Provide an overview of the session and the learning objectives

This unit will look at finding how to relevant academic sources and how to reference and cite sources: 

By the end of this unit they should be able to understand:

• How to locate academic papers

• How to reference and cite them  

• Why referencing and citing is important

Students will be very used to accessing any source of information from Google – it’s always just a phone click away for generation Z! But it is important to get across that this will not suffice in order to find credible information such as journal articles.

To get them thinking about why Google won’t suffice, ask to them consider what some of the problems might be with using Google. You could turn it into a whole group discussion point or get them into smaller groups. 

Discussion point:

What do you think some of the problems might be with using Google?

- Google is a popularity contest; not a credibility contest (most popular result ranked highest, i.e., PageRank algorithm

-  Search results can also be influenced by paid ads

- Google designed to search for webpages not science articles

- Google has access to limited part of web; many science sources behind paywall    

- Too much information – so many search results mean it’s overwhelming, you can’t get through them all and probably wouldn’t want to

- Anyone can put anything on the web!

Once they have discussed this, you could quickly demonstrate some of the problems by getting them to do a quick Google search of a topic area. The key point to note is that many sources will come up (if you look at the no. of results it is many millions) and not all of them are scholarly, relevant or accessible on the first results page alone. As such, it illustrates that we can’t just rely on google.

Whilst Googling alone may not be sufficient, Google does have a search function for Scholarly materials which will provide them with a better range of relevant literature (you could repeat a search of the term you used above to demonstrate this if you have gone down that route, it will cut down results and show papers, but not all accessible).

Some of them may have already come across Google Scholar, so you could ask them to see if they are familiar with it and what they think of it. You can note it can be a great resource and be a very quick way to get easy access to papers. That said though, Google Scholar does have several problems listed below which are worth noting:

Problems with Google Scholar:

• Not all sources included are scholarly

• There is no human in the process of verifying the information and as such irrelevant and predatory journals (e.g., poor quality) can end up in the results

• Often articles won’t be present and will take them to a paywall

• Sometimes results can just be citations, book links, government docs; can end up with mixture of grey literature

• The interface does not allow for the most straightforward filtering (e.g., difficulty in filtering by full-text availability and peer-review)

• Not clear what search algorithm is used to determine which sources are selected

• Search terms are not always reproducible – the term which was used to find articles before may not work in the future 

Given these issues students should also be using Academic databased via their university library catalogue which will provide them with access to databases full of articles which the university pays to have access to.

This therefore has the benefit of providing access to articles which may be behind a paywall on Google Scholar, it also allows for easy filtering of articles, will produce less grey literature and the sources will have been checked by a human at some point. This also means they will have been tagged by the library which will mean the search terms used in these databases will produce the same results at a subsequent time point.

If you have time it would be good to show them what iFind looks like:  https://libguides.swansea.ac.uk/onlinelibrary/Onlinearticles If the link does not work Google “Swansea University Library Psychology” and select the “Journals, articles and databases” tab and select “iFind”. There is a video up on Canvas for this week’s academic skills material which goes over how to use iFind.

You could share your screen (give them a heads up) whilst having the university database open and make sure they know what it looks like and where it lives. There are typically some very good resources provided by university libraries. 

*Worth noting that they themselves should not be paying for access to articles!*

Once they know where to go to find sources and they have read through the sources the next key point to go through is that they need to cite and reference these sources appropriately.

Some students may have an understanding of referencing and citing but not all, so it is worth getting them to think about some questions (see below). You can do this as a whole group or break them off into smaller groups using breakout rooms.

Suggested exercise:

Get them to consider the following questions in groups or individually:

• What is referencing?

Referencing refers to the process of detailing the sources of information which have been used so that someone else can locate them.

• Why is referencing important?

Referencing allows the reader to see if appropriate sources have been used and if the work is grounded in the existing literature. It shows that you have read relevant literature and gives credibility to your arguments. It also gives credit to the authors and reveals that you are using someone else’s idea and not trying to pass it off as your own.

•  When do you need to reference?

Whenever you use information from someone else’s work or ideas. For example: if you are referring to a study, if you are using an idea from a textbook, if you are using data from a database or if you are using someone’s theory. You don't need to reference common knowledge though e.g., "Swansea is located in Wales."

Once they know what referencing is and why they need to do it the next point to cover is how to do it. Again, there is usually plenty of excellent information on how to do this via the university library. So, you may not want to go through every possible permutation of citing and referencing they will use and instead signpost them to these resources. For example, Swansea University's School of Psychology we will be using the American Psychological Association 7th Edition guidance. As such, the following examples will be referring to this guidance. If your School/University does not adhere to this make sure you redact any relevant information. 

It's worth clearing noting to students:

• The referencing system we adhere to (i.e., the American Psychological Association’s referencing style; some will have used Harvard)[1]

• The difference between citing (acknowledging sources in main body of text) and referencing (providing full details of source at the end in a reference list) as the two are used interchangeably in lots of materials.

• Running through a brief example or two of how to cite and reference papers and books (see below for example – resources will be on Canvas but worth consolidating).

• To avoid using direct quotes and the importance of paraphrasing (i.e., explaining points in their own words - those from humanities backgrounds may be accustomed and have been encouraged to using lots of quotes).

Example - Citing a paper:

At the beginning of a sentence:

“Quigley and Haselgrove (2020) reported that the elements of an outcome compound can interact to influence learning about one another”

And at the end of a sentence:

Research has demonstrated that the elements of an outcome compound can interact to influence learning about one another (Quigley & Haselgrove, 2020).

Referencing a paper:

In the reference list at then end of the essay (worth noting it should be A-Z)

Quigley, M., & Haselgrove, M. (2020). Interactions between the elements of an outcome in human associative learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 46(3), 297. https://doi.org/10.1037/xan0000248

Example - Citing a book:

At the beginning of a sentence:

“Bennett (2011) notes that there are positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia”

And at the end of a sentence:

“There are positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia (Bennett, 2011)”

Referencing a paper:

In the reference list at the end of the essay (worth noting it should be A-Z):

Bennett, P. (2011). Abnormal and clinical psychology an introductory textbook (3rd ed.). Maidenhead, England: McGraw Hill.

Once they know how to go about referencing and citing sources and why they need to do it, they need to know what happens if they don’t do it.

It is important to note that failure to do so (whether intentional or unintentional) will result in a prima facie case of plagiarism, the assumption that one is using information without acknowledging it and attempting to pass it off as their own work.

Important to note this is a serious academic offence which can result in a range of consequences varying from having a written warning, to receiving 0% for an assignment, a module or indeed the whole year. Offences of this nature can result in disqualification from the University. Moreover, it is extremely easy to get caught and stays on their record, so definitely not worth it.

Can note that a number of cases happen every year and it is an unpleasant experience for all involved so it is worth getting across that this is definitely something they will want to avoid. You could turn this into a discussion point if time permits and get them to consider the following questions as a larger group or in smaller groups.

Suggested exercise:

Get them to consider the following questions in groups or individually. If you get them into groups using the breakout feature in Zoom make sure that they make a note of the questions before the disappear to the breakout rooms so they don’t forget the questions

1. Why do you think plagiarism is such a serious academic offence?

• It is a form of intellectual theft (e.g., if someone took their original idea and used it to benefit them how would they feel?)

• It gives an unfair advantage to someone not based on their merit but someone else’s

• It results in gaming the system – learner does not actually demonstrate their knowledge and writing abilities. 

• It undermines the quality of the institution and its reputation

2. Why do you think students end up plagiarising?

• Lack understanding of content so end up copying

• Unable to cope with workload; time-management skills

• Worked with friend (collusion)

• Poor notes and paraphrasing

• Accidental, forget to cite sources

• External pressure to succeed

The next question they may be wondering is “how will someone know if a student has plagiarised text?” Assuming your university/school uses Turnitin, you can introduce Turnitin here and explain that it is an online system where their work will need to be submitted to assess the originality of the text in the submitted document. You can explain briefly that it does this by comparing the text submitted for assignments to a huge corpus of existing assignments, books, websites, blogs etc. It then produces a similarity report which highlights how much of the work contains unoriginal text.

Worth noting that the similarity report and the corresponding % of matched text is not a measure of plagiarism as students often seem to think it is. A high score does not mean that they have plagiarised (i.e.., they could have a very well sourced reference list).

It might be worth creating a test submission and providing a video showing them what a submission looks like from a staff perspective or creating a test submission box for students to use. 

*Important point to get across is that if they plagiarise they are very likely to get caught!*

Once you have covered what plagiarism is and how it is detected, it is worth going over how they can avoid it and common errors that students end up making. You could ask them what they think are possible errors that might occur and if they are quiet give them some hints.

Some of the key errors that students make are listed below:

• Copy and pasting text from the web and not citing source (Turnitin will pick it up)

• Keeping poor notes from their research and then unsure if these words are their own or someone else’s (important to make clear notes).

• Not citing and referencing as they write and forgetting to do it before submission as they end up rushing

• Submitting wrong versions of their work, draft versions     

• Using essay mills (i.e., contract cheating).

• Allowing friends to look at their work who end up copying sections. Doing so means they will both end up in trouble.

By the end of this unit they should now know how to:

• How to locate academic papers

• How to reference and cite them  

• Why referencing and citing is important

• Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com

• Swansea University YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCziftYKOxtZCfGyDqNXXxcQ

• Swansea University Online Tutorial - APA (7th ed): https://xerte.swansea.ac.uk/play.php?template_id=1165

• American Psychological Association's guide (7th ed): https://libguides.swansea.ac.uk/APA7Referencing

• Endnote: (reference management software supported by the library): https://libguides.swansea.ac.uk/endnote

• Mendeley: (reference management software): https://www.mendeley.com/reference-management/reference-manager