Tuesday, May 8, 2018

Which is better for your thesis: Editor or Peer Reviewer?

Editor Review process: Coordinated by the editorial office, it starts with the receipt of the submission of the manuscript. The editor examines each of the submissions and decides whether they fit the quality to be incorporated in the journal. Some of the manuscripts get rejected, right in the beginning if the editor decides that they are not suitable for the journal or don’t meet its quality standards. Other reasons for which the editor would reject the manuscript are, if it falls outside the scope of the journal, does not conform to the requirements of the journal. Once approved, the process may move to the next step.

Peer Review Process: If the submission is of interest and fits the scope, the editor moves a step ahead and solicits expert opinion to begin the review process. To get an objective view of the manuscript, potential reviewers are contacted and given the access to the manuscript and given a time window to review the manuscript and give their opinion. The reviewer who looks at it thoroughly scans the manuscript from the perspective of relevance, the fitness of methods, the validity of results and balance logic of the discussion presented.

The reviewer drafts out a report and makes suggestions for modifications. If he is given a predefined format to evaluate the document, he may give numerical scores to different parameters of assessment. The editor evaluates the peer review and decides to either reject the manuscript, look for additional reviews, call for recommended changes or accept the work as it is.

Most of the times peer review is chosen over an only editorial review. The situation and reasons for that are:
A) The scrutiny by the experts helps to validate the scholarly work and offer to the non-expert reader some assurance that he is reading and believing work that has got validation from experts and the author is talking meaningfully.

B) Peer review also helps to establish the confidence that the work is original and carries importance in the field of study.

C) It brings in credibility and confidence towards the methods adopted for research and the soundness and confidence towards the findings and conclusion given by the author.

There surely are few limitations associated with the peer review process, but overall it adds more credibility to the journal and adds quality to the work standards. As a researcher looking for publication options, one must always look for peer review journals, preferably.

Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Top 5 ways to avoid plagiarism when writing a dissertation

Zero percent plagiarism free dissertation is definitely not possible because the definition, quotations, and figures cannot be changed and therefore has to be copied. However, no university will appreciate if the percent of plagiarism goes up from 10%. To plagiarize is to commit the crime in an academic sense, and then it hardly matters whether it is done intentionally or by the fault. Also, at the doctoral level, each scholar is expected to be aware of the knock-on effect of plagiarism; that can be as worse as that of cancellation of registration. That sounds pathetic of course, thus it’s better to learn some brighter ways to avoid plagiarism while writing a dissertation. Below mentioned are following top 5 ways of the same –

1. Constitution of plagiarism – To avoid something is to know it well before, then only one can take measurable steps to duck it back. Any direct quote or definition without giving credit to the real author is counted as plagiarized. Furthermore, when any such phrase which cannot be changed should always be cited with all the details of the source from where it is taken in order to avoid plagiarism.

2. How to keep a check on plagiarism? - Once you are aware of what causes plagiarism, it's’ not that hard to square them. Here comes the following –

Advances search – Some internal comparisons are done by comparing it through an algorithm, which can easily catch even synonyms, paraphrased material and those copied exactly the same.

Search for data’s and hidden sources – Data’s can be searched from articles, books, theses, dissertations, or any webpage, similarly, even if the website your data is picked is no more there on the internet, can come under anti-plagiarism search.

3. Cite your paraphrased sentence – it’s not only about copying the same sentence, in fact, writing other’s idea in your own words without citing it with the reference of the original writer, points out to be plagiarized.

4. Know your citation style – Citation style differs from university to university, therefore what is yours. APA, MLA, Turabian, and Chicago are some of the commonly used conventions, which differs’ in their own style. If you do not follow the one recommended from your university side your dissertation may get rejected on account of stealing the material and that is another form of plagiarism.

5. Never forget to revise and edit – You can choose a professional dissertation writing service provider, your professor, or any subject matter expert for editing and giving a final touch to your dissertation.