AutHer Awards 2023 winners announced at a gala event in New Delhi

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It was an exciting evening at Taj Palace, New Delhi this Sunday as the audience witnessed a heart-warming celebration of Indian women writers on the occasion of AutHer Awards 2023 winner announcements. The AutHer Awards, a joint venture between The Times of India and JK Paper, celebrates women authors who have added value and creativity to the literary space. From authors, publishers, academicians, and book lovers to bureaucrats, politicians, and artistes– the fourth edition of AutHer Awards was attended by some of the biggest names in the literary space.
Veteran actress Shabana Azmi was the Chief Guest for AutHer Awards 2023.

The winners are…

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The AutHer Awards 2023 winners were announced for four major categories – Fiction, Non-Fiction, Children’s Literature, and Debut. A Lifetime Achievement award and a Prize in the Popular Choice category were also given. A new award category was also introduced this year for Best Manuscript.
The AutHer Awards 2023- Best Author Fiction was given to Janice Pariat for her novel ‘Everything the Light Touches’, published by HarperCollins.

The AutHer Awards 2023- Best Author Non-Fiction went to Barkha Dutt for her book ‘To Hell and Back: Humans of COVID’, published by Juggernaut Books.

The AutHer Awards 2023- Best Author Debut Award was won by Vauhini Vara for her novel ‘The Immortal King Rao’, published by HarperCollins.

The AutHer Awards 2023 for Best Children’s Author was given to two women writers this year! While Bijal Vachharajani won the award for ‘Savi and the Memory Keeper’ (published by Hachette India), author Vaishali Shroff also won the award for her children’s book ‘Batata, Pao and All Things Portuguese’ (published by The People Place Project). It is noted that Bijal Vachharajani had also won AutHer Awards in 2019 for her book ‘A Cloud Called Bhura’.

The Popular Choice Award was won by Vaishnavi Roy for her book ‘Unwind’, published by The Write Order, for garnering the maximum number of votes online.

Veteran Indian novelist and feminist author, Shashi Deshpande was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award this year for her timeless contribution to Indian writing in English.

The AutHer Awards 2023 for Best Manuscript was given to Aditi Sowmyanarayan from Bangalore. The 17-year-old writer, who is non-verbal and on the autism spectrum, stood out with her exceptional writing talent for the jury. Aditi’s award was received by her father Srinivasan Sowmyanarayan on her behalf. Expressing her gratitude on winning the award, Aditi said in a recorded message, “To say that I am exulted at this moment would be an understatement! Thank you JK Paper and The Times of India for conferring the Best Manuscript award to my labour of love, ‘With You, Right Through’. It is a huge shot in the arm for me to write more, write better and bring to the fore the thinking mind behind the facade of non-speaking autism. Last, but not the least, I dedicate the award to my mother. Amma- you are, therefore I am. Thank you.”

Ankita Pal, 16, stood a close second in the Best Manuscript category. She too won an AutHer Award in this category for her manuscript ‘Throne of Dragonix’.

The selection process
The Longlist, Shortlist, and Winners for AutHer Awards 2023 were chosen after multiple layers of screening, followed by detailed discussions among a panel of eminent jury. This year The Times of India received over 2000 entries, submitted by both publishers and authors, for the coveted women writers awards which is the first of its kind in India. The jury considered books by women published in India between December 2021 and November 2022.

Check the complete Longlist for AutHer Awards 2023 HERE
Check the complete Shortist for AutHer Awards 2023 HERE

The Jury
The Chairs for the AutHer Awards 2023 jury were: actress-author Sonali Bendre (Fiction), author-historian Dr Vikram Sampath (Non-fiction), one of the leading members of the Apeejay Surrendra Group– Priti Paul (Debut), and award-winning children’s author Ranjit Lal (Children’s books).

Commenting on Auther Awards 2023, Sonali Bendre- Chair for Fiction category said, “The Auther Awards is a wonderful initiative to recognize and encourage women authors. It’s an honour to be Jury Chair for the fiction books – it’s my favourite genre and it was an absolute pleasure to read the selection this year. There were so many new voices, new styles of writing, and each had its own distinct flavour. Some of them really resonated strongly with me, with beautifully written prose, and I wish all the authors all the very best.”

While, Chair for Non-fiction– Dr Vikram Sampath said, “It was truly an honour to head the Non-fiction jury of the unique and one of its kind AutHer Awards that celebrates the best of women writers in contemporary India. Jury members Ramesh Sharma, Prabha Chandran, and I loved reading the wide and eclectic range of books in this category that ranged from biographies, history, memoirs to contemporary societal issues and politics. It was a tough task for us to zero in on the longlist and subsequent filters down to the final winner.”

Talking about the varied variety of children’s books the jury read this year, Ranjit Lal– Chair for Children’s category, said, “An eclectic collection of stories that should encourage children to bury their noses in the books! Mythology seems to be a favourite subject with children’s authors these days. The three top rankers ran a very close race indeed!”

Priti Paul, Chair- Debut category, said, “I am deeply honoured to chair the Jury for the Debut category in Season 4 of the AutHer Awards. As a book retailer, I strongly believe that the celebration of the work of women writers is long overdue. I congratulate the AutHer awards on their path breaking initiative in recognising the potential and power of writings that women authors bring to the table. The nominated authors achieved remarkable standards of creativity in their writing. On behalf of the heritage Oxford Bookstore, I wish them all the very best in their future literary endeavours. More power to Her Pen!”

The other jury members included: former diplomat-author Navtej Sarna and professor-author Jonathan Gil Harris for Fiction; award-winning filmmaker Ramesh Sharma and former Editor and communications specialist Prabha Chandran for Non-fiction; actress Lillete Dubey and Sunit Tandon- Director of the India Habitat Centre and President of the Delhi Music Society- for Debut; Swati Roy- owner of Eureka and Founder-Director of Bookaroo, and Dalbir K Madan- literacy & library consultant, and an educational entrepreneur.


The AutHer Awards 2023– Best Manuscript was judged by Hemali Sodhi, Founder of A Suitable Agency.


Vinita Dawra Nangia, Literary Director, AutHer Awards in her inaugural speech said, “This is no matter of chance, but a matter of a systematic bias that permeates the literary world. We need to create more opportunities for women authors to showcase their work and receive recognition. We need to challenge the stereotypes and and biases that limit women’s access to the literary world. The question never was, nor is whether men are better writers than women or vice versa. The point is that women must be read as writers, not women writers and their writing be appreciated without being presumed to be inferior or marginal only because of their gender!”

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Australian Winemakers Turn to Science to Help Weather Climate Change

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If the world can limit future greenhouse gas emissions, scientists are hopeful that adaptations can help a battered industry survive.

(Inside Science) — It’s a hectic time of year among the wineries of Orange, New South Wales, which are nestled in the fertile foothills of a long-extinct volcano. The southern hemisphere’s summer is about to start after a particularly wet spring, and vineyard owners are hustling to prep their crops before the precious grapes start to sprout. 

“It’s a high-pressure time because as soon as you have vines with leaf growth and rainfall, stuff really starts to happen,” said Ben Crossing, the general manager and owner of Angullong Wines. Workers are busy spraying fungicides to kill off any burgeoning infections; mowing the grass between vines to increase airflow; and inspecting the vines to make sure they’re growing properly, all while tending to the important steps of turning last summer’s harvest into wine.

At 470 acres, Angullong is one of Orange’s biggest vineyards, and the rolling hills, flourishing with vines, look exceptionally green. But growers like Crossing expect the heavy precipitation in September and October that fueled this year’s lush growth will be rarer in the future because of climate change. 

Farmers mow the grass to increase airflow to blow fungal pathogens away from the vines.

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The town of Orange and its wine country surroundings are about a four-hour drive inland from Sydney, away from the cool breezes of the Pacific coastline. For the most part, summer is too hot this far from the ocean for wine-grade grapes, but the region’s hills offer a reprieve. Orange is the highest wine region in Australia, with vineyards between 600 meters and one kilometer above sea level. Thanks to this wide range of elevations, almost any type of wine can be made in Orange — grapes for reds occupy the lower vines while grapes for whites and sparkling wines are found higher up. This makes Orange something of a microcosm of the wider Australian wine industry. 

Even with an advantageous microclimate, winemakers here aren’t immune from the stresses that climate change has in store. For years, scientists have been warning that global warming will hit Australia harder than the rest of the world. In addition to reduced rainfall, experts say grape growers in Australia can expect to grapple with rising temperatures, more frequent wildfires and the arrival of new pests. All of which will make the task of producing high-quality wines, for which Orange is celebrated, all the more taxing. 

“It’s not just average temperatures rising across the board, it’s the heatwaves that are challenging because they’re hard to predict and eventually you reach temperatures that just burn fruit on the vine,” said Jason Smith, a researcher who studies the cultivation of grapes for winemaking at Charles Sturt University in Orange. “It also comes with fire risks.”

The McArthur Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) pools data on various weather conditions to assess the risk of a bushfire happening. By 2050, the daily FFDI value is projected to increase by at least 15%, but possibly by as much as 70%, in southeast Australia where many of the country’s famed wine regions, Orange included, are located. 

Uninsurable vines 

The 2019-2020 wildfire season was one of Australia’s worst on record; fires burned an area the size of Florida, and so much smoke billowed forth that it crossed the Pacific Ocean, according to one study. Wildfires pose an immediate danger to any vines caught in the path of a blaze, but smoke can also ruin the grapes of vineyards away from the frontline, said Markus Herderich, an analytical chemist at the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI).

Volatile, aromatic compounds in smoke called phenols can easily penetrate mature grapes and bind to the fruit’s sugar molecules. “The phenols are then turned into taste compounds,” said Herderich. “You essentially have a smoky time bomb for your wine.” That’s why the AWRI has developed a test to gauge the level of a grape’s smoke taint. Should the fruit be irredeemable, the vineyard owner can at least decide to cut their losses before committing to the expensive wine-making stages. The test could also help winemakers who procure grapes from outside vineyards to screen for smoke damage before buying. 

“There are biomarkers in grapes following smoke events,” said Herderich. “We’ve done a lot of work on this, and we now have a good idea of what a clean grape’s chemical profile looks like.”

The risk posed by smoke taint is so great that most Australian grape growers can’t secure insurance to offset the risk, said Crossing. It’s also becoming increasingly tough to find coverage for other extreme events that are expected to worsen with climate change. Crossing, for example, was recently refused insurance for hailstorm damage. Other vineyard owners in Orange, however, are luckier on that front. Justin Jarrett owns See Saw Organic Wines, which unlike Angullong, grows grapes on several different parcels of land dotted around the region. Jarrett still has hail insurance, and he thinks it’s because the insurance brokers assume it’s unlikely that there would be a hailstorm big enough to obliterate all his grapes at once. “It would be extremely stressful to grow the whole season without that cover,” he said. “If you have a storm, it can be 100% of your income gone for some vineyards.” 

Yet more and more winemakers like Crossing are having to take on these additional financial risks. It’s one of the reasons that they’re looking to science for help alleviating the burden of climate change. 

Science-based solutions

Both Crossing and Jarrett host researchers at their vineyards. Smith from Charles Sturt University, for example, is placing specially designed water trappers around the stems of young vines on the Angullong estate. The devices are designed to funnel rainfall and irrigated water towards the nascent roots while also reducing evaporation from the soil. 

Jason Smith deploys water catchers around grape plants at Angullong Wines.

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This image may only be reproduced alongside this Inside Science story.

Young vines can find it hard to get enough water with moisture-sucking grass and weeds close by. “If they get a lot of competition, they never seem to recover,” said Smith. With projections of reduced rainfall, scientists hope that interventions like this will enable young vines to continue to properly establish themselves. The water trappers aren’t cheap, though. At approximately $3.70 a piece, they can cost roughly the same as the young saplings themselves, therefore doubling the cost of planting new vines. 

That’s why Smith is conducting an experiment to see whether they produce a tangible difference in crop quality. “The cost isn’t negligible and it’s also a lot of plastic to put in the vineyards, so our trial is needed to see whether it’s worth it,” said Smith.

He’s comparing three different ways to plant new vines. The first group receives a normal amount of irrigation without a water catcher; the second receives a normal amount of irrigation with a water catcher; and the third receives 30% less irrigation with a water catcher. “We’ll follow them throughout the coming seasons and compare how they establish and whether the yields differ,” said Smith. The working hypothesis is that the water catchers with normal irrigation would increase the bounty of grapes while the water catchers with less irrigation would produce a similar number of grapes to the vines without water catchers. If that turns out to be true, it’ll strengthen the case for rolling out such infrastructure vineyard-wide.

Other researchers, meanwhile, are looking at the changing suite of pathogens and pests that hamper Australia’s vines. “The geographical range of various species will change in response to climate change,” said Geoff Gurr, an ecologist at Charles Sturt University in Orange. Specifically, scientists expect that warmer weather species will migrate from the subtropical regions of Australia down into the winegrowing regions of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. 

The Queensland fruit fly, which lays its eggs within the fruit, could be one such example. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat away at the fruit — destroying the crop. “You don’t get them in Orange historically because it’s too cold, but the warming conditions could allow them to become a seasonal invader or even establish themselves permanently,” said Gurr. “That would be really bad news.”

To combat the threat of pests, Gurr is evaluating the effect of introducing various non-grape plant species between the vine rows of the Angullong and See Saw estates. He’s chosen plants that provide nectar for insects like the trichogramma wasp, which would destroy the eggs of certain pests, controlling their populations. The experiment will run for the next couple of years, by which time Gurr hopes to have figured out the optimum mix of plant species to occupy the mid row.  

While climate predictions can make it feel as so though the odds are stacked against Australia’s wine industry, Herderich from the AWRI is confident that partnerships between vineyard owners and scientists will win out in the end. If future global greenhouse gas emissions could at least be limited, then researchers will find ways to help wineries down under continue to thrive, he thinks. “It’s not all doom and gloom,” he said. “It can be managed if we act.”
 

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International Research Excellence Best Paper Awards

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In 2017, 120 University West nursing students
wrote a scientific report as an examination. Merely 30 students passed on their
first attempt and one of the identified shortcomings concerned information
literacy. In collaboration with the course coordinators, the liaison librarian
modified the course design adding new contents as well as new assignments to
create a kick start for the students who lack the information literacy required
in higher education. The module in information literacy training was extended
to provide the students with the skills needed for successful results and thus
making them better equipped for the rest of their studies, as well as for
lifelong learning. This best practice article accounts for the course
development, focusing on library instruction. Furthermore, it posits that the
principles of andragogy, student activating methods and the united effort to
meet the students where they are, have enhanced their learning process and
consequently their information literacy. In 2020 and 2021, the students who
passed the scientific report examination on their first attempt more than
doubled. Due to librarian involvement, new pedagogical approaches, and a
fruitful collaboration with course coordinators, these students’ information
literacy skills seem to have improved.

For Enquiries: paper@sciencefather.com


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International Research Excellence Best Paper Awards

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A new discipline in psychology at the University of Oregon is broadening the department’s inclusivity with three new dedicated faculty hires.

Part of the UO’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of Psychology has welcomed assistant professors Mariah Kornbluh, Chanel Meyers and Alayna Park for fall term. Their research emphasis area in diversity science highlights a theme across work the department is already doing, said department head Sara Hodges.

“Diversity science is a no-brainer in psychology,” Hodges said. “But with these hires, we wanted to elevate it by finding exceptional scholars who directly study how group differences, real or perceived, affect individuals’ development and well-being.”

Developmental and community psychologist Kornbluh brings experience in studying how children and adolescents who are marginalized or socially excluded by systems of power find ways to challenge inequities. She researches how these youth become empowered to push back on barriers to wellness and academic achievement.

At the UO, Kornbluh will partner with local schools and agencies to engage in youth-led participatory action research. Researchers collaborate with community members to explore, in her words, “how children and youth can be their own agents of change in reimaging and transforming institutions that have systematically disadvantaged our most vulnerable communities.”

Park is a clinical psychologist who studies how to improve the quality and effectiveness of mental health care for youth of color. Youth of color typically attend fewer sessions and drop out of treatment at higher rates than their white peers due to systemic and structural barriers to engaging in mental health care.

Park’s research investigates how to adapt effective mental health programs often designed for and tested with middle-class, white clients to be more compatible with the norms, beliefs and values of racial and ethnic minoritized groups. Park directs the ADDRESS Mental Health Lab and also is affiliated with The Ballmer Institute for Children’s Behavioral Health.

Trained as a social-cognitive psychologist, Meyers examines the role racial diversity plays in intergroup processes. Growing up as a multiracial kid in Hawaii, she found that much of psychology did not reflect her reality.

“My research highlights the experiences of underrepresented racial groups in psychology,” Meyers said.

She examines how race-related contexts and social norms influence cognition, perception, behaviors and social interactions. Meyers is teaching an undergraduate course on stereotyping and prejudice this term and directs the Diversity and Social Cognition Lab.

Hodges said the department is thrilled to have found new colleagues “who ask challenging questions about how diversity affects how we do psychology research and the value of the conclusions we draw from that research.”

The three new assistant professors are each recruiting undergraduate, master’s or doctoral student research assistants this year.

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Indian scientists shocked as government scraps nearly 300 awards

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Scientists say that they are in the dark about the move. “Since the rationale for reducing the number of existing awards so drastically isn’t publicly known, it is unclear what problem this was supposed to address,” says biophysicist Gautam Menon at Ashoka University near Delhi.

“We need to understand the rationale behind the scrapping of awards, as well as knowing the proposed vision on how the granting and awarding system will be reformed,” says Vishwesha Guttal, a mathematical ecologist at the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore in Bengaluru.

A former senior science secretary said that the government had decided to review its science awards more than four years ago. But there seems to have been little, if any, follow-up of the initial discussion, which explains scientists’ surprise over the move. Nature contacted several science-department heads about the rationale for scrapping the awards, but none had responded in time for publication.

Adding to scientists’ concerns is the absence of any announcement about the country’s highest science honour, the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar prize — which is awarded by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, and usually given on 26 September by the prime minister.

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The National Quantum Information Science Research Centers Host Second Career Fair

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 As the field of Quantum Information Science (QIS) grows, so too does the need for professionals to support and expand on the research, application, and commercialization of this exciting new area of technology. To bring key players in the field together with new talent from across the country, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science’s National Quantum Information Science (QIS) Research Centers (NQISRCs) sponsored a second virtual QIS career fair on Sept. 14, 2022, led by Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA).

The virtual lobby of the Quantum Information Science Career Fair.

“The degree of participation this year demonstrated that there are many students, job seekers, and career-changers who are interested in employment opportunities within QIS but may not have known how to access them,” said Kimberly McGuire, career fair co-organizer and chief operating officer for C2QA. “Hosting this event virtually allowed it to be the largest and most accessible QIS career fair in the United States. It gave participants the ability to connect directly with hiring managers from national labs, academia, and industry, regardless of their respective locations. The large number of registrants speaks volumes; there’s a significant interest in joining the quantum workforce and it’s clear that we need to get the word out if we want to successfully fill the research, technician, and support roles that will advance this field even further.”

The event drew in nearly 1,000 registrants, 100 more than the previous year, and about half of those who registered attended—about 150 more than the previous year. About three-quarters of the attendees were students (27 percent undergrads and 39 percent graduate students) and postdocs (10 percent). To cater to the diverse makeup of attendees, several panels and breakout sessions were tailored to students and professionals of all levels and backgrounds, including sessions for candidates seeking technician and non-STEM roles in QIS.

“DOE has invested millions of dollars in quantum information science, giving the NQISRCs a unique opportunity to contribute to solutions for some of the biggest quantum challenges,” said Andrew Houck, C2QA director. “For us to rise to these challenges, it will take innovative contributions from a diverse candidate pool. Their talent, experience, and ideas are key to building the QIS workforce of both today and the future.”

“There was diverse representation from speakers, panelists, and attendees from across the QIS ecosystem on our agenda,” said McGuire. “We had participation from the DOE Office of Science, the White House, and the Quantum Economic Development Consortium (QED-C) as well as from the national labs, academia, and industry. It gave attendees a good sense of the QIS landscape and help them seek internships and jobs that best match their career goals.”

Panels and discussions were researched and thoughtfully curated based on feedback from students, professionals, and experts in preparation for the event. There was something for everyone on the agenda, from introductory talks aimed at undergrads exploring the field, to more focused presentations appealing to those that are more experienced in the field.

“We came up with some really unique programming that engaged students directly in topics they were most interested in,” remarked Jake Douglass, operations deputy director for Quantum Systems Accelerator (QSA) and member of the QIS career fair planning team. “By working with students across the five NQISRCs to identify meaningful programming, utilizing pre-event surveys, and jointly supporting planning and outreach efforts, we were able to reach a broad audience and prepare material and programming that directly met student needs.”

C2QA’s Virtual Exhibitor Booth.

Virtual exhibitor booths got quite a bit of action, racking in 4,537 visits in total through the duration of the event. Industry leaders, including Amazon, IBM, and Rigetti Computing, presented alongside national laboratories, like Brookhaven National Laboratory and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and academic institutions, like Harvard, Purdue, and University of Illinois. These are just a few of the 27 booths comprising the virtual exhibitor floor. Using the vFairs online platform, participating institutions reached a large, broad candidate pool, bringing in more than 100 job applications directly through the platform during the career fair. Candidates directly engaged with hiring managers through the exhibit booths and virtual networking lounges and were informed about current openings and opportunities.

The QIS Career Fair underscored DOE’s mission to strengthen recruitment, retention, and promotion while removing inequitable barriers to workforce opportunities by providing a pathway for those in underrepresented communities to attend. A significant number of students and postdocs represented Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), including North Carolina A&T State University, University of Illinois Chicago, Coppin State University, and CUNY Bronx Community College. During the planning process, an important goal of the NQISRCs was to ensure direct access to hiring managers for these communities.

This event could not have been possible without the cooperation of the five NQISRCs, the time and effort volunteered by all panelists and moderators, and the coordination of Diana Murphy, C2QA’s former head of Outreach, Education, & Workforce Development (OEWD), and Kimberly McGuire.

With plans already underway for the fall 2023 QIS career fair, the goal for that next gathering will be to expand the visibility and access to students in community and four-year colleges and universities, technicians, non-STEM support roles, and professionals interested in making a career change and applying their skills to the quantum workforce. By showcasing the passion, progress, and potential that drives experts in QIS to achieve amazing things, these career fairs aim to inspire and aid the quantum workforce of the future.

Brookhaven National Laboratory is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy. The Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit science.energy.gov.

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How to find good sources for a research paper or a term paper and determine its reliability

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Finding a source of literature for writing any research paper, whether it is an abstract or a monograph, is not a problem. You can easily find the original works of Cicero and Nietzsche thanks to the same Internet. However, it is just as easy to find what Cicero and Nietzsche allegedly once said. Can you feel the difference?

While preparing college research papers, you will need to pay as much attention to finding sources of information as you do to paper writing itself. Often students do not know how to determine which sources of information are trustworthy and which are worth skipping. Therefore, students need help writing my paper service to write a good research paper. With the experienced writers’ help, you’ll get through your college writing assignment faster. Feel free to contact experts when you need help with your academic papers.

In this article, we will tell you what sources you can use in your term and dissertation, what kinds of them exist, and how to find a reliable list of literature.

Source requirements for a term paper

Finding literature for a term paper is not the easiest task. After all, students always have a question about how to determine good sources on the Internet or in the library. Agree, it is unseemly to use in a scientific work what is fiction or dubious conclusions of a person who has absolutely no weight in scientific circles. Therefore, it is always important to check the citation authenticity and the author’s professional reputation also.

How can you check the authenticity of a quotation? There are two ways. The first is to go to the library and find the exact source. The second is to type the quote into Google in quotation marks. For example: “cogito ergo sum”. The search engine will give you results that are for this exact phrase.

It is worth remembering that literary sources have certain requirements:

  1. Use as many sources as possible. Universities often set minimum figures for different types of work. Choose modern monographs, popular scientific sources, and the latest editions of normative acts: the literature should not be older than five years.
  2. Make a selection only of the literature that corresponds to the topic of the term or thesis.
  3. Take into account different types of sources for the term paper: thematic monographs, encyclopedias, scientific articles, journals, and electronic sites. Textbooks and textbooks can be used, but not as the main sources.
  4. It is advisable to include several foreign literary sources on the topic.
  5. Always check that literary sources are reliable and scholarly.
  6. What literature can be used if you are studying historical aspects? You can refer to sources older than five years if the term paper topic is justified.

So, how do you learn to discard information garbage, false facts, and speculations and be able to find reliable sources of literature for your thesis, research article, and so on? Read on and you will learn how to search for such literature.

Why it is important to find the right source on the topic

For a reference list for a term paper, it is important to look for sources that you can trust. Now you can search for literature for a term paper or diploma online. You can find almost any source on the Internet. Especially for students are relevant sites for finding literature for coursework. Due to a lack of money and time, they cannot buy the book they need for their studies. At the same time, students often perform obligatory scientific work: writing reports, and essays, solving tests, and laboratory, independent work. And here it is important to be able to successfully search for a list of references, which will allow you to do the teacher’s assignment on the excellent.

Where to find a reference list

So, where can you find a list of reliable literature:

  • go to the university library;
  • ask your thesis advisor to pick up a list of literature on the topic;
  • study monographs on the topic, and especially lists of references;
  • to search for research papers and articles in verified Internet resources.

Methods for assessing source credibility: how to find the sourc

How to find the right literature? To do this, you will have to learn how to determine the credibility of information, which you can easily use not only in everyday life but also in scientific papers.

There are two main methods for this:

  1. The method of evaluating sources for scholarly papers.
  2. The method for evaluating sources for everyday life.

Let’s take a closer look at each of them.

Method for evaluating sources for research papers

Before you find a reference list online, follow this algorithm of actions:

  1. Find out the academic standards for your paper. Some types of papers have more serious requirements, while others have only light guidelines attached to them, such as newspaper or magazine articles.
  • Find out about the author’s reputation. In any field of knowledge, there are names whose fame is unshakable. The main thing here is not the lack of reputation, but the absence of a bad reputation for the author. Today it is not difficult to find scandals on the Internet in which certain scientists have been involved.
  • Mention those sources that will be essential to the scholarly work. It is perfectly safe to use lists of sources found in peer-reviewed or scholarly articles.
  • Be wary of online information. Such sources are in the public domain, regardless of their professionalism or skill level. Where, then, do you get your sources from the Internet?
  • Try to distinguish between scientific and non-scientific publications. Scientific publications include a presentation of new ideas, criticism of old ideas and publication of fresh data, discussion of theories, references to sources of information, and research done. Non-scientific publications may deal with a scientific topic (e.g., political science or sociology), but they are mostly created for entertainment rather than for information. They are also easily distinguished by the sources in which they are published. When working on a serious academic project, it is better to use scientific papers and articles.
  • Evaluate the timeliness of the data. Science does not stand still, theories and concepts are constantly evolving. What seemed like revolutionary approach years or months ago may be outdated and sometimes incorrect today. So always pay attention to the date of studies and publications.
  • Check with alternative opinions. If in doubt, you can always contact the department where you can find the literature and how authoritative the source of interest is. They are usually quite well-informed about the credibility of a particular author. However, you should always ask for an alternative opinion before you finish your work.

A method for everyday life: how to find sources

If you want to understand where to find a list of references used for everyday needs, you need a clear algorithm for what to do.

So, if you have a resource in front of you that needs to be evaluated for reliability, do the following:

  1. Determine the professionalism of the source. Try to estimate the amount of time and money spent on the article. In real life quite often there is a rule: the more time and money spent on the publication of the material, the higher the probability of its high credibility. Bad design, poor layout, too many ads, and spam, pop-ups – all this is a clear indicator that the resource is designed not to inform, but to make money. And if the main goal – is to make money, then they will publish what the user wants to see, but not the actual information. A good site with reliable information looks professional and serious. In this case, it is not necessarily that the creators had to pay a fortune for it.
  • Find out the name of the author of the publication. Information from any source can be trusted only if it is signed by the name of the author, who has a certain scientific status in a particular field. Articles without authorship are better to discard immediately.
  • But if you are going to emphasize the author’s name, it is worth highlighting the following points:
  • where the author works,
  • his goals and values,
  • what reputable institution he is affiliated with, and what value his work brings,
  • what kind of education he has,
  • whether he has other publications,
  • what experience the author has,
  • whether the author’s work and ideas are cited in other authoritative sources.
  • Try to determine the publication’s target audience. The broader the audience the publication is dedicated to, the more likely it is to contain contradictory and even unreliable information. It is just as harmful to us to specialized sources. People often misunderstand the essence of a publication and misinterpret information. If you do so, you risk damaging your reputation as much as you would if you used false information.

It is only at first glance that the process of determining whether a source is credible seems complicated and time-consuming. In fact, with a little practice, you’ll begin to notice the direct and indirect signs and know exactly how to find the right reference list. In the end, your work will be perfect, we believe it!

However, you can turn to the best college essay writing service if you have a desire but no time to search and write a term paper or dissertation. Experts know exactly where and how to look for reliable sources and prepare your work in time.

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How Non-Humans Are Authoring Scientific Papers

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 Though proving to be a daydream tool for many industries, ChatGPT is quickly becoming a nightmare for academia.

As of January 2023, four separate research papers have cited the AI chatbot as a co-author in a research project — forcing scientific journals to scramble to update their policies and regulations addressing possible ethical problems.

Ethical Issues

The process of adding an author who made little to no contribution to a scientific paper is called honorary authorship, and it’s caused some serious ethical issues in the past. One of the earliest of these issues occurred in the mid-1970s and involved, surprisingly, a cat.

In 1975, a University of Michigan physics professor by the name of Jack Hetherington had just finished writing a rather influential paper on changing particle behaviors at different temperatures. The paper was due to be published in Physics Review Letters, and the deadline was looming.

Unfortunately, a colleague pointed out a problem: Hetherington had referred to himself as “we” in the paper, yet he was the only author, which could cause the paper to be rejected.

So, instead of retyping the whole paper, Hetherington simply added the name of his cat, a Siamese called Chester, as a co-author.

n his book More Random Walks in Science, Hetherington explains that he created Chester’s pseudonym, F.D.C. Willard, by adding Felix domesticus (the Latin name for domestic cats) in front of Chester’s first initial. Then Hetherington slapped Chester’s father’s name, Willard, on as a surname.

Cat’s Out of the Bag

“I did not ignore completely the publicity value,” Hetherington admits in his book. “If it eventually proved to be correct, people would remember the paper more if the anomalous authorship were known.”

Hetherington’s theory turned out to be correct. Not only did the paper become widely cited, but eventually the world found out about Chester’s authorship — arousing even more publicity.

While the University of Michigan leveraged this attention, even offering Chester a faculty position as a Distinguished Visiting Fellow, others were not as thrilled. The editors at Physics Review Letters, for one, felt misled and silly for publishing a paper co-authored by a cat.

The ethical controversy was mostly overlooked at the time, however, and Chester went on to co-author two more papers and one solo paper before passing away in 1982 at the age of 14. His Google Scholar profile shows around 104 citations of his papers.

To honor Chester’s legacy, on April 1, 2014, the American Physical Society announced an open-access initiative for all cat-authored papers.

Pet Authorship

Chester’s story is just one of a handful in which scientists have added a pet or animal test subject as a co-author.

Nobel Prize winner Andre Geim co-authored a paper (not his Nobel-winning publication) with an author suspiciously named “H.A.M.S. ter Trisha.” While the paper did not disclose Trisha’s contributions, Geim still was able to add his pet hamster as an honorary author.

Others have not been as lucky. Immunologist Polly Matzinger published a paper with her dog, Galadriel Mirkwood, as an honorary author in the Journal of Experimental Immunology in 1978.

Upon finding out the truth, the journal’s editor banned Matzinger from publication until the editor died. She also became the subject of an internal investigation at the University of California San Diego.

Luckily, Matzinger was able to show that her dog had indeed contributed to her research and that no fraud had been committed.

Though this example supposes that animal test subjects have more of a right to be listed as co-author on a paper than a mere pet, Hansrudi Lenz of the University of Würzburg argues this practice is unethical.

“Logically, a pet or deceased relative cannot make a genuine and identifiable contribution to a scientific publication,” he says.

Honorary Authorship

The whimsy of these stories can easily obstruct the ethical dilemmas they cause, yet the process of honorary authorship — even beyond pets — continues, thanks to the pressure scientists feel to continually publish.

In a 2020 study, Mariola Paruzel-Czachura of the University of Silesia in Poland and her team found that the most common form of scientific misconduct reported is honorary authorship, with 52 percent of the study’s participants observing this process.

It could be some kind of bribe,” Parazel-Czachura says, offering a possible reason for such a high percentage. “It could help a researcher get a better job, or funding for a conference. It could even be a partnership, where both researchers agree to add each other as honorary authors.”

This, however, causes problems with authorship inflation, in which an author’s number of citations is higher than it should be because they seem to have “published” more papers.

AI Writers

Now, with the information age and all it brings (looking at you, ChatGPT), it’s even easier for researchers to practice honorary co-authorship. Because of this, most scholarly journals are finding it more difficult to regulate AI co-authors.

“We’re trying to take the most cautious approach that we can,” says H. Holden Thorp, the editor-in-chief of Science. “We’ll start with something more restrictive and then loosen it up over time.”

In a January 2023 Science editorial, Thorp cites a couple of these policy changes — including a complete ban on the use of any part of the text, images, figures or graphics made by ChatGPT or other AI tools.

Thorp, like others, hopes that the National Academy of Sciences will address this issue soon, in order to set the precedent of dealing with an AI honorary author.

The path moving forward may lie, in fact, in a paper published by researchers from the University of Cologne in Germany, way back in 2017. They write: “The appropriate way of considering [others’] factual role in scientific publications should generally be in the Acknowledgements section.”

The authors then went on to thank their goldfish, Einstein and Heisenberg, in this very section.

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