Information Literacy

Good Scientific Practice

One prerequisite for academic research to be ethically acceptable, reliable, and the results to be credible, is that the research has been carried out according to sound academic principles, which includes the critical evaluation of sources, and respecting the rights of the creators of any sources used in the research.

In this section you will learn more on:

• source evaluation
• reference practices
• why plagiarism is not a good idea

Source Analysis

When you have found the publications you think might be useful to you, it is time for their critical evaluation. You need to be especially careful when analyzing sources on the open web. It is preferable to use primary sources rather than secondary ones for e.g. your theses. Take at least the following points into consideration:

Currency

• Find out when the publication or the web page has been created and when it was updated, or if there are new editions available.

Relevance

• To whom is the material directed? Does the material have a specific target audience?
• Is the material well-written and does the language contain the terminology appropriate for the subject?

Authority

• What information does the author give about him/herself? Has the author published other works on the same subject?
• what is the author’s background organization and what are its views on the subject?
• If the material is published online, where is the web page located and who is in charge of it (a company, a government body, or e.g. a private individual). Are there advertising on the web site?
• Has the material been peer reviewed?

Accuracy

• How are the statements in the material argued and are any sources or links presented for checking the facts
• Is the material comparable with other material on the same subject and to what you already know about the subject?

Purpose

• Why has the material been made; what was the purpose of producing it and its academic goal?
• Who has funded or sponsored the research or publication?

Watch the video to learn more on evaluating sources with the CRAAP test:

Reference Practices

Any arguments you present in a written assignment or in your thesis must be based on your own analysis and on research that has been published before. It is vital to have clear and logical source annotations so that the reader will know what you base your arguments on. Source references give the reader the opportunity to learn more about the topic.

The main point about references is that they have to contain enough information, and that they are presented in the same way throughout one publication.

Different types of sources (e.g. books, e-books, articles, news papers, Youtube clips etc etc) are cited in different ways. You find more information about reference practices in Arcada’s Writing Guide. The appendix 1 shows examples on how to refer to different types of sources.

APA Citation Format

There are many different citation styles and formats such as APA, CBE, Chicago, Harvard, Vancouver etc. At Arcada the APA format is recommended (also called the author-year system). The purpose with each style is to show what and who's ideas is presented and also give the reader a chance to find the source. Learn to indicate references accurately, carefully and logically from the start of your studies.

Sample image showing how to refer according to the APA 7 system:

When writing the list of references the article should be referred to as follows:

The details included in the reference are:

• Krahé, B., & Möller, I. = last name of the authors and initial letters of the first name
• 2010 = year of publication
• Longitudinal effects of media violence on aggression and empathy among German adolescents = title of the article
• Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology = journal title (written in italics)
• 31 = journal year (volume)
• 5 = issue of the journal (in volume 31)
• 401-409 = article page numbering
• https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2010.07.003 = so-called doi address for the article, where it can always be found. Doi stands for Digital Object Identifier.

For further details not mentioned in the Arcada Writing Guide we recommend having a look at these resources:

ChatGPT and other AI-supported tools

According to Arcada's guidelines, ChatGPT and similar AI-supported tools may be used, as long as the student takes responsibility for the fact checking. However, there must always be a reference to the source, as the text is not self-produced. When referring to ChatGPT, you do exactly the same as in APA7. The source reference could, for example, look like this:

OpenAI (2021). ChatGPT [Computer software]. Retrieved from https://openai.com/blog/chat-gpt/

You should also mention in the text itself how you have used AI tools. Note that you should never use generative AI as a source of information - even if the text was processed with an AI tool, you should have another source for the content itself. 

Reference Management & Mendeley

You can use the reference management software Mendeley to get your references in order. To use Mendeley, you must first download the program and create your own user account.

Don't plagiarize!

Plagiarism means unauthorized citing, e.g. presenting someone else’s thoughts and ideas as your own, without mentioning the source. When you refer to someone else’s texts you must indicate where the information came from. You have to give the source, whether you quote directly from the source or paraphrase it in your own words. It is also considered plagiarism if you give the source but do not indicate that the text is a direct quotation.

Citation is plagiarism if you do not mention the source of your information – whether that source is a book, a journal, the research plan of a fellow student, or a web page. This means that e.g. copying text from an electronic information source and pasting it in your own work counts as plagiarism unless you indicate where the information came from. Self-plagiarism is reusing or recycling your own previous texts without mentioning the source. Your own past works should be cited to as any other sources.

You do not have to mention a source if it is a general condition, fact or other generally known piece of information, such as “the sun rises in the East”.

Plagiarism is explained in the tutorials below. In the first tutorial the plagiarism detection software Turnitin is mentioned. Arcada uses the software Urkund instead of Turnitin. Unauthorized citation is fraud, which may lead to your work being failed or even you being temporarily banned from the university.

Quotations

An in-text reference should be indicated so that the reader clearly can see the difference between the quoted part and the author’s own analysis. The in-text reference should also direct the reader to the correct place in the list of references with more detailed information about the source. It is plagiarism if you state the source but do not say that the text is a direct quote. Direct quotations are written exactly as in the source text and marked with quotation marks "". If it is a longer quote, in more than three lines of text, you usually make a so-called block quote. These are indented and also often differ in that the font size is a little smaller. The quotations must always reflect the purpose of the original text. If the intention of an individual sentence is unclear when it is taken out of context, it should not be quoted as such.

There are no rules for how to quote, but it is a matter of taste. You can weave the quotes into the flowing text or have block quotes that stand out from the text. You can also quote only parts of sentences, as long as the meaning does not suffer from it. Also, before you quote, consider whether it is necessary for the reader to read the text in its original form and what value the quote adds to your text. Regardless of whether you quote or not, the source must be made visible!

Quotes should always reproduce the original text character by character. In individual cases, you can add an explanatory word (eg a name if the quote only contains a "him"/”her” or an extra "to" if you weave it into your own text) in square brackets. These must not change the meaning of the quote. If the quote contains a typo or something that can be interpreted as a typo on your part, you sometimes print a "[sic!]" After it, to show that it actually says so in the original. This is Latin and simply means "so".