======= Date Modified 29 Nov 2012 14:10:31 =======
What is actually the difference between:
-Journal
-Proceedings
-Conference (something)
-Reviewed Papers
-Papers published in a Uni Journal (are they not good?)
-(anything that I haven't listed down)

: (

I have read some websites and they seem to have different (and complicated) explanations of them.

I'm not sure which one is the "best" to refer or to cite. I tend to say that I got it from online libraries and these libraries are "famous". Famous for what I don't know :$

I also still don't understand what it means to have a "quality" references or papers : /

Anyone? Please : (

I'm surprised that no-one has explained this for you, though now I think of it I never had it explained to me!

Basically Journals are collections of academic papers published regularly each year (how often depends on the journal). This is the top level with journals such as "Nature" and "Science" topping the list in terms of "quality". "Quality" is assessed by impact factor. In general your supervisor will know the best ones in your field.

Conference papers are the same as proceedings as far as I am aware. After a conference the "Proceedings of the xx Conference 2012" or whatever will be published. The proceedings contain the papers of the work presented at the conference.

You then get into the murky world of reports by companies and whatever and that is a bit more complicated, basically just use conference papers and journal papers. You can look up journals' impact factors online using google or whatever (just search for it). Often the proceedings of a conference are hard to get online and/or a university will host a paper on its site that has been presented at a conference. In general you should be able to find out which conference it was presented at and this is what you should reference.

All the above is just how I think it is. I welcome corrections or whatever from other people.

======= Date Modified 29 Nov 2012 15:37:27 =======
[Ooops, cross posted with screamingaddabs. Never mind!]

Journal
Collection of peer reviewed pieces which may include original research, review articles, commentaries

Proceedings
Relate to work presented at a conference

Conference (something)
Stuff presented at conference - will have been peer reviewed, but will quite often be work in progress. Unwise to cite as definitive findings - look for a subsequent journal article instead.

Reviewed Papers
A 'peer reviewed' paper is one which has been read and approved by a couple of other experts in the field and deemed to be of sufficient quality for publication. A 'review article' is a type of journal article where the author(s) look for literature on a topic and summarise and interpret it. Not sure which of those you meant.

-Papers published in a Uni Journal (are they not good?)
Not sure what you mean by a uni journal. The issue of quality probably depends on your field.

Journal articles may well be the 'best' source of information, and the most current, but that doesn't mean you can switch off your critical thinking skills when reading them - there is a wide range of quality and reliability across different journals and articles. Hopefully you'll get a feel for this the more you read, but it might also be worth getting some training in critical appraisal, depending on your field.

Famous libraries are usually famous because of their size and/or longevity. That you sourced an article from them is irrelevant - you just need to cite the journal/book/proceeding etc.

======= Date Modified 29 Nov 2012 15:46:56 =======

1) A journal is a regular periodical publication, printed say monthly or bi-monthly, containing a collection of peer reviewed papers. A high 'impact rating' helps, this being a measure of citations to articles in tha journal.

2) Proceedings are collections of papers presented at a conference and printed later.

3) A conference is where you actually turn up to hear a paper presented as a talk. The paper is later printed in the proceedings.

4) Reviewed papers are those that have been appraised by experts in your field and deemed for printing in a journal or for presentation at conference.

5) Papers published in a University Journal are those that appear (as said) in the University's own publications. These might not have been peer reviewed by experts in your field, therefore there is a risk that mistakes or weaknesses may appear in them.

6) I'll add specialist book chapters to this list, which will also undergo peer review before publication.
--------

The best papers to cite I'd say are those you know have been peer reviewed by experts in your field. The best guarantee of this are papers that appear in a periodical journal or papers that might form a specialist book chapter. The next best guarantee are normally conference proceedings.

However, there are some very good bits of work out there that have not appeared as papers in periodical journal, book chapter or conference proceeding and here you have to make your own judgement as to their correctness, strength and contribution to your chosen field.

A 'famous library' will be a well known institution that has a comprehensive collection of documents in one or more fields. The below link contains examples:

http://www.thegentlemanscholar.com/Famous_Libraries.html#Famous-libraries-of-the-world


Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

No-one explained the difference between the various documents to me, though it was one of those things that I thought was easy to figure out.

Then again, it's perhaps another thing that should be made clear say during an induction at the beginning of post-grad and especially PhD that many of us don't seem to have had. A couple of two hour session would make life alot easier to explain a few basics, especially with most PhDs starting in either October or January.

1) What is expected of a PhD? Originality and contribution to knowledge.

2) What structure do I follow? Literature Review (including types of document - papers, jpurnals, conference proceedings, presentations, other), Data Gathering, Interpretation, Write-up, Viva, etc.

3) What goes in the thesis? Structure - Abstract, Introduction, Literature Review, Introduction to Current Work, Methodology, Discussion, Conclusions / Summary, Further Work, References, Appendicies.

4) Day-to-day life - working with others, the importance of conciliation and avoiding confrontation, relationships with supervisors, ups and downs, problems that may be faced, general procedures to be followed (specific procedures to your work would obviously be dealt with by your supervisors and departments), complaints and grievance procedures (if it does all go wrong), effect on relationships of work, stress, counselling, etc.

5) Access to facilites not part of studies - life and opportunities away from study, student societies, importance of human contact, etc.

A few words at the beginning could make the learning curve alot simpler for post-grads, especially as the format followed by post-grads is different to that of undergrads (emphasis on importance of human contact) and many post-grads can find themselves ploughing a lonely furrow.

Ian (Mackem_Beefy)

Both my PhD experiences have involved faculty level induction/welcome/training type things covering some, but not all, of the key points you mention. I do think it's important.

Regarding the journal vs conference proceeding issue, I think it's usually assumed that you will have either got to grips with this via prior studies, or seek out some kind of library skills type thing. Whenever I've heard talks from librarians, they're always saying, "Come to us if you need to learn how to make best use of resources." They can be an untapped source of wisdom. Tt_dan, I wonder if it would help if you checked whether your uni library had a subject specific librarian you could talk to, or any courses/sessions on making best use of resources?