GUIDELINES FOR LITERATURE REVIEW AND REFERENCING CONTENT The content should reflect an understanding of current literature on the topic as presented in scientific journals. Length: Please see guidelines for individual assignments for length criteria. Do a computer word count. Marks will be deducted at the rate of 10% for each 10% outside these limits. Table of contents: so the examiner can see what areas you will cover in your review. The introduction begins with the present understanding of the reader and leads into the topic under discussion. The introduction should conclude with a statement of the aims of the assignment. In the main body of the presentation, information should be presented clearly and concisely and referenced according to the APA or ASM guidelines (see below). You should not only present factual material, but also make an attempt to interpret the information presented. The final summary/conclusion should reiterate those points of the presentation which you consider to be most important. The conclusion may also suggest possible future directions. Reference Section: Literature reviews submitted without citation of references throughout the text will not be accepted. Students will be asked to resubmit the review with all listed references cited in the text. Resubmitted reviews may only receive 50% of the marks available for the review. Scientific journals differ considerably in their method of citing literature. Authors of scientific papers are required to follow meticulously the requirements of the journal to which their work is submitted. Please make use of the RMIT library ejournal section. I can redo the tutorial for anyone who is having trouble navigating this. 1. Use the appropriate format accepted by APA by reading the information at http://www.rmit.edu.au/browse;ID=8rwjnkcmfoeez and then click on the APA tab and follow the instructions. OR Whilst most references cited are refereed journal articles, other references e.g. unpublished data, personal communications, manuscripts submitted, references to articles "in press", abstracts, theses and presentation of results from conference proceedings should be listed in the text (in parenthesis). Material that has not been subjected to peer review, for example unpublished data, personal communications, theses, newsletters, should cited in the text only and not listed in the reference section eg: . . . . . . . . . system was used (W.E. Scowcroft, A.H. Gibson, and J.D. Pagan, Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun., in press). . . . . . . . . . in linkage groups XIV (R.D. Smyth, Ph.D. thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1972) Please also refer to ? The Applied Science librarian who can help you with searches –ask at the library ? BIOL2310 – Scientific Skills and Tools for Masters in Biotechnology Students course, referring to the lecture on how to write literature reviews and how to do referencing. Citing internet sources: Internet sites must have complete citations if used in referencing information. A URL alone is insufficient (like referencing a book by the address of the publisher!). No citation convention has yet been agreed upon to give an unambiguous reference to an Internet source. RMIT Libraries have summarised the information needed in a useful form where you can compare the requirements for various types of electronic documents. The Modern Language Association of America has published guidelines for citing Internet sources which can be accessed on-line at . Briefly, the same information that is provided for hard copy references must be provided if available. You can use the following order or refer to the APA or Harvard tutorial guide on the RMIT library referencing guidelines site : ? Author/compiler/editor/committee/group etc. ? Date of electronic publication, if available, or latest division or site update Title/name of professional/personal site or reference database (e.g., Britannica Online) ? Site description - name of institution/organization/person maintaining the site (e.g., Association of Official Analytical Chemists, American Society for Microbiology) ? Internet text division within the site, or headings (e.g., Home page, Health Information) to replace page numbers (which are usually not available) ? Date of access (in brackets) ? (Uniform Resource Locator) or a sequence of commands, directory paths and/or menu selections (for Telnet, Gopher etc.). Note these should be between the <> signs by Internet Protocol conventions. Remember that the URL is both the site of publication and an essential tool for retrieving the document and must therefore be given with great precision. Journal articles and books sourced on-line, which are available in conventional print medium, are referenced as you would normally, with the addition of the URL to indicate how you accessed the information. In-text citations of Internet sources are as for hard copy sources, with author(s) name(s) and year, if available, or organization name or document title + the location as precisely as possible (e.g., internal division of the site). Evaluating Internet resources Consider the reader of the report. In the case of student reports this is assumed to be a professional scientist. The resources quoted must be acceptable to the professional reader. Web search engines do not measure reliability and amass many resources, only some of which may be scholarly documents and the rest peripheral, mediocre or useless. It is better to start a search from one known authoritative site and use their search engines and links to reach other relevant resources. Evaluate the source before using it and learn to identify a reputable source. Sponsor/location will help to indicate the type of source, e.g.: .edu for education and research .gov for government resources .org, .asn or .net (strictly for "network") for large organizations (non-commercial) .com for commercially sponsored sites /~name often indicates a personal site Web sites are rarely refereed or reviewed. However many authoritative sites are secure and reliable. Always assess the credibility of the sponsor or maintainer and look for bias or restricted points of view. The first two types are usually authoritative sites which are actively maintained and regularly updated. Even these may change or disappear without trace when new Webmasters take over or someone retires. The rest always require careful assessing. Check all links for relevance, appropriateness and continued existence. This last (or the lack of it) is such a common problem that there are services and software packages aimed solely at checking links in web pages - unfortunately, this does not happen automatically!! Use current and regularly updated sites. The main scientific organizations maintain web sites, e.g., Association of Official Analytical Chemists (AOAC), National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS), National Food Authority (NFA), Centers for Disease Control USA (CDC). Remember that Internet sites are dynamic and posted documents can be changed by their authors without leaving traces of editing and can be moved to another electronic address without notice, and when this happens, the page may disappear without trace, as the indexing process (Search Engines, see RMIT Libraries for further discussion) will not keep up with the changes. The reference may then not be retrievable by the reader. The access date becomes significant. Some readers require a printed copy of the material, or the first page. Before submitting · make sure that the reference list matched the citations in the text. The "find" command is useful for this task. · Do a spell check. If you develop a custom dictionary containing the scientific words needed for your assignments during the year, this will be invaluable when rushing to submit an assignment. Assessment will usually be based on: 1. Content: see earlier. 2. Organisation: Presentation of material in logical order, appropriate use of tables, graphs, appendices. For example, graphs, tables or diagrams should be used whenever possible to replace long descriptions. If it is necessary to provide detailed methodology, this should be added as an appendix as this information would be distracting if included in the main body of the text. It should be double spaced and pleasing to the eye. Include a Table of Contents - this can be generated by the computer. Use font 12 times New Roman and double spacing. Make appropriate use of diagrams and tables. 3. Referencing: Use of appropriate recent references, cited in the text by author and date and listed in the reference list. Appropriate number of references: see above. 4. Use of scientific English. Write clearly and concisely, avoid jargon and words only used conversation, write bacterial names in full when first used then abbreviate them (Staphylococcus aureus, then S. aureus), use italics and capitals correctly (Streptococcus pyogenes, Streptococcus spp., streptococci), Avoid don't, won't etc. (does not, will not), explain abbreviations the first time used {minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC), then use MIC throughout). Students sometimes use the words "it's" and "its" incorrectly Other important points on referencing the literature review · It is not acceptable to merely summarise another review article. The review must contain your original work and not a summary of someone else's work. · All references that you cite must have been read by you and must be available for inspection if requested. · You should reference original material only. In rare circumstances this may not be possible. It is then acceptable to report another researcher's comments, for example, Smith et al. (1999) have recently reviewed ……. And have concluded that……………….. · It is not acceptable to directly "lift" sentences from any source. Some extra points: Word count: Please register a word count on the front page when you submit your assignment. Go to Tools / Word Count. Do not include contents page, tables, figures and references in the count. Reference formatting: At the time of submission please also submit a copy of a reference page of the journal format you used for your references unless you have used the APA system.. For journal abbreviations go to: http://library.caltech.edu/reference/abbreviations/ Tables and figures: Do not use the number of the journal. Use your own numbers either fig1 to eg 10 – or Fig 1.1, 2.1 etc for chapters. Make sure you explain the relevance of each figure / table in the text. Help with English expression: If your English expression is poor, please get a peer to read the report and help you with any English expression changes and spelling etc that are required. RMIT English Worldwide can also help students with poor written English expression. Books like Hocking and Doyle are already literature reviews. Using these extensively for referencing is not really what I want as a lit review – however there are lots of references from those chapters that can be accessed and used.