Being well organized is the key to delivering quality work on the required date.

Objectives

• Use a tool to plan the completion of your work.

SIMULATION OF A WORK SCHEDULE

There are also mobile planning applications on the web:

• iStudiez Proor Jorte calendar and why not try this tool from the Diapason website!
• You can also simply use a weekly planner like this: Worksheet Work Schedule.docx

Infosphère / https://infosphere.uqam.ca 

The flow of information is something that must be taken into account when preparing research on a current topic. Here is an example:

The Lac-Mégantic rail accident occurred on July 6, 2013 at 1:14 a.m.

An event occurs. Following this event, documents are created at different times to report the facts, analyze it and make an assessment of it. The resulting information over time may then be factual, subjective, technical or scientific.

A few minutes later...

At 1:58 a.m., the event was reported on Twitter and  picked up the following hours elsewhere by the web, possibly on radio and TV.

The following days:

The week following the Lac-Mégantic accident, 152 articles appeared in La Presse alone.

Ex.: Meunier, H. (2013, July 8). 6000 Méganticois, 6000 dramas. La Presse, p.  A3

The following weeks:

Articles appear in popular periodicals of general interest.

E.g. Longchamps, R. (2013). Upper Hearts Lac-Mégantic, Tuesday, July 23, 2013. White Night, (132), 24-25.

The following months:

Articles appear in academic and scholarly journals as well as reports. Conferences can be held on the subject.

Ex. : Champkin, J. (2013). A carriage full of curates.  Significance, 10(5), 30-31.

Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB). (2013, March 11). TSB Engineering Laboratory Report. (LP148/2013). Gatineau: TSB.

Two years later...

Conference proceedings having been published in previous years, books and theses dealing with the subject appeared in the following years.

E.g. Beaupré, E. (2013).  Lac-Mégantic: the images of tragedy, a story of unfailing solidarity. Montreal: Character.

Ten years later...

Knowledge and understanding of the event or topic is established. It is referred to in reference works such as encyclopedias.

E.g.: Wikipedia flags an article...

Infosphère / https://infosphere.uqam.ca 

THE CYCLE OF SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION PRODUCTION

  RESEARCH IDEA

Information not published at this stage.

• Definition of the problem and hypotheses
• Review of the writings produced
• Reflections on the idea
• Production of research data (e.g. laboratory notes)

To access this information, you need to know the creator of it.

  INFORMAL COMMUNICATIONS

Information not published at this stage.

• Discussion of the first results or conclusions with colleagues interested in the topic.

To access this information, you must be part of this invisible college or try to integrate into this professional network.

  UNPUBLISHED LECTURES

Information sometimes publicly available at this stage.

• Oral presentation only of research and initial findings at conferences in order to gather feedback from the scientific community.

To access this information, you must attend the conference.

Sometimes speakers self-publish their manuscript on the Web. These documents do not yet have a "scientific" status since they are not validated by the scientific community.

  RESEARCH REPORTS

Information published outside the major distribution channels.

• This is called grey literature. It consists of preprints, reports, dissertations and theses.

Information often available in institutional repositories or from organizations.

  ARTICLES

Information published by an editor in conference proceedings or in peer-reviewed or non-peer-reviewed journals.

• Research results are deemed worthy enough to be presented to the scientific community.

To access this information, you have to subscribe to the journals or get the records yourself if you have a lot of money) or through libraries.

The open access movement makes a small portion of these publications freely available. Many search results fail to achieve this publication status.

  DOCUMENTARY DATABASES

Information product developed by a publisher that lists articles.

• These products therefore allow the identification of articles although sometimes the full text may be there. Some databases are free like PubMed and ERIC but otherwise they are usually paid.

To consult them, you pay a subscription yourself (if you have a lot of money) or you use the library.

If the search results are published in a secondary journal, the content of that review may not be reported in the searched database.

  BOOKS

Product published by a publisher.

• The scientific research that has become well established in articles ends up being described in books.

You can buy the books or use the ones from the library.

The majority of search results will never be mentioned in books.

  REFERENCE WORKS

Product published by a publisher.

• Standard vocabulary, best practices, state-of-the-art and major scientific consensus on a subject are condensed from articles and books into textbooks, handbooks and encyclopedias.

You can buy the (often expensive) reference books or use the ones from the library.

A minority of research results will be large enough to be retrieved from reference works.

Infosphère / https://infosphere.uqam.ca