Scientific work is the creation of new knowledge. The new is always relevant and socially significant, but the correct compilation and design of a literature review is an example of painstaking and hard work. Even before the moment when there is an occasion to apply GOST, methodological instructions of the department or recommendations of the academic council for a list of sources, you need to know what to assemble, how to assemble and in what sequence to apply. Novelty, relevance, social significance and real usefulness are all increments to what already exists. What exactly is this increment of the space of knowledge, it is important to show correctly.
Two sides of citation
A literature review on the research topic is an example of Two-Faced Janus in actual practice. In Latin - this is the door, in terms of meaning - the door between the past and the future. Sources are an important component of not only scientific work.
Even at school, students declare their knowledge, quoting textbooks or “rules” of parents, give other reasons for the conclusions made or decisions made. Each person creates new personal knowledge on the basis of what he already has and does this in a double context:
- systematization of knowledge - the ability to use a range of sources;
- registration of knowledge - the ability to properly sort the sources on the shelves.
The first sets priorities over what my mother said and what my grandfather or school friend said, whose knowledge is still in question. Sometimes the opinion of a roommate or a passerby on the street will be far from zero. Knowledge can come from a school event or observation of natural phenomena.
Science is more complex and multifaceted than life. There is creativity, here “there is no logic at all”, here there is absolutely “no law”, but there is intuition and a special style of cognition of reality, which only authors call logical and reasonable.
In the scientific world, the amount of information is large and growing catastrophically.
The second aspect (design) is absolutely clear: GOSTs have developed and become the foundation, guidelines and the custom of how to review the literature using the example of a list structure, hierarchy system or relational model.
The first aspect (systematization) is a personal, authorial, in itself creative action. The author’s knowledge puts sources in a system, like bricks in the foundation of a building of new knowledge, often subconsciously. A review of the literature on the topic of research is an example of a problem that will be solved by each person in their own way in this context, but not always consciously.
Simple but obligatory representations of knowledge
The simplest option (A) is an article (report, just a “piece” of handwritten text), information that is not necessarily correctly formatted in part of the sources. The author is absolutely indifferent to how to indicate his knowledge and ideas of his predecessors, but the declaration of the new is visible to the author only against the background of the old. Here's a review of the literature - an example of semantics, not syntax.
Another leaflet, born in high school, by an unknown artist so far, is more expensive and significant than a many-year and multi-volume dissertation work.
A scientific article is a way out into the world of colleagues' ideas through the editorial board of a scientific journal. Here, the existing knowledge will resist the new, and the editors will first go through the sources according to the criterion of compliance with the rules, and then make every effort to see something interesting, new and relevant in the author’s article, and more often, on the contrary, they will find something to complain about.
Thesis is an obligation to demonstrate knowledge, ability to solve problems and formulate results. This is the first “exit to the people” of yesterday’s student. The percentage of graduates leaving for a magistracy or a scientific work is always low, otherwise there would be no one to just work.
Why does society need 100% of creators and scientists for each educational institution? In primary higher education, a critical review of literature is an example of loyalty. It is important to simply evaluate the fact of gaining knowledge and test it in practice. Mistakes in quoting are unacceptable, but the priority here is different.
A speech at the conference is a report, and it cannot be attributed to a scientific article, but the organizing committee of a conference usually requires a written statement of the essence of the speech, and therefore, it will be necessary to identify the sources. The conference organizing committee doesn’t care who speaks: scientist, student or schoolchild. Take as an example a review of school literature or methods of secondary education will not work even in the first year: you will need to do everything in an adult way.
Mandatory knowledge
A simple option (I) is an article that is completely (subconsciously) incorrectly formatted, but the author always selects the sources meaningfully. Errors are allowed in the syntax of links, but here the meaning is already far from logic: creativity has earned. Already not a schoolboy, yet a student, but already a real future scientist. A literature review is an example of an independent “compote” of knowledge, which is studied with the aim of criticizing, destroying, and creating one's own.
The master's level is not a doctoral or doctoral dissertation, but a scientific work created with the aim of qualification. Here, a bibliographic review of literature is an example of a tough approach both from the side of the department, the scientific council or the Higher Attestation Commission, and the author himself. It is to the author that it is fundamentally important to correctly cite both in terms of systematization of knowledge and the design of sources.
Research work is reports, problem statements, articles, books, dissertations. For a proper review of the literature in research, examples of such works are important - they often become sources, but require adaptive application. The development of science does not stand still. If the design moment (the actual links) does not change much, then the systematization of the sources of knowledge is characterized not only by dynamics, but also by a “reverse move”.
(A) and (I) - from simple to complex
A novice author (A) and a student (I) confidently leaving for science must always follow the rules for applying knowledge and citing. In both cases, the general GOSTs and the rules of the institution are the same, and the levels of responsibility to comply with the rules and regulations are different.
There are plenty of examples on how to do an analysis of the field of research and a review of the literature in your own educational institution. It is permissible to use the Internet at a discount for the time of publication: not every web resource considers it its duty to fix the date of appearance of information that it considered significant. The author's version is preferable.
At the initial stage of his scientific journey, the author (A) does not yet have ambitions, at a certain stage in the development of ideas about the situation in the field of research, studied scientific papers and other sources, but his own (I) becomes a self-sufficient and self-confident opinion.
The imbalance in the author’s perception of reality, noticeable in a review of the literature in research, using the example of objective facts of this reality, according to the reviewer (reader, scientific adviser, department, academic council), is obvious.
The author can continue to adhere to his point of view, but it is much better if he (I), in an inconspicuous time for others, shifts to the beginning of the range of skills to analyze, organize and represent knowledge, for example, to the position (G) - life, (I) - research or (H) - science.
Citation style
In a scientific work, when writing an article, a dissertation, or simply a report on research, the amount of information studied as sources is important. But the amount of knowledge extracted from sources is always much less. The logic of using the source material is as important as the style of its analysis and presentation.
- The scientist worked all his life, spoke, wrote articles, books, defended two dissertations, published a monograph and became an academician, and a simple student will extract only one phrase from an authoritative heritage. It’s good if she considers it worthwhile, but she can easily write: “Okunev S. Ya., Document automation in PL / 1 - there is no result.” At the same time, he will refer immediately to several articles and the monograph of the academician without specifying the pages and the reasons for the categorical conclusion.
- Another student will approach more responsibly: “A. P. Ershov was engaged in automation of program production in C / C ++, developed software development methods and technologies, made attempts to use production systems and the Prolog language. The work was futile and time-consuming, did not find any use. In creating expert systems, Prolog showed the absolute unattainability of a positive result. ” At the same time, both Ershov and Ashley, Pospelov, Ivanov and Petrov will be quoted. There are many different sources from different authors, but quoting them has led to one conclusion and the most significant result.
- The third student will spend even more time, read not only books, reputable professors, look through hundreds of articles and conference materials, but also do his own parsing on the Internet. Here the scope will be narrowed down to one phrase: “The theory of object-oriented programming and cloud technologies in a meaningful and full-fledged implementation is 1991 [1], and not 2005-2006, as claimed by [Amazon], and not 1960, when D. Liklider voiced the idea of cloud computing, since in 1960 not only was there no Internet, but no one dreamed about a smartphone. Although the idea of virtualizing data and applications is as old as the world, even for the cleaning lady from any modest company of the early 80s of the last century. ”
In the last paragraph, quoting is used:
- [1] - link to the publication "Object-Oriented Programming: State and Prospects / Glory Chip; Scientific and technical PRINT company, Issled. lab. C. Chip. - Minsk: B. and., 1991. - 58 p. ".
- [Amazon] - A link to a company that is considered the main pioneer of cloud products. This is important because: how, when, and by whom the cloud was created, no one knows and does not recognize. The modern cloud concept is as vague as the cloud idea itself.
Quoting "D. Liklider ”from the series“ Such last names were remembered and mentioned. ” As a rule, in the 60s you can think of and safely designate a lot of surnames for programming, virtualization, and cancer treatment - it’s hard to check the reliability.
Emphasis in citation and authorship
Using the figurative “cleaner” link is a characteristic way to emphasize the wrong development of thought. The faster and more objective the future scientist goes forward in his research, the more critically he analyzes other people's knowledge and his tougher, the more capaciously the author tries to set accents. It's a shame or not a shame, but even the monsters of Oracle or Microsoft have work that could not be done, and decisions that would be better not to take.
You can justifiably find fault with anything, but in the field of scientific creativity and research work, an analytical review of literature is an example of how an existing fact or knowledge is dissected in a certain way under the scalpel of the goal being achieved.
Science and scientific and technological progress are not personal, but social. As soon as the author was "born out" of the idea, and it was recognized by public consciousness, the author himself is absolutely not interested in society. The latter has only the statutory right to defend his own authorship and move on. But society always remembers and sacredly honors scientists, researchers and specialists who remember it.
How detailed the citation should be is a simple matter. Surnames should be used only if they are really known and something really connected with them. Otherwise, only the result and the link to the source: [13] - so shorter. If we are talking about a product, research or event - it is important to indicate just that, and not to cite the author's text - it is always a lot.
Citation Volumes
Various educational institutions, academic leaders, and in general scientific practice recommend spending 30-40% of the total amount of work on an analytical review of the literature. An example is not objective logic, but it is so accepted.
The simplest decision on the volume of literature that should be reviewed and presented is a maximum for the first part, a minimum for the second. The more analytical work will be done - the more reliable the conclusions. The more concise and accurate it will be presented - the better.
Any article, dissertation or research work has a theme that defines the goal and objectives for its achievement. An even tougher approach than in jurisprudence determines scientific creativity - nothing is beyond the scope of research, only the topic of work and the tasks to be solved are relevant.
The ratio of the volume of citation of own works and other authors is significant. Priority of the latter. Own work is important only in the context of their development in the current work, but in any case it is a question of what is being achieved, and not of what merits have already been recognized and published.
An example of a literature review for a scientific article
The theme is “Files, folders and blockchain: the logic of development of representations”.
Relevance of the article and purpose. The world is grateful to the great Soviet Computing Machines and the IBM 360/370 series. To this day, informational "archaeologists" figure out what is better: BESM, Ural or Minsk, why EU computers are so similar to IBM and whether the game was worth the candle. But files and folders exist to this day in their original form, and the blockchain is going to go the same path.
Since the world has already recognized the term “blockchain” and its meaning has become obvious at least to developers and advanced users, the topic can be described as follows. Here's a review of the literature - an example of the demand for an extremely cruel analysis of a huge number of books and special publications on the file system.
According to Wikipedia, several dozen file systems have been developed and are being successfully operated.
Application programs have often made attempts to make sense of files. Some programmers understood that any folder is perceived by the user as an object containing content on a specific topic, but to this day there are only files and folders.
The problem with existing file systems is that in fact there are no files or folders, but there are real documents created at a specific time for a specific reason. Yes, there is an understanding of how * .docx differs from * .xlsx, but the point is not that vector formats contain a “meaningful” understanding of an image, not a raster one. Vector is scalability. A raster is a point. The set of points will never be stretched to the desired size, since they will have to be increased, and this is fog, a blurred image. The vector is stretched as defined by the developer of a particular graphic editor, but no more and no less.
A database is a file, in any case, but only the programmer knows what is the meaning of it and what kind of relationships are linked into it.
The fundamental conclusion: as soon as a file or folder has been created, semantics are lost. The author forgets what he did when, for what reason, how he used it. The purely psychological characteristics of a person’s intellect may allow him to remember something, but a file or a folder is not knowledge that is in the head, it is outside the system. They went into "independent swimming", and in the ocean of information they have neither a course, nor an algorithm of movement.
Blockchain is a rule-built chain of related data. The cryptocurrency sphere became the birthplace of the blockchain. The experience in implementing the transaction mechanism, thanks to the development of database technologies, is great. In fact, a combination of the idea of a semantically loaded sequence of data and the exact transactions in them was formed, first of all, the time, action and features of each specific action.
Of course, the development of file systems and blockchain is still ongoing, the old and new are in demand and used productively, but the fact remains, and most likely, a revolution in this area is just around the corner. Files and folders will become more “conscious and independent”, they can be accessed, and they will respond, providing the necessary information.
Analysis and review logic: “files + folders” and “blockchain”
In the proposed version, a literature review is performed, as in the library, as an example of the work of a large stepping excavator (a huge machine for extracting large volumes of rock that can work on soft soil).
Such mechanisms are made to order and are assembled at the place of work. In this case, the breed is already lying - it has accumulated from the moment the files and folders appeared. File systems improved rapidly. Technologically, the equipment and programs for creating and processing data are perfect within the limits of modern knowledge.
It is on this simple basis that in the proposed example of a literature review on the topic “Files, folders and blockchain: the logic of development of representations” there is not a single author, not a single link. Research work in this area has just begun, and on a uniquely massive scale. There is no sense in referring to this topic yet, and there is no one. You can mention Satoshi Nakamoto as the creator of Bitcoin, but he himself used the term cent. In addition, cryptocurrencies and blockchains have already gone on a long voyage and have become the subject of research by a huge number of companies and specialists.
Here, a concrete review of the literature on research and examples of real systems cannot be built. The essence of the problem: “files + folders” and “blockchain” - no one considers the situation like that. Everyone works with the first in the old fashioned way, and with the second - how it turns out and how it is developed.
Categorization and accuracy
The proposed review of the literature, an example of how to not do. In the final part, first of all, it is impossible to unequivocally affirm exact knowledge, while its accuracy has nothing to substantiate.
Indeed, if you talk to any user, then in most cases you can find the full use of the file system on his computer.
An educated user will put folders in shelves, and files in folders and will name all his informational property correctly and clearly. All in Russian, in English or in Chinese - in any country in the world in their native language.
From birth, the blockchain received a unique formula that you can’t confuse with anything: a rule-built chain of related data. Whether it is distributed or not across multiple computers is not the point. The only important thing is that “meaning” appears here and in this “sense” to erase a single transaction in the chain is not allowed. The rules, connectivity, purpose and time, in fact, the action and its significance are important.
In this context, the review of the scientific literature itself (as examples of different attitudes to data) represents the author’s private opinion on the emerging new knowledge system. But the author does not have the right to admit his own uniqueness.
Always and in all cases the author will not lose, if he admits the existence of a similar opinion or understanding of the situation, or already completed work on the topic under study.
Knowledge Research Success
The review of the literature and the example of wording the topic can determine the essence of the work and expected results. The logic of scientific knowledge is such that the ability to use a range of sources and correctly sort the sources into shelves is determined through the filter of the research being performed.
If an article is being written, there is a brief understanding of one or two positions, the increment of knowledge on which requires justification. In the thesis you need to show the knowledge and skills. The dissertation requires substantiation of the novelty and relevance of the provisions to be defended. In the research work it is necessary to describe something new, for which the customer spends money.
There is a sense in each format of applying author's logic, and it is possible that the meaning is to show the failure of the chosen path. But the firm conviction that a reverse is still necessary, that everything needs to be started anew, is also a result.
Achieving the goal or the conviction that the goal had to be set differently - both this and that - is also a result and also an undoubted success.