Friday 19 July 2013

Synthesis


“Synthesizing is like putting a puzzle together.  You have to sort out your thinking and put it in the right place.”
                                                            -Clay-






Information Organization: An overview
      Step 5 of the research process (Big 6) involves organization.
      Many elements contribute to effective organization of information

The importance of effective Organization of Information
      Information must be organized logically to communicate the intended message effectively.
      Effectively organized information allows people to understood
      Well organized information in professional reports and presentations will contribute to the success of organization.
      Material that is organized in a logical and meaningful fashion is more readily used and applied than disorganized data/information/document
      By organizing information systematically, people will maximize the opportunity for audience to receive an accurate message.


Organizational Strategies

      Organization by Category or Concept
Ø  Separate ideas combine to produce a concept  must be understood individually before their synthesis makes sense.

Ø  Organization by concept  also is effective when constructinga case to support premise.

Ø  A variation on organization by concept is to begin with a major concept and break it down into the elements that form the central idea.

Ø  Organization by concept uses analysis of a concept by breaking it down into its respective parts. 


      Chronological Organization
Ø     Organization according to time, called chronological organization.

Ø      is used when the sequence of events influences an outcome.

Ø     Chronological organization of information is necessary for a sequence of events to make sense and explain an outcome.

Ø      Certain information that is organized chronologically involves transition from one phase to the next.  


      Hierarchical Organization
Ø   is used when information is best conveyed in a specific order.

Ø   from most to least important or from least complex to most complex.


      Alphabetical Organization
Ø  Example : Dictionaries and telephone dictionaries

Ø  Glossaries and directories- alphabetical organization is effective and appropriate.

Ø  Presenting the information alphabetically is a method of organization that does not imply any type of order based on any attribute and characteristics.



Organizing Graphic for Presentation

Graphics- figures, tables, charts- must be appropriate to the content of your document or presentation and accurately convey the message you sending.

      The reader can easily understand the graphic.
      The graphic elaborates on the information in the documents.
      The image is selected for its ability to convey an accurate.
      A table, chart, or graphic is able to stand alone.
      A table or chart simplifies information.
      An effective graphic is as simple as possible.
      Data are presented in relationship to a context.
      Pictures or cartoons illustrate ideas in the text.


Summarizing vs. Synthesizing

         Summarizing is identifying key points and organizing thoughts, a listing of the parts. Summarizing usually occurs at the end.

         Synthesizing is the creation of a whole.  It goes on throughout the process of reading—not just at the end.  It is bringing together different ideas and facts and weaving them together into a tapestry, something much larger than all the threads.

                                                                                                                                      Ellin Keene


APA/Citation

Referencing
      A reference list is a list of books, articles and other sources you use when researching a topic and writing a paper.
       It us used in Academic study
      The reference list should appear at the end of your paper
      It provides the information necessary for a reader to locate and retrieve any source you cite in the body of the paper. Each source you cite in the paper must appear in your reference list



Any reference occurs in 2 places:

      a) It appear in the text (In text referencing)

Example:

As Smith (1993) stated, "magazines for the general public generally have less reliable evidence than scholarly or professional journals" (p. 2). 
OR
"The proliferation of multiple births in this country speaks to the need to formulate ethics guidelines to regulate the fertility clinics" (Jones, 1997, p. 82).


b) It appear at the end of your paper (End of text referencing)

Example:

Calfee, R. C., & Valencia, R. R. (1991). APA guide to preparing manuscripts for journal publication. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.    
Duncan, G. J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (Eds.). (1997). Consequences of growing up poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.




Format/Styles: 

1)      A P A (American Psychological Association)
2)      M L A (Modern Language Association)
3)      TURABIAN
4)      CHICAGO MANUAL STYLE









Referencing Style: APA:

      Style established in 1928 by Social Science professionals
      Style provides guidelines for publication.



1) Rules for authors

            a)         Authors' names are inverted
- List the Author’s Last name (Family name), followed by initials.
Start with family name for authors which have family names, follow with coma and initials  for other part of the names.
Example:   1) Micheal Jackson= Jackson, M. 
                 2) Peter Garry Means = Means, G. P.
                                   
            b)         For Muslim and Malaysian name (Chinese and Malay) cite as they are known.
Eg:       Osman Hamzah= Osman Hamzah
            Chuah AI Bee
            Muhammad Ali

           c)                  If  you have more than one  author in a source, use ampersand (&instead of “and” before the last author. Use coma after family name.

Eg:       Sawyer, C., & Parkin, G. F.

            d)         More than six authors, use et al. for the seventh or more author names.
Eg:       Lofland, L. , Moore, M.H., Estrich. S, McGillis, D., Spelman, W., Parker, K. ,et al.



2) Rules for title (Title for article)
             a) Capitalize only the first letter of the first word in title and subtitle.
Example: INFORMATION SYSTEM
                 Information system
             b)  Underline or italic the Title of books, Title of Journal, Title of Magazines, Title of newspaper
                                   
             Duncan, G. J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (1997). Consequences of growing up poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation



3) Rules: Documentation
1) Arranged the reference list  in alphabetical order
            Calfee, R. C., & Valencia, R. R. (1991). APA guide to preparing manuscripts  for journal publication. Washington, DC: American Psychological  Association.      
            Duncan, G. J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (Eds.). (1997). Consequences of growing up poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation

2) No number in reference list
            Calfee, R. C., & Valencia, R. R. (1991). APA guide to preparing manuscripts  for journal publication. Washington, DC: American Psychological  Association.      
            Duncan, G. J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (Eds.). (1997). Consequences of growing up poor. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation

3) Each reference should be in single spaced
            Calfee, R. C., & Valencia, R. R. (1991). APA guide to preparing manuscripts for journal                                         publication. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.   
           
            Duncan, G. J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (Eds.). (1997). Consequences of growing up poor. New York,                                 NY: Russell Sage Foundation

4) Indention: Indent the subsequent line about one-half inch (hanging indentation)
                        Abdul Rahman. (2011). Introduction to business administration.
                                    Malaysia: Mc Graw Hill. 



Search Strategies

Examples of subject headings are:
Library Subject Headings: Used as the "official vocabulary" of the Libraries catalog as well as many other library catalogs.
Science Subject Headings: Used to describe the content of documents in the Library at AIU as well as in catalogs of other medical and health sciences libraries.

Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms: This controlled vocabulary is used by American Psychological Association indexers to describe the content of documents in the database.  These subject headings are sometimes called index terms or descriptors.  The library has copies of the printed volume and the thesaurus is also available online, searchable from within the database.

Boolean Searching
Boolean searching allows you to group words together in an electronic database or environment such as the World Wide Web to receive a number of different types of results. Depending how you group these word, you will receive different results.



For example:
      By using an AND & NOT between words you limit the search.
      By placing an OR between words it expands the search.
      When you use OR you receive more information because the search engine is looking for two words rather than just one word.



Truncation and Wildcards
•    Truncation and wildcards broaden your search capabilities by allowing you to retrieve multiple spellings of a root word or word stem, such as singular and plural forms.

•    A wildcard is a special character, such as an asterisk (*), question mark (?), or pound sign (#), that replaces one or more letters in a word. Truncation is using a wildcard at the end of a root word to search multiple variations of that root word. Check a database's help section to identify what symbol is used for a wildcard.



Phrase Searching
      Phrase searching is when you use a string of words (instead of a single word) to search with.
      By using phrase searching you will retrieve fewer results

Example:

“information literacy"

            or
(information literacy)

Information Resources

Information Resource


Primary source
- A primary source is an original object or document, first-hand information.
- Primary source is material written or produced in the time period that you may be investigating.
- Primary sources enable the researcher to get as close as possible to what actually happened during an historical event or time period.  

Secondary source
- A secondary source is something written about a primary source.
- Secondary sources are written "after the fact" - that is, at a later date.
- Usually the author of a secondary source will have studied the primary sources of an historical period or event and will then interpret the "evidence" found in these sources.
- You can think of secondary sources as second-hand information. 


Tertiary source
- Distillation and collection of primary and secondary sources.
- Includes most types of references.

Big 6

Information literacy model:
•Big 6
•Mc Kenzie Research Cycle
•Alberta model
•Pitts Research model
•Seven Pillars model
•Action Learning model


There are two definitions of Big 6:
- is a six-stage process to help anyone solve problems or  make decisions by using information. 
- is a Transformational process in which the leaner needs to find, understand, evaluate and use information in various forms  to create  for personal, social or global purposes. 


Big 6 consists of:










    



1- Task definition.
in this step we define the problem and it's requirements, and we generate questions that helps in clarify and define the task.
2- Information seeking behavior.
we seek information by following two strategies, Determine range resources, and prioritize sources.
3- Location and access.
in this step we locate the sources by seeking the appropriate sources   and we find or select the understandable information.
4- Information use.
we engage with information( read, hear, view, touch ), after that we extract the information.
5- Synthesis.
it's about to organize the collected information before we present it.
6- Evaluation.
it's the last step in the process where we judge the process we followed to collect the information and we judge the product that we got as a result or a solution of following the six steps. There are six standards in which we evaluate the sources, currency, accuracy, content, relevant, authority, useful.