Evidence of Research

Reports should contain evidence of research on the topic. Research can consist of reading the lab write up, text books, articles, or webpages. Talking to others and reading emails is also research.

Evidence of research demonstrates you have knowledge of what's going on in the field. It adds to your credibility. It gives a professional scholarly look to your reports. It helps demonstrate an understanding of professional and ethical responsibility. It eliminates the possibility of being accused of the criminal act of plagiarism. Google's powerful search engin can be used to detect plagiarism.[3]

Use citations and references as evidence of research

  • If you use someones exact words put them in "quotation marks". If they are more than four lines put them in an indented passage.
  • Whether you use exact words or paraphrase, there should be a citation to the author, title of the work, publisher and date. Reference to the citation should occur with the information in the text.
  • Common knowledge is not usually cited.
  • Figures copied from papers, books and web sites require permission of the publisher. Permission is granted to use any of the figures on Prof Daly's websites.
    • Examples
    1. A. G. Uht, Jien-Chung Lo, Y. Sun, J. C. Daly, and J. Kowalski, "Building Real Computer Systems," IEEE Micro, pp. 48-56, June 2000.
    2. Filter Circuits, retrived April 15, 2005, http://www.ele.uri.edu/Courses/ele343/lab/lab6a/filters.html
    3. Private communication with John DiCeccio April 7, 2005
    4. Figure obtained from http://www.ele.uri.edu/Courses/ele343/lab/lab6a/filters.html, April 14, 2005, with permission.
    The date the information is obtained from a web site should be given, since web sites can change.