Hints and Tips on Scientific Work and Course Organisation
Below you find a selection of material supporting you in acquiring knowledge and skills for working scientifically during your studies or in scientific practice, and especially regarding scientific writing or dealing with difficulties.
In general, difficulties with writing or speaking freely are no disaster; almost everybody has had to face them from time to time. However, you can learn to tackle them.
Please, be aware of the fact that requirements on the formal layout of academic essays and papers can considerably vary between several subject areas. Please, inform yourself precisely what exactly is expected in each subject.
We have developed a guideline for creating scientific papers at this Institute (assignments, dissertations) that should serve as an orientation for all of your academic work in our department.
Guidelines for the formal layout of academic work at the institute of Sociology
Working Scientifically - General
- Jacob, R. (1997): Wissenschaftliches Arbeiten. Eine praxisorientierte Einführung für Studierende der Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag (jetzt VS-Verlag).
- Library work: very informativ video on scientific research in libraries
- "6 Writing Tips From John Steinbeck" - TheAtlantic
Bachelor and Master Dissertations
- K. Samac/ M. Prenner/ H. Schwetz (2009): Die Bachelorarbeit an Universitäten und Fachhochschulen. facultas/UTB
Scientifc Writing
- Gruber/ Huemer/ Rheindorf (2009): Wissenschaftliches Schreiben. Ein Praxisbuch für Studierende. Böhlau/UTB
- Keseling, G. (2004): Die Einsamkeit des Schreibens. Wie Schreibblockaden entstehen und erfolgreich bearbeitet werden können. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag
- Krämer, W. (2002): Wie schreibe ich eine Seminar- oder Examensarbeit. 2. Auflg. Frankfurt a.M./ New York: Campus
- Kruse, O. (1993): Keine Angst vor dem leeren Blatt. Ohne Schreibblockade durchs Studium. Frankfurt a.M./ New York: Campus.
- Becker, H.S. (1994): Die Kunst professionellen Schreibens. Ein Leitfaden für die Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften. Frankfurt a.M./ New York: Campus
- Der "Schreibtrainer" der Uni Duisburg
Presentations and Academic talks
- Pabst-Weinschenk, M. (2000). Reden im Studium. Ein Trainingsprogramm. Darmstadt: wiss. Buchgesellschaft
- Paul Edwards: "How to Give an Academic Talk" (strongly recommended!)
Reference Management Software
Having reached a highly-scientific standard of work, it is becoming increasingly harder to manage references manually. Reference management software can facilitate your work enormously. Choosing your preferred system, however, you should take into consideration that it is not easy to transfer your comprehensive and valuable stock of references you have spent years to gather to another software program. Meanwhile, many colleagues at our Institute use Citavi.
- Wikipedia of reference managment software (incl. links to price comparison pages)
- Citavi (professional commercial software, fee-based)
- Endnote (professional commercial software, fee-based)
- Zotero (Basic version cost-free, from a data volumen of 100MB on fee-based)
- Mendeley (Basic version cost-free, from a data volumen of 1GB on fee-based)
- Bibliografix (Freeware)