Difficulties in using references which 2nd year English majors face when doing secondary research (SR) in Hanoi University ppt

Difficulties in using references which 2nd year English majors face when doing secondary research SR in Hanoi University I.. Introduction Doing secondary research in term 3 at Hanoi Univ

Difficulties in using references which 2nd year English majors face when doing secondary research (SR) in Hanoi University

I Introduction

Doing secondary research in term 3 at Hanoi University is challenging work for students because it is an important kind of writing in tertiary level which requires students move from essays to research papers One remarkable thing in doing this task

is that it needs their ability to work with sources Each main point will be stronger if it

is backed with good supporting references However, using references is not

considered as an easy task It includes many steps such as finding, evaluating and integrating (integrating references means that you combine your sources with your own ideas by quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing) And despite the fact that a large number of students encounter obstacles, few studies have been conducted about this subject In fact, it is very necessary for them to take a closed look at this Within the scope of our project, we investigated difficulties in using references which 2nd English majors face when doing secondary research to clarify what makes it hard

II Materials and Methods

In order to gather data for our study, a questionnaire (see Appendix) was designed The very first question is to identify students’ opinion about using

references The next question is mentioned about common places where they often gain information for secondary research Whereas, the third and forth aim to probe difficulties in finding references The subsequent one concentrates on difficulties in evaluating references Lastly, the rest of questions are figured out difficulties in integrating references

Second-year English students at Hanoi University were participants of our research 30 students were chosen randomly from different classes Most of them are female and at the age of 20 on average Their attendance was purely voluntary

The survey was implemented in Hanoi University in April, 2009 The questionnaires were distributed to the participants in each class in the break time Firstly, the students read the questions carefully Then they were explained with some unclear points They fulfilled the questionnaires for 30 minutes After that, we

collected all the handouts

III Results and Discussion

In general, almost students consider using references as a difficult task The fact is that 70% of asked students find it difficult, 30% of them find it normal and no one finds it easy In this study, the distribution of facts relate to difficulties in using references is conducted It will make clear why students feel it difficult

1 Difficulties in finding references

1.1 Time consuming

Table 1: Time consuming to find references

The number of respondents 1

3%

20

67%

9

30%

The first things we figure out about difficulties in finding references are time consuming When being asked about time, 20 of 30 respondents answer that they spend much their time on finding references, 9 of 30 respondents spend very much their time on that and only 1 person report that finding materials does not cost their time much These numbers indicate that finding material is a task which require much

time Masson stated, “There are seventy million books in American libraries, but the one I want to read is always out” (As cited in Atkinson, R H (1999), p.416) Hence,

to follow by a set amount of time for writing is not easy for them

1.2 Other difficulties

Because writing a research paper is not limit the data resources, participants can look for materials from a variety of sources However, the majority of their information gathering is found in Hanu’s library (42%) and on the Internet (47%) Only some percentage they report that they have information from friends, teachers or other people (8%) and have materials from other libraries (3%) Based on this

numbers, we can focus on the difficulties of finding materials in Hanu’s library and on the Internet To be more specific, we categorize difficulties into printed sources (mainly in document room of Hanu’s library) and electronic sources (mainly on the Internet)

1.2.1 Difficulties in document room of Hanu’s library

0% 0%

10%

3%

40%

57%

50%

40%

0%

20%

40%

60%

Never Rarely Sometimes Often Shortage of references

Being unable to find relevant materials Bar-chart 1: Frequency of facing obstacles in document room

It can’t be denied that many students have troubles with printed source in Hanu’s library As illustrated in bar-chart 1, the students’ responses show how often

they face with “shortage of materials” and “being unable to find relevant materials”

A half of respondents (50%) often face with shortage of materials, 12 respondents (40%) sometimes face with shortage of materials and only 3 respondents (10%) rarely face with shortage of materials There is no stick that fall into “never” This number

indicates that shortage of materials is difficult for more than half of respondents Moreover, the percentage of students having problem with finding relevant materials

is higher than shortage of materials More than a half of respondents (57%) are

sometime not able to find relevant materials and 40% of them are often unable to find relevant materials These difficulties are mentioned above associated with the variety books in library and students’ ability to work with sources

1.2.2 Difficulties on the Internet

13%

0% 0%

40%

17%17%

47% 50%

53%

0%

33%

30%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Never Rarely Sometimes Often Lack of computer skills

Some websites (messy, in accessible and unprinted) Slow internet connection

Bar-chart 2: Frequency of facing obstacles on the Internet

As be shown in bar-chart 2, lack of computer skills is not big problem

compare to problem with some websites and slow internet connection, 47%

sometimes, 40% rarely and 13% never face with Trouble with some websites (such as

messy, inaccessible and unprinted) and slow internet connection seem have the same rate There were only 5 respondents (17%) rarely meet these obstacles, the rest of

them (83%) sometimes or often meet Searching Internet hides some obstacle which is

hard to avoid Messy website is an example for that “The Web is messy in that it cannot always provide clear directions on how to get where we want to go The hyperlinks that exist among different Websites often send people on a trip to nowhere

or somewhere totally unexpected” (Herd, 2006) And for some websites, students are asked for money to access In addition, some website they can access but they cannot copy or print Finally, slow internet connection is problem wide common In the computer lab, because there are a large number of students accessing Internet at the same time, Internet connections are sometimes slow The fact is that the more people access Internet in the same network, the more slowly it is

2 Difficulties in evaluating references

Table 2: Frequency of facing obstacles in evaluating

How often do you face with these

following obstacles when evaluating

references?

Never Rarely Sometimes Often

The table above shows how frequency students face when evaluating

references As we can see, a number of respondents answer that they are “sometimes” and “often” for “have a lot of new words”, “not fully understand author’s opinion”,

“gather out-of-date materials”, “gain one-sided materials” and “take too much time

to read” are 27, 25, 20, 23 and 27, respectively And these are big number for each

category

In doing secondary research, students have to gain many materials But “not every thing that is published is accurate, worthy of your respect, or credible”

(Benander, 1999, p.306) Hence, that they sometimes and often meet these obstacles

cannot avoid References with relevant time will be more persuading the readers and one-sided materials can make the readers go another ways Therefore, they have to spend time to care about that If the materials have many new words, surely, they have

to spend more time to read Particularly, if they read carelessly, they can

misunderstand author’s opinion

3 Difficulties in integrating references

3.1 Difficulties in avoiding plagiarism

0%

17%

70%

13%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

Use sentences or ideas of an author without acknowledging

Bar chart 3: Plagiarism

Plagiarism (using sentences or ideas of an author without acknowledging) is

not a strange thing with students As shown in bar chart 3, sometimes makes up the highest percentage (70%), follows by rarely (17%), often (13%) and never (0%)

Students use paraphrase most (50% of respondents apply paraphrase most when integrating) but they still use sentences or ideas of an author without acknowledging

It means that students are based on the reference materials too much To avoid

plagiarism in this situation is wide difficult for students It requires the whole progress

of learning and the important thing is that students have to be aware of avoiding plagiarism

3.2 Other difficulties

0% 0% 7%

17%

40%

13%

63%

30%

40%

20%

30%

40%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

Never Rarely Sometimes Often Lack vocabulary and grammar

Be afraid of making mistakes

Have difficulties in finding main ideas when summarizing

Bar-chart 4: Frequency of facing obstacles in integrating

No respondents answers that they don’t face with lack of vocabulary and grammar They meet these obstacles rarely (17%), sometimes (63%) or often (20%) Benander (1999) said that “The greater the variety of words the writer knows, the greater the ability he or she has to express an idea exactly and completely” (p.266) and “Grammar is perhaps the most intimidating concept a student of writing faces” (p.23) In fact, students need use vocabulary and grammar to express authors’ ideas in their own words, to introduce references in research Therefore, that up to 83% of

respondents sometimes and often face with lack of vocabulary and grammar is

absolutely clear factor which cause difficulty in integrating references

Additionally, being afraid of making mistakes is another difficulty of students

which account for sometimes (30% of respondents) and often (30%) Students scare

making mistakes means that they scare integrating and writing “Almost all writers at some time suffer from a fear of writing or a feeling of being unable to write”

(Benander, 1999, p.2) This may call is difficulty of concentration

Moreover, 40% of students often face with difficulties in finding main ideas

when summarizing equal to rate of sometimes This difficulty is easy to understand

because when summarizing, they need report the work of others without unnecessary detail

IV Conclusion

In brief, with this project, we carried out the difficulties in finding, evaluating and integrating references in doing secondary research of second English majors at Hanoi University It is obvious that using references in doing secondary research is no easy task However, this survey does not give students obstacles which make them feel difficult to use references It makes student pay attention to difficulties to be careful when using references not only in doing secondary research but in other research as well Our project was done on small scale and small aspect so cannot void some limitations We hope that further research will be done to enlarge this topic

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