Academic & Study Skills

Referencing

Critiquing Published Work

• Tod, D., Booth, A. and Smith, B. (2021) Critical Appraisal. International Review of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 15(1), 52-72.

•  https://doi.org/10.1080/1750984X.2021.1952471 

• Tzur, A. (2022) Research Limitations – Why Study Results Don’t Always Apply to You - https://sci-fit.net/research-limitations/ 

• Lipman, T.O. (2013) Critical Reading and Critical Thinking - Study Design and Methodology: A Personal Approach on How to Read the Clinical Literature Nutr Clin Pract. Vol. 28:158-164 [full text

• Hart, C. (2018). Doing a Literature Review: Releasing the Research Imagination. Sage. 

• Krauss, A. (2018). Why all randomised controlled trials produce biased results. Annals of Medicine, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1080/07853890.2018.1453233

• Lewis, K., & Burton, K. (2020). Time to turn the hierarchy of evidence on its head?. Sport and Exercise Scientist, (64), 10-11. https://www.bases.org.uk/imgs/0000_bas_tses___summer_2020_online___editors_choice_pg10_1176015.pdf  [found in this twitter thread]

• Cordeiro, P., Ortuño, V. E., Paixão, M. P., & Marôco, J. (2015). Reading a Scientific Paper for Psychology and the Social Sciences: A Critical Guide.Psychology, Community & Health, 4(3), 114.a  https://doi.org/10.5964/pch.v4i3.136   

• Subramanyam, R. V. (2013). Art of reading a journal article: Methodically and effectively. Journal of oral and maxillofacial pathology: JOMFP, 17(1), 65.[full text] 

• MacAuley, D. (1994). READER: an acronym to aid critical reading by general practitioners. The British Journal of General Practice, 44(379), 83.[fulltext] 

• A short guide [pdf] to critical writing for Postgraduate Taught students - University of Birmingham

• UCL guide: Critical appraisal of a journal article

• Critical Appraisal Skills Programme Checklists - https://casp-uk.net/casp-tools-checklists/ 

• What is critical reading - University of Leicester [click here]

• How to Critically Analyse Psychological Research - Uni of Newcastle, Aus - [MS Word Doc] 

• The Catalogue of Biases - CEBM, University of Oxford

• Crombie, I. K. (1996). The pocket guide to critical appraisal. London: BMJ publishing group. 

• Greenhalgh, T. (2010) How to read a paper: the basics of evidence-based medicine (4th Ed.) Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell [google books] 

• Travers et al. (2019) Should this systematic review and meta-analysis change my practice? Part 1: exploring treatment effect and trustworthiness BJSM http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2018-099958 

• Travers et al. (2019) Should this systematic review and meta-analysis change my practice? Part 2: exploring the role of the comparator, diversity, risk of bias and confidence BJSM http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2018-099959 

• GRADE - "a common, sensible and transparent approach to grading quality (or certainty) of evidence and strength of recommendations." https://www.gradeworkinggroup.org/ 

• Also see "improving Thinking Skills" below.

Critiquing Statistical Practice

• Reinhart, A. (2015). Statistics done wrong: The woefully complete guide. No starch press. [full e-book at https://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/]

• Kass, R. E., Caffo, B. S., Davidian, M., Meng, X. L., Yu, B., & Reid, N. (2016). Ten simple rules for effective statistical practice. PLoS computational biology, 12(6), e1004961. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004961 

• Makin, T. R., & Orban de Xivry, J. J. (2019). Ten common statistical mistakes to watch out for when writing or reviewing a manuscript. Elife, 8, e48175. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.48175 

• Wasserstein, R. L., & Lazar, N. A. (2016). The ASA statement on p-values: context, process, and purpose. The American Statistician, 70(2), 129-133. https://doi.org/10.1080/00031305.2016.1154108 

Statistical Analysis

• Seeing Theory - stats visualized - http://students.brown.edu/seeing-theory/index.html  

• Rpsychologist - more visualisations

Improving Thinking Skills

• Cottrell, S. (2011). Critical thinking skills: Developing effective analysis and argument. Palgrave Macmillan. [contents] 

• Katz, L. (2018) Critical Thinking and Persuasive Writing for Postgraduates. Palgrave Macmillan. [google books]

• Wallace, M. and Wray, A. (2011) Critical Reading and Writing for Postgraduates (2nd ed) London: Sage [amazon] 

• Morrow, D. R., & Weston, A. (2011). A workbook for arguments: A complete course in critical thinking. Hackett Publishing. [chap 1] [companion website] 

• The Catalogue of Biases - CEBM, University of Oxford

• Critical Thinking - The University of Edinburgh

• Critical Thinking: A resource by The University of Edinburgh

• Thinking is Power Resources: Skepticism, critical thinking, and science education - https://thinkingispower.com/resources/ 

• Exploring Logical Fallacies - [click here]

• The Skeptics Dictionary - [Click here]

• Science-Based Medicine - Click here for a resource guide on a number of controversial scientific subjects

• The Strength of evidence podcast - S&C focus, scientific method, critical analysis etc [click here]

• Applying Criticality - blog

• NHS Choices debunks a wide range of health news

• The Foundation for Critical Thinking: Higher Education Resources

• Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1121.

• Ahrens, S. (2017). How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking–for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers. [Google Books]

• Learn faster, think better, and make smart decisions. https://fs.blog/ 

Graphical Design for Academic Work

• Designing Conference posters - by Colin Purrington [click here]

• Examples of scientific posters - https://epostersonline.com/nihr2020/ 

• A Visual Vocabulary - A resource from the FT on graphing - https://github.com/ft-interactive/chart-doctor/tree/master/visual-vocabulary 

• Fundamentals of Graphic Design A coursera course by CALARTS - https://www.coursera.org/learn/fundamentals-of-graphic-design?specialization=graphic-design 

• Visual Abstracts - https://www.surgeryredesign.com/resources 

• Graphical Abstracts - https://www.annaclemens.com/blog/make-graphical-abstract-paper 

• Visualize Values - https://archivve.visualizevalue.com/ and on twitter https://twitter.com/visualizevalue 

• LucidCharts - https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/ 

• Remove a background from an image - https://www.remove.bg/ 

• Noun Project  - a diverse collection of free + premium icons - https://thenounproject.com/ 

• Dribbble - a resource that explores a wide range of design ideas - https://dribbble.com/ 

• The psychology of design - https://growth.design/psychology 

• Typography design 101: a guide to rules and terms - https://en.99designs.de/blog/tips/typography-design/amp/ 

• Find better images - https://unsplash.com/ 

• More Free to use images - https://www.pexels.com/ 

• Design pages, posters, icons,etc - https://www.canva.com/ 

• Free online photo editor -https://edit.photo/ 

• make visualisations -https://help.flourish.studio/

Research using Electronic Resources

• GoogleScholar - https://scholar.google.co.uk/

• Connected Papers - https://www.connectedpapers.com 

• Mendeley - An electronic reference manager 

• unpaywall - http://unpaywall.org/ 

• Sci-Hub - https://sci-hub.cc/ 

• Microsoft Academic - http://academic.research.microsoft.com/

• BASE - https://www.base-search.net/about/en/ 

• RefSeek - https://www.refseek.com/

• Using evernote to manage workflow - LSE blog

• 7 academic search engines not named google from www.teachthought.com

• Spritz - Get help reading faster with this app

• Scrivener - The best writing tool for Mac users

• ReciteWorks - Get help checking your citations in an essay/paper

• Neil's Toolbox - a range of resources on referencing and producing work (includes a useful "Lazy Researcher" tool

More Resources

• For more links to study skill information, go to the Weblinks page labelled "Study Skills"

• University of Leicester - A wealth of tips and information on producing coursework at HE level

• The Higher Education Academy - A guide to study skills resources [click here for pdf]

• skills4study - A resource site from the publisher PalgraveMacmillan. [click here for link]

• Plagiarism - Terry and Belinda

Using Social Media

• Digital Literacy attributes of a science student - from University of Bath [pdf]

• Using Twitter for networking and CPD [click here]

• Personal Learning Networks [click here]

• LSE Guide - Using twitter in University research, teaching and impact activities [click here]

• Minocha, S. and Petre, M. (2011) Handbook of social media for researchers and supervisors: Digital technologies for research dialogues. Open University [fulltext]

• Quintana, D.S. (2020). Twitter for Scientists [eBook edition]. https://t4scientists.com/. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.3707741 

• 10 habits of a great tweeter [click here]

• Academic blogging for beginners - by Dr Inger Mewburn [click here]

Related Content on this website

Research Methods

Qualitative Research

Statistical Analysis

Follow @ithinkwellHugh or look at the #StayWellinResearch hashtag for more great tips on