(re)search tips

Academic writing in a nutshell

Throughout your career as a student and/or researcher you will produce a series of reports, papers, publications and other texts, in many cases in fluent English. Tips and tricks to improve your writing in English are collected on the UGent portal: How to write a paper.

The faculty of …

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APA: how to make a reference list

When you refer to someone else's work in your paper, you need to include that source in the reference list. A reference list only contains sources that were cited or referred to in your paper. Background readings don't belong in your reference list (but they can go in your …

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APA: how to refer within a text

The way you refer to a source in your paper is the same for physical and online sources. You need to refer to a source when you cite someone, or when you paraphrase their ideas, data, theory, ... Below you can find concrete examples that show you how to do …

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Authorship: authorship roles (contribution disclosure – author(ship) contribution statements)

Authorship

Recognition for a person's effective contribution to a scholarly publication is done primarily through the inclusion, or not, of the names of (individual) contributors on a (more or less) limited list of names associated with that publication.

The place on this list determines in most cases the "importance" of …

Authorship: conditions to be included as an author

The conditions

Researchers who contribute significantly to the creation of the publication are added to the authors list.

This involves 4 (cumulative!) conditions:

a significant contribution to the design of the research, relevant data collection, its analysis, and/ or interpretation;
drafting and/or critical reviewing the publication;
approval of the final …

Authorship: what is the Ghent University policy?

Authorship

Authorship is related to the actual contribution someone makes to a scientific publication.

Various stakeholders in science (research institutions, faculties, funders, publishers, journals, etc.) have developed standards to regulate this aspect of scholarly publishing.

Authorship is an important (co-)factor for the academic impact and reputation of individual researchers …

Collaborating on an article: what are your options?

These days, many projects are done as a team, and writing assignments are no exception. It can be challenging to collaborate efficiently on the same text, especially if you and your co-authors mostly communicate online. Fortunately, there are a number of online tools that allow you to write, edit, …

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Copyright: my rights as an author

As the author of a work, you're the copyright holder. Sometimes, however, you transfer your copyright (the economic rights) to a third party, who becomes the copyright holder in turn. If someone wants to reuse (part of) your work, the copyright holder of your work must grant permission for this. …

Deposit number (D-number) behind a PhD thesis: what is it, is there a link with ISBN and is it obligatory?

What is a deposit number (D-number)?

A deposit number is assigned by the Royal Library of Belgium. It is the code that a publisher is obliged to include on the front or on the back of a book to enable identification of the book and the publisher.

Therefore, It must …

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EndNote: cite while you write

Advantages of citing while you write

You don't forget to cite sources.
You put the footnotes in the right places.
You save time looking for the right source after writing your article.
You can automatically update references.
You can adjust reference styles easily.

Insert a footnote

Open Athena. …

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Endnote: find and remove duplicates

You can have duplicate references all removed in one click or one by one manually.

Manually remove duplicates

You can find duplicates of references when you click Library > Find Duplicates. You will get a pop-up where you can compare possible duplicates. If there are fields that differ, they will …

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EndNote: how to add and delete references

Once you have uploaded all your references into your EndNote library, you can delete duplicate references and add references manually. You can also edit them manually or automatically.

Add references

Read this tip to learn about importing references from databases.

Add a reference manually:

Open Athena and EndNote.
Click …

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EndNote: how to create a group?

You can create groups in EndNote to structure your citations. There are three different groups:

a Group: you can add citations manually
a Smart Group: citations are added automatically
a Group Set: a cluster of (Smart) Groups

Group

If you want to create a group to which you can …

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EndNote: importing references

You can import references into EndNote from many different databases. In the clips below, we explain how to import references from the four most commonly used ones: the library's catalogue, Web of Science, Scopus, and Google Scholar.

Web of Science

Click here for the Research tip on how to …

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EndNote: importing references from Web of Science

You can import up to 1.000 references at the same time from Web of Science into your EndNote library.

To do this, enter your search query > click "Export" > click "EndNote desktop"

You will see a pop-up where you can enter the amount of references you want to …

EndNote: personalising your reference fields

You can personalise the fields in EndNote in two different ways.

Reference types

You can choose which reference type is your preferred default, e.g: Journal Article. You can also choose which fields a certain reference type needs.

Open EndNote via Athena
Click Edit > Preferences, click on the tab "Reference …

GenAI: PhD research (proposal) and AI

Are you (co-)writing a PhD research proposal and would you like to use AI tools in the process? Maybe you want to have your proposal checked for language errors, rewritten, translated... or you want to generate graphics and/or images. You may also want to incorporate AI into the research you …

Research integrity & ethics

GenAI: Writing a (postdoctoral) research proposal

You are writing a research proposal and would like to use AI tools in the process. Perhaps you want to have your proposal checked for language errors, rewritten, translated... or you want to generate graphics and/or images. You may also want to incorporate AI into your research in another way, …

Research integrity & ethics

GenAI: Writing a scientific article

You are writing a scientific article or a contribution for a book and would like to use AI tools. Maybe you want to have your article/contribution checked for language errors, rewritten, translated... or you want to generate graphics and/or images. Is that allowed? And what should you definitely take into …

Research integrity & ethics

Journal: what does "peer-reviewed" mean?

It is essential to researchers to publish in peer-reviewed journals. A peer review means that the quality of the research will be assessed by colleagues (usually before publication). Some monograph publishers also work with peer review, which means that the quality of the books they publish has been assessed by …

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LaTeX: what is it?

LaTeX is a markup language (like HTML). It ensures that your text (article, book, thesis) rolls out of the printer with impeccable layout and it's considered the standard for scientific works. Below, you can find some pros and cons of working with LaTeX.

Advantages of working with LaTeX

Scientific …

academic writing

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Open Access to your publications

Open Access refers to the practice of making peer-reviewed scholarly research and literature freely available online to anyone interested.

Open means anyone can freely access, use, modify, and share for any purpose, subject, at most, to requirements that preserve provenance and openness. It does not affect authors' freedom to choose …

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Open Access: How to use the Rights Retention Strategy?

Funders such the European Commission (Horizon Europe) require immediate open access with a CC BY license to all peer-reviewed scholarly publications. To meet those requirements, researchers have three options:

Publish with a diamond open access journal or platform, which does not require the payment of publication costs.

Publish with a …

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ORCID: what is it?

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) provides a persistent identifier that will distinguish a researcher from other researchers throughout their scholarly career. An ORCID is globally unique and will continuously refer to the same researcher. Funders (e.g. NIH, HEFCE, ...) and publishers (e.g.. Elsevier, American Association for the Advancement of …

Paraphrase: how to

You paraphrase when you explain another author’s idea(s) in your own words, often with added context. Here's how to do it:

Extract the gist. For example, one of the main arguments in Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (1929) is: women have the right to education.
When you …

Plagiarism detection: use of the tool StrikePlagiarism

Where can you find the tool?

Checking articles or other textual work for plagiarism? Recently, it can be done with a new tool, StrikePlagiarism. The new tool is built into the Ufora learning environment.

Teachers are already familiar with it in the context of checking papers or assignments …

Reference software: overview of tips

EndNote Starting with EndNote

Importing references in EndNote

Editing references in EndNote

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Reference style: what is it?

A reference style defines the rules you have to follow to refer to sources. There are many different reference styles, often linked to a certain field. Also certain scientific journals have their own reference style. Some examples of reference styles are: MLA, APA, Vancouver, IEEE, OSCOLA,...

Pointers

References have to …

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Research integrity: trending topic – paper mills

This section draws on:

the relevant web pages of COPE concerning the paper mill phenomenon. https://publicationethics.org/publishers-perspective-paper-mills + related resources as mentioned on this page.

https://www.wiley.com/network/journaleditors/latest-content/how-can-editors-detect-manuscripts-and-publications-from-paper-mills

https://www.enago.com/academy/paper-mills-a-rising-concern-in-the-academic-community/

Current topics are often new and knowledge is subject to further development or deepening. This tip was prepared on the basis of the relevant …

Resources: helpful tools to find literature

These tools will help you find literature on the topic of your choice.

lib.ugent.be You can find over 4.000.000 references for books, serials, images, theses, and databases in the library catalogue of Ghent University. Many of these can be consulted online, from the comfort of your home.
If you can't …

Resources: search and find information

Do you need to write a text or do you need to find information and you are looking for the right resources? Follow the step-by-step plan below.

Step 1: define your subject

Narrow down your subject based on the literature you find.
Explore the subject. You can read a paper …

Resources: where to find information on retracted or contested publications?

Why is this important?

Knowledge accumulation is a fundamental principle in science and forms the basis for progress and innovation. Through a continuous process, knowledge is acquired, deepened, broadened and revised. This process enables researchers to continuously ask new questions and solve complex problems. This involves building on past research …

Retraction Watch: what is it?

Retraction Watch, acquired by Crossref in September 2023, is a database that lists retracted (retractions) or corrected (corrections) publications, or publications with an expressions of concern. A blog is connected to the database, highlighting some of the retracted publications. Though Retraction Watch only started in 2010, older publications can …

V&A ((Dutch) reference style for law school)

Within the scientific field of law in the (Dutch) Belgian context, the reference style juridische verwijzingen en afkortingen (V&A) is used to refer to sources in publications.

All information about V&A can be found in the manual.

In 2024, the style was substantially changed, among other things to facilitate …

Write: do you know what you're writing?

Before you start writing, having a good sense of what you'll be writing is an important first step. Some examples of text types that require different kinds of writing are:

a paper: you look for the answer to an objective research question through field research or a literature study. …

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Tag: academic writing