Thesis and Article Writing Questions and Answers

Answer: D

The phrase is an example of tautology.

Tautology is the needless repetition of the same idea in different words. 'Personal attention to each student individually' says the same thing twice: personal attention to each student is already individual, so 'individually' adds nothing.

Succinctness is the opposite quality, saying something briefly. Circumlocution is talking round a subject, using many words instead of coming to the point. Wordiness is a general term for using too many words; the specific fault here is saying the same thing twice, which is tautology.

Answer: A

The answer is the title.

The title is the first thing a potential reader sees, in search results and contents lists. A clear, specific title tells readers at once what the study is about and makes them want to read it. Electronic databases also index reports largely by title words, so a well-written title with the key terms helps the report to be catalogued correctly and found.

The abstract and summary are read after the title has caught the reader's attention, and a synopsis is a plan or outline prepared before the research. The element that first attracts readers and governs cataloguing is the title.

Answer: C

The best indicator of total importance is the Eigenfactor.

The Eigenfactor score, developed by Carl Bergstrom and colleagues, measures a journal's total importance to the scientific community. It counts citations over five years, weights them by the importance of the citing journals (much as Google's PageRank does), excludes self-citations, and grows with the number of important articles a journal publishes.

The Impact Factor measures average citations per article over two years, an indicator of average rather than total importance. The g-index is an author-level measure related to the h-index. 'Garfield quotient' is not an established indicator, though Eugene Garfield devised the impact factor.

Answer: C

A research paper is based on (i) and (ii), primary and secondary data.

Primary data are collected first-hand by the researcher through surveys, experiments or interviews, and secondary data come from existing sources such as published reports, records and earlier studies. A research paper may rest on either kind, and often on both.

'Descriptive data' is not a third source of data; description is a type of research or analysis, which can use primary or secondary data. So the options with (iii), or with only one source, are incomplete or wrong.

Answer: B

The standard of a research journal is decided on its impact factor.

The journal impact factor measures how often the articles a journal published in the previous two years are cited in the current year, on average. It is widely used as an indicator of a journal's standing.

A citation index is a database that records citations, from which the impact factor is calculated, not the measure itself. The publisher and the quality of printing say nothing about the academic standard of the work.

Answer: B

A citation is A way of giving proper credit to the original source of information.

In academic writing a citation acknowledges the source of an idea, quotation or data, so that readers can trace it and the original author receives credit. Failing to cite is plagiarism.

Personal experiences, fictional additions and unsupported opinions are not citations; a citation points to evidence outside the writer.

Answer: C

DOI stands for Digital object identifier.

A DOI is a unique, permanent identifier assigned to a digital object such as a journal article, book chapter or dataset, for example 10.1000/xyz123. Because it resolves to the current location of the work through the doi.org system, it remains valid even if the publisher's web address changes, which is why referencing styles ask for it.

'Document of interest', 'Directory of information' and 'Database of integration' are not what the abbreviation stands for.

Answer: A

The impact factor, the average number of citations received in a year by articles a journal published in the previous two years, is the measure of the quality of a research journal. The h-index and g-index measure the output and citation impact of an individual researcher, and the i10-index counts a researcher's papers with at least ten citations. The answer is the impact factor.

Answer: A

The American Psychological Association style puts the author's surname followed by a comma and initial, the year in brackets followed by a full stop, then the title and the publisher: Sharma, V. (2010). Fundamentals of Computer Science. New Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill. The other forms leave out the brackets round the year, use the wrong punctuation after the name, or put a comma instead of a full stop after the year. The answer is the first reference.

Answer: A

When two or more successive footnotes refer to the same work, the abbreviation ibid, for ibidem, meaning in the same place, is used in the second and later footnotes. The abbreviation op. cit. means in the work cited and is used when other references come between, and loc. cit. means in the place cited, while et al. means and others and is used for authors. The answer is ibid.