Maybe the search didn’t reveal the one classic article or source and the results were just derivative papers: e.g. like listing all the stuff on superconducting ceramics without mentioning Bednorz and Müller (sp), say.

Ha ha !! We are back around to my original hypothesis – ginormous academic ego.

Aye – one day I’ll learn who to suck upto and who to needs their ego stroked…. Or maybe I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing and keep my sanity.

Hope you get the marks back SBZ. One of the few enjoyable things about essay writing is arguing a point counter to the one that the setter expects. It’s a shame that some academics can’t handling though. If you’re unhappy with the mark then certainly take it to the next up in the academic food chain so to speak.

If I was you I’d get in touch with your librarian and ask them to have a look at your search – after all they’re the expert. “nd opinion to go back to the marker?

I suppose the approach to the assignment is a bit different in healthcare to some other sectors of academia, the search strategy is often an part of the work (esp Evidence Based Medicine) – how you find the information is important.

Although ironically in my Librarian MA I don’t think I ever had to make my search strategy clear!

I was also marked down for saying that there was no evidence that one method of stroke rehab was better than another, and saying that reviewing the current research raised more questions than it answered. The marker is a big fan of one of those stroke rehab methods….

Are you sure you haven’t missed a key paper that says “his” approach works better? If there IS a paper out there which he knows about I can imagine him saying “You missed the key point, and if you had got your search strategy right you would have found it” – hence the mark.

to be fair it was a poor assessment

no such thing – only one which you don’t exploit to your maximum learning potential. One way or another you will learn something here – if only about academic politics.

**** lol…I just use bog standard google to find my sources and then harvard reference them. I rarely bother with databases as they usually bring up the exact same matches.

Er actually Kimbers, knowing where to find the info is a long long way from the most important thing, there are these places called libraries with very friendly people called librarians. Figuring out what is good and what is cack, and assembling it into a vaguely sensible argument, is the most important thing.

Yes but the internet has made libraries (arguably universities as well) obsolete for academic research, what is the difference between using my universities electronic journal searcher/Athens to using Google? I don’t read paper books using either!

Academic’s need to click onto the fact that the internet is changing education, many institutions see (like the music industry) the internet as a threat as it opens up education to all for free reducing it’s ability to be traded as a commodity.

I just wrote a project/dissertation challenging the classical mutation theory of cancer. Basically academic trolling, the literature review went down well with my tutor 🙂 So I guess I’m lucky. Any lecturer who marks you down for challenging the status quo should not mark you down if you have made a logical and reasoned argument, even if they do have counterpoints. These people are an affront to science.

Can’t compare the music and research industries – very different models.

The internet hasn’t opened up education, it has opened up information. Very different thing. It has also opened up mis-information.

It amuses me that your tutor is so sensitive to criticism, he or she will spend all day crying in the toilets if they progress any further in academia. They are a feisty bunch, very defensive and have to fight their corner to survive, and although “extremely busy doing crucial world class ground-breaking work” will take ten minutes out of their day to fight you on some really insignificant detail.

BS. Have you heard of The Open University, Khanacademy, MIT youtube lectures etc etc etc? Online education is the next big thing whether universities like it or not…… especially if they charge 10,000 pounds a year for an experience that includes:

1) Losing all my coursework and failing me on a module
2) Incorrect module handbooks
3) Lecturers that don’t turn up
4) Lecturers that don’t like any of their students
5) Lecturers who think the idea of education is talking in a monotonous voice and reading off slides.
6) Turing your campus into a building site and placing your exam rooms right next to that building site.

Etc etc etc

Which “university” was that bwaarp ? The term is so mis-used these days.

Yes but the internet has made libraries (arguably universities as well) obsolete for academic research, what is the difference between using my universities electronic journal searcher/Athens to using Google? I don’t read paper books using either!

Once you’ve found your articles, you access them. Until there’s open access to all publications, this is usually paid for by the library (assuming university here). The librarian’s help choose which titles are included – remember there isn’t an unlimited budget, and manage access. When it’s not working who sort’s it? The Library.

Using a database for an in-depth search will save you time. Try submitting a systematic review with the strategy “I used Google”.

A good Library will help you get your research done more easily, through training or doing searches for you. Important stuff with the REF and funding bids.

I’m a Librarian and I barely have anything to do with books. I use the internet all the time. Don’t think my job is obsolete.

Which “university” was that bwaarp ? The term is so mis-used these days.

Brookes which is ranked in the top third. I’ve heard just as bad stories about Russel Group universities.

Once you’ve found your articles, you access them. Until there’s open access to all publications, this is usually paid for by the library (assuming university here). The librarian’s help choose which titles are included – remember there isn’t an unlimited budget, and manage access. When it’s not working who sort’s it? The Library.

Using a database for an in-depth search will save you time. Try submitting a systematic review with the strategy “I used Google”.

A good Library will help you get your research done more easily, through training or doing searches for you. Important stuff with the REF and funding bids.

I’m a Librarian and I barely have anything to do with books. I use the internet all the time. Don’t think my job is obsolete.

I guess, but as I said I get the same hits that I do if I’m using a database. I only use databases if I don’t know what I’m looking for, to have a browse. I might use Google Scholar instead if it proves easier to use. For some reason I find electronic libraries a headache and use google to find the journal entry and abstract and then I’ll access it via Athens.

I’m biased though, I’d like to destroy the university system as we know it.

Good luck bwaarp, they are tough feckers long used to feudal incursions, fiefdoms, sieges etc, and thats just at the monthly department meeting over who buys the biscuits. You chuck 10 dead bodies over the wall they will chuck 100 etc etc.

Meh don’t care, I figure I want to become the libertarian of the academic world. I’m going to go down angering as many elitists as possible. Think Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens but instead of religion in my sights it’s going to be university. The whole system is vile, it is devoid of little education. University is simply a ticket to a potentially more aspirational lifestyle, where those in society who can most afford it take money from the hands of the youngest and those who can least afford such expenses. It’s a way of trapping you in debt from an early age. I mean I could have been taught everything for my Biomedical Science degree on the bloody job in a laboratory. But nooooooooooooooooooooooooo now you have to pay someone for it.

You might start by understanding what a library is, bwaarp, as of 2012. We want those elitists angered, not amused and giving you a pat on the head.

So when/what did you last use a library for? Go on….do tell. They have some uses, for example if my internet access has gone down. For journals, I just access them via Athens and if I want to try a book before I buy it I just download a preview of it onto my Kindle.

For journals, I just access them via Athens

Provided by the library.

You’re confusing ‘physically going to the bricks and mortar building called the library’, which is obsolete for me (but shouldn’t be for someone at your stage), and ‘the library’. You’re using the library every time you read a journal online – who holds the subscription? You’re using athens and yet you think the library is extinct – come on now.

The internet has meant a lot of smaller library buildings have shut down, but on the whole it has fueled a great increase in library services; it has to have done given the exponentially greater availability of information.

Yes, the classic mistake of confusing content with delivery method. It’s still a book, even if you read it on your kindle.

Ha ha !! We are back around to my original hypothesis – ginormous academic ego.

At least it’s only an essay. Imagine if you submitted a journal article and one of the reviewers rejected it because you didn’t cite their paper.

Since the peer review process is supposed to be anonymous, it ought to be difficult to be certain that an article was rejected because one of the reviewer’s own papers wasn’t cited. Something’s gone wrong somewhere…

Pick your own title, reference at least 6 sources, section on data search?

Sounds like first year research methods to me…

Google Scholar is the best way to find papers in my book. You tell it what uni you’re at, even when you’re at home, and it automatically logs you into the right service to get the paper you need, and it occasionally turns up a paper that’s available as a PDF somewhere but not via the uni’s subscriptions service.

Anyway. You get some lecturers who will tell you to never use Google Scholar and never use Wikipedia. But Google Scholar is the best way to get your hands on paper, and Wikipedia is useful for a top line idea of a subject (obviously, you would never actually use Wikipedia as a source). It’s far easier just use Google Scholar and then say “Yes, I logged onto JSTOR and then into Athens and then I searched Elsevier and then I finally slew the evil wizard of Oxford Journals, and finally I had the paper I needed”.

Anyway. Here’s something else your tutor won’t like, but will save you a lifetime of pain. Download Zotero, it does you referencing for you. Bangs out perfect references in whatever format your Uni specify in seconds.

There seems to be a real thing in academia for complicated and unfriendly software. The lecturer spent years banging his head against EndNotes and JSTOR and he wants you to do the same is my theory.

Decided to ditch the feedback meeting today. Made it clear that there was nothing I’d like more than debating all the points I disagreed with in her marking, but that I fully realise that it would be a futile exercise and have decided to choose my fights carefully. She did not like that in the slightest. Human 1 – Chimp 0.