research, it is important to have a good system for storing your source materials. Remember that items you have borrowed from the library may be recalled by other users, so where possible photocopy the material that you need. Make sure you respect copyright law. Tagging items with a note of why you selected it or what you intend to use it for may be useful. Keep all paper copies of items in one place.
Glossary
repository A repository is a place where something is kept safely.
For online materials, use the ‘favourites’ function in your computer or consider using programs which allow you to save different types of files including web pages, PDFs, and audio files into a single file. Many such programs allow you to store your material in a web-based repository, so even if your computer breaks down or is lost, your