Speaking with academic copyeditor hat on: - definitely follow the institution's referencing guidelines. (Make your own cheat sheet. It'll save countless hours.] Almost everywhere has its own little quirks about how to employ commas and full stops and italics, the institution or the supervisor have the last word. - most places have depositories for dissertations; read a couple that have been successfully defended at the institute (extra point if supervised by her supervisor). - also read the supervisor's own writing, and some of the articles they've cited, to get a feel for what's normal in the field. How chatty or formal or lengthy are other writers? - Depending on the field, first person may be ok, but 'reference everything' really means 'reference EVERYTHING' Despite voices to the contrary (Smith, 1990, Jones, 2016), there is a general consensus that the sky is blue' (Davis, 2020, see also Harrison, 2012 and Whatchemacallit et al., 2018) - double check and if necessary find a reputable source for 'common knowledge' (see above). It's very easy to think you know something and get caught out by a couple of hundred years or advancements in the field (don't, for instance, assume you know about the pecking order of hens. Biology has advanced A LOT beyond the 'common model'. [This is a real example from a book I edited recently. I now know a lot more about the complexities of the social life of hens than I did.] - know the classics of the field and read up to the present day. A good bibliography has monographs, edited volumes, and journal articles, depending on the field there may be a sprinkling of newspapers (Guardian, NYTimes-level) or magazines like Nature. Many people read a bibliography to get an overview of the body of knowledge of a student, if it's mostly older articles there's a suspicion you didn't do current research [more than one plagiarist was caught this way], if it's mostly easily available material you give the impression of not having done any in-depth research involving a library.
- last but not least, googling for [article title].pdf and looking on google scholar often gives you access when you can't get stuff through your library online. She should have a JSTOR account anyway, but JSTOR is often awkward to read.
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Date: 2022-02-28 09:00 pm (UTC)- definitely follow the institution's referencing guidelines. (Make your own cheat sheet. It'll save countless hours.] Almost everywhere has its own little quirks about how to employ commas and full stops and italics, the institution or the supervisor have the last word.
- most places have depositories for dissertations; read a couple that have been successfully defended at the institute (extra point if supervised by her supervisor).
- also read the supervisor's own writing, and some of the articles they've cited, to get a feel for what's normal in the field. How chatty or formal or lengthy are other writers?
- Depending on the field, first person may be ok, but 'reference everything' really means 'reference EVERYTHING'
Despite voices to the contrary (Smith, 1990, Jones, 2016), there is a general consensus that the sky is blue' (Davis, 2020, see also Harrison, 2012 and Whatchemacallit et al., 2018)
- double check and if necessary find a reputable source for 'common knowledge' (see above). It's very easy to think you know something and get caught out by a couple of hundred years or advancements in the field (don't, for instance, assume you know about the pecking order of hens. Biology has advanced A LOT beyond the 'common model'. [This is a real example from a book I edited recently. I now know a lot more about the complexities of the social life of hens than I did.]
- know the classics of the field and read up to the present day. A good bibliography has monographs, edited volumes, and journal articles, depending on the field there may be a sprinkling of newspapers (Guardian, NYTimes-level) or magazines like Nature. Many people read a bibliography to get an overview of the body of knowledge of a student, if it's mostly older articles there's a suspicion you didn't do current research [more than one plagiarist was caught this way], if it's mostly easily available material you give the impression of not having done any in-depth research involving a library.
- last but not least, googling for [article title].pdf and looking on google scholar often gives you access when you can't get stuff through your library online. She should have a JSTOR account anyway, but JSTOR is often awkward to read.