Theme: CUL Research Skills
23 matching courses
Effective note making is an essential bridge between reading and writing. When making notes for a long piece of writing, if you paraphrase and interpret as you go along, you will be able to retrieve what you have learned from reading quickly and efficiently and often produce sections that you can drop straight into your work. This session will introduce you to the theory of good note making, discuss different note making techniques and offer advice for deciding which approach best suits your practices.
Learning outcomes
By the end of this session, you should be able to:
- Explain the importance of strategic reading
- Identify strategic reading approaches that fit your needs
- Explain the difference between note taking and note making
- Explain the link between reading, note making and academic writing
Please note: This session will be offered again in Easter term, date to be confirmed.
This session will help researchers explore academic literature through discussing key skills such as critical evaluation, structural reading, effective note-taking, and getting started with writing.
From fair dealing to sharing your research online it seems that nothing with copyright is ever simple. There are few black and white rules about copyright but there can be serious consequences for getting things wrong! This session will cover the basics of UK copyright law and how these impact researchers such as dealing with third party materials, seeking permissions and how to manage risk.
Please note: This session will be offered, either online or in person, in Michaelmas, Lent and Easter terms.
Finished your PhD thesis? It’s time to submit.
Unsure of your access level options? Confused about any third-party copyright in your thesis? Then this session is for you.
The final step after completing your thesis is to deposit an electronic copy into the University’s Repository, Apollo. This training session will cover how to ensure you meet all the requirements for submission, how to decide on the access level for your thesis and finally a demonstration of successfully depositing your work using Symplectic Elements.
Do you feel you often experience 'writer's block' where you can't seem to start or make good progress with your writing? In this session, we will discuss ways of mitigating and getting past writer's block, particularly through seeing blocks as opportunities for writing.
Through discussing certain myths about academic writing and healthy ways of conceptualising the writing process, you will become familiar with techniques for freeing up your writing and making steady progress on your dissertation and other writing projects.
This session focuses on finding literature in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. The session will help you build a list of literature for your research topic (sometimes referred to as secondary literature) by introducing key resources for finding materials, illustrating a range of techniques for searching, and discussing how to stay up to date with research in your field.
By the end of this session, you should be able to: • Plan a strategy for finding literature on your research topic. • Discover a range of resources available for your literature search. • Make the most of the resources available using a range of techniques and tools. • Stay up to date with research in your field. • Build a list of relevant literature related to your research topic.
If you are a STEMM researcher, you may find our Literature Searching for Researchers (STEMM) course useful https://www.training.cam.ac.uk/cul/course/cul-rs-search-stemm
Other related courses in our Research Skills programme include Managing your References with Zotero and Managing your Research with Endnote. The Engaging with your literature: critical reading and managing literature-based research (Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences) course from the Researcher Development team may also be useful.
This session equips participants with foundational skills that they need to build and execute effective search strategies to locate relevant materials for literature reviews, projects, and other related research activities. The session will explore key searching techniques, where to search, and how to troubleshoot common searching problems, as well as keeping up to date with the latest research.
Managing your data well is a key responsibility as a researcher and it prevents disasters. You will encounter research data in many forms, ranging from measurements, numbers and images to documents and publications.
Whether you create, receive or collect this information, you will need to look after it properly.
Managing digital information properly is a complex issue. Doing it correctly from the start could save you a lot of time and hassle when preparing a publication or writing up your thesis.
Managing your data well is a key responsibility as a researcher and it prevents disasters. You will encounter research data in many forms, ranging from measurements, numbers and images to documents and publications.
Whether you create, receive or collect this information, you will need to look after it properly.
Managing digital information properly is a complex issue. Doing it correctly from the start could save you a lot of time and hassle when preparing a publication or writing up your thesis.
Using a reference manager is one of the best ways to look after crucial research literature, whether planning for a literature review or simply keeping track of developments in a particular discipline. This session will introduce Endnote.
Using live demonstrations, discussions, and troubleshooting common referencing issues, the session will give an in-depth look at how Endnote (and tools like it) can help maximise a research project workflow while also ensuring that critical resources and information are not lost at any point in the research process.
Using a reference manager is one of the best ways to look after crucial research literature, whether planning for a literature review or simply keeping track of developments in a particular discipline. This session will introduce Zotero.
Using live demonstrations, discussions, and troubleshooting common referencing issues, the session will give an in-depth look at how Zotero (and tools like it) can help maximise a research project workflow while also ensuring that critical resources and information are not lost at any point in the research process.
Please note: This session will be offered, either online or in person, in Michaelmas, Lent and Easter terms.
Publishing journal articles is a key element of a successful research career.
Those starting on this journey may have a lot of questions, such as:
- Where and how should I publish my research?
- How do I maximise the number of readers and citations?
- How should I respond to reviewers?
A session designed to take you step-by-step through academic writing and publication, with tips and resources to make writing up as simple as possible. The session will demystify the peer-review process, and help you to improve the precision and clarity of your academic writing.
Most people have online profiles and, as a researchers, your online presence offers many rich opportunities. It is helpful to be aware of tools and tips that can help you boost your visibility online, as well as common mistakes to avoid.
In this course, you will:
- begin to develop your online research profile by making yourself visible to others in a way(s) that suits you.
- learn what an ORCID is and how to obtain one.
- learn what your Symplectic Elements account is for and begin to make it work for you
- review your current visibility and consider the next steps
You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.
This online course follows the whole process of public a monograph or other academic book, from making the initial decisions, to what to do once you have the finished book in your hands.
You’ll learn:
- key considerations when turning your thesis into a monograph
- how to choose the best publisher for you
- how Open Access monographs work
- how to write a great proposal
- what to expect from the peer review and publishing process
You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.
Copyright law is a complex field with direct relevance for researchers who need to protect their own intellectual work and use work written by others, and most importantly must avoid accidentally infringing copyright. This course provides you with basic knowledge you can apply to your research practice.
The course covers:
- fundamentals of copyright and why it’s important
- what to do if you want to use someone else’s work
- how to protect and share your own work
- how licenses can be used to make it easier to reuse works
You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.
The module covers the key things you need to know when depositing your electronic thesis to Apollo
- How to ensure you meet all the requirements for submission
- How to decide on the access level for your thesis
- A demonstration of successfully depositing your work using Symplectic Elements.
You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.
Note making (as opposed to note taking) is an active practice of recording relevant parts of reading for your research as well as your reflections and critiques of those studies. Note making, therefore, is a pre-writing exercise that helps you to organise your thoughts prior to writing. In this module, we will cover:
- The difference between note taking and note making
- Seven tips for good note making
- Strategies for structuring your notes and asking critical questions
- Different styles of note making
You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.
Data, Metrics, Key Performance Indicators... these terms are everywhere these days, as we increasingly seek hard data to monitor and improve the quality of many of the things we do. Research metrics can be very useful, but they also come with important caveats, so we need to be responsible in how we use these tools.
In this module, you will learn:
- the meaning of common metrics such as Journal Impact Factor and H-index
- what are the main limitations of metrics
- a better, responsible approach to using metrics
You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.
Have you ever searched for articles on a topic and returned thousands of results... or none? Are you always defaulting to Google Scholar and wondering if there’s a better way of doing things? Are you starting to look into a new topic and feel overwhelmed and unsure where to start? Then this online course is for you.
We will look at the three stages of a successful literature search:
- planning a strategy and identifying the right key words
- searching using the right tools and maintaining accurate records
- evaluating results and refining search parameters
You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.
As a researcher, you will collect a lot of data. Whether that data takes the form of spreadsheets, recordings, images, bibliographies, or something entirely different, it's crucial that you manage it well throughout your projects. Doing so will help you to work more efficiently, avoid data disasters, and build your professional reputation.
In this course, you'll learn:
- how to store and backup up data
- how to organise data
- what to do with protected data (personal or commercially sensitive)
- why sharing data is important and how to do it
- how to write Data Management Plans
You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.
This online module covers the basic skills you need if you are preparing to publish in academic journals.
It will help you to:
- plan a publication strategy and choose the right journals for you
- avoid the snares of predatory publishers
- navigate the peer review process
- understand Open Access publishing and what it means for your publications
You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.
Do you know what Open Research (OR) is and how it affects your research? This session will address these questions by providing information about what OR is - its definitions, policies, and practices - throughout the lifecycle of a research project. We will explore how OR looks in different disciplines and what restrictions may exist, as well as what Cambridge is doing to address these. This session is intended for researchers and librarians across all career stages and various disciplines.