Читать книгу Practical Field Ecology - C. Philip Wheater - Страница 29

You should always review the planning and implementation of each stage of your research project by using current information, either from others who have been involved in similar research, or using texts, papers in journals, or other information sources (e.g. the internet), or a combination of these. Be aware of possible biases in the information used, especially where this is obtained from websites belonging to individuals (rather than respected organisations) that have not been independently validated. Most papers in reputable journals and many textbooks have been examined by independent referees, although even these may contain factual inaccuracies and personal opinions that may not conform to current opinion. Although considered the gold‐standard of information sources, even peer‐reviewed journals are subject to bias against the publication of negative results. It is important to start your review of the literature as early as possible, since it is an ongoing process throughout your research and should inform each stage of your project. At the very least you should begin by reading the literature to establish that your proposed idea has not been already published and to define the gaps in knowledge that you will attempt to fill. It is likely that as you read one paper, you will find references to other work that may be important. Expect to read more than 100 papers in your field and to actively use a third to half of these in your thesis.

If you are new to a subject matter, you should first try and locate seminal piece(s) of work in the field or a recent review. Typically, this will be close to the top of a search list of highly cited papers and can be found by ordering a search by ‘times cited’. Take a detailed look at the seminal paper(s), the reference list, and who is citing that paper. In journal databases (e.g. Web of Knowledge), citation networks can be viewed to examine the connectedness between a seminal paper and all those papers that cite it. This is useful because it can elucidate key papers in the field and reduce the search effort dramatically. Typically, your first search should include seminal works and a collection of the most recent papers in the field (i.e. from the last few years). It might be helpful to order these by journal impact factor (if available), since parochial journals may not contain as high quality science, although sometimes smaller research papers with less apparent impact can provide valuable information in the form of species lists, new methods, and negative findings that are often not reported in more mainstream journals. An additional word of warning: highly cited papers can also be poor papers in the field since other authors might simply be referencing them to make an example of that piece of work (e.g. ‘Black and White's (2000) experimental design has been shown here and by others to be flawed’). Knowledge of the literature can assist in avoiding ‘blind alleys’ and unfruitful lines of enquiry or techniques. There are two main types of literature: primary and secondary.