by Yee Wei Law - Monday, 27 February 2023, 3:09 PM
Curating references
The starting point of learning is identifying reliable sources of information and obtaining learning resources.
Given the right search words, a search engine (e.g., Google Scholar for academic publications) would typically return more references than we have time for.
We need to identify the good-quality references — separate the wheat from the chaff — by checking:
For academic literature
the number of citations — the higher the better but what is considered “high” depends on the area of research;
the journal or conference the reference was published in, or the publisher, e.g., an IEEE Transactions article is preferrable to an IEEE Access article;
the academic standard of the content.
For non-academic literature
the organisation that produced the reference, e.g., NIST is preferrable to a vendor, and a market-leading vendor is preferrable to an obscure one;
whether the treatment is more about informing the public or promoting a product/service;
whether the author has a credible track record in the area.
Fig. 1: Tell-tale signs of an unsuitable reference.
Fig. 1 shows an example of a low-quality conference paper. This paper has a Google Scholar citation count of 25 (which happens to be an unreliable indicator in this case), was published in a generic conference,
and the content is riddled with problems. Avoid referencing publications like this.
Among the good-quality references, prioritise the more recent ones, because they might provide a good literature review that introduces you to older, potentially significant references.
If a reference is not available in the public domain or library, make an inter-library loan request. Sometimes,
informal but publicly available resources such as web pages, lecture notes, lecture videos can provide a quicker introduction to your topic.
Recording references
Upon acquiring a reference, its details need to be recorded. See attachment below 👇 for guidance.
