I always wanted to learn how to do good researches or reviews but I do not know no matter how hard I try to do them the correct way. I know the structure but I don't know the rules.
Citations. Citations are my nightmare, I don't know how to use them, someone told me I should put them in the part I got inspired by it BUT HOW WOULD I KNOW WHAT INSPIRED MEANS.
Let's say I'm writing a review about the importance of informatics throughout story. If I find like five dates of specific events in one paper I found, if I want to use those five dates too would that be plagiarism? Should I put citation on each date?
If I found out someone important said something related to the topic and it's importance, but I found that in a whole 100-page guide from idk the UN in the first pages I read, should I put it? Its irrelevant? I'm not using any more information of that 100-page guide but that phrase - is that legal?
How many citations should I make?
How do I add them without it being plagiarism?
Sorry if it's too long, I don't know who else to ask regarding this topic and I find your researches quite neat so...
Just blogging and researching online doesn’t have strict rules. There’s techniques that’ll make you more credible, but those align with academic writing, so I’ll address that.
Rule of thumb, in academic writing, you need to cite every piece of information you introduce. Even if it’s something that you already knew. Even if it seems obvious to you. Adding a source that backs it up lends it authority beyond you. Don’t get wrapped around the axle trying to distinguish what’s “yours” and what’s not. Nothing is yours in a research paper and that’s the point. You’re compiling and curating information to demonstrate your thesis through the aggregation of it.
For your example, you don’t have to use the entirety of a source to cite something out of it. Especially longer sources like books. The entirety of a source doesn’t even have to be relevant to what you’re writing about, it just has to actually say what you’re claiming it does- checking your interpretation of a text might require you to read more than you’re going to use to ensure you have context to confirm this. Beyond that, it’s your job as the researcher to be mindful of what your sources are, how credible they are, and how that might communicate with the way you’re using it.
Also- most citation styles have a shortened form of the citation so that you can reuse sources frequently without doing the long form. Cite every new piece of information that source introduces, and if you have multiple pieces of information from it in a single sentence, cite at the end of the sentence.
My research on Tumblr is not neat and please don’t use that as your benchmark. In-text links is a social media (specifically blog) ism that doesn’t fly in professional research. If you’re just doing online research, using the same overarching guidelines will lend you credibility. Try and find a source for every piece of info or at least clarify where you can’t.
