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spence

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I think this is pretty poor practice for an educational institution. I pay 50c/GB on my residential connection so I assume they'd get it quite a bit cheaper than that.



Really? The majority of research that you perform derives from USYD published material or content that they have gained permission to host on their servers? I would have thought referencing wikipedia, independent sites specialising on the subject and popular/professional releases/breakthroughs on 3rd party sites would prevail or at least provide a significant segment of material that aids such research.
The vast majority of things you'll need for research come from databases, because that's where you get basically all academic papers
 

Jennt

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I would have thought referencing wikipedia, independent sites specialising on the subject and popular/professional releases/breakthroughs on 3rd party sites would prevail or at least provide a significant segment of material that aids such research.
lol, just lol, at referencing Wikipedia...

No way I could get away with that for a science paper...
 

ClockworkSoldier

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Maybe I could understand 50c a GB, but $20 a GB!?!?

That's criminal! Especially over cable etc. that they'd be on, they'd be making like... 200 percent profit.
 

terminator69

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lol, just lol, at referencing Wikipedia...

No way I could get away with that for a science paper...
I didn't mean formal referencing, so what is involved in the act of glancing at wikipedia that would be so detrimental to your science paper?
 

Andi0390

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I didn't mean formal referencing, so what is involved in the act of glancing at wikipedia that would be so detrimental to your science paper?
Last year at a university we were at we had a "library lesson" on referencing. They basically encouraged us never to even look at wikipedia. Not even a glance. They even made a pamphlet on the evils of wikipedia.

They encouraged us to instead use "online academic encyclopedias" or something like that which were generally compiled specifically for a subject area. I know there were a fair few philosophy ones that were pretty good.

I think you'll find that pretty much 95% of your referencing will come from journal databases and library books. This will be accessible without incurring the extra costs. There aren't that many circumstances that I have come across where I have needed to use external sites. The problem with them is that unless you are using something to back up something incredibly relevant to the outside source (ie. I think I used something of the Centrelink website to show that there were indigenous social welfare schemes in Australia) most websites are not really considered reliable enough to source.

The only time you would ever quote Wikipedia is if your essay is on something like "public encyclopedias".

Yeah $20 a GB isn't great. Thats actually what I pay for my mobile broadband right now at home for all my internet usage. Really though, it is not terrible. If you only using it for academic purposes it should last you a semester, if not a year and $20 a year is nothing.
 

terminator69

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Last year at a university we were at we had a "library lesson" on referencing. They basically encouraged us never to even look at wikipedia. Not even a glance. They even made a pamphlet on the evils of wikipedia.

They encouraged us to instead use "online academic encyclopedias" or something like that which were generally compiled specifically for a subject area. I know there were a fair few philosophy ones that were pretty good.

I think you'll find that pretty much 95% of your referencing will come from journal databases and library books. This will be accessible without incurring the extra costs. There aren't that many circumstances that I have come across where I have needed to use external sites. The problem with them is that unless you are using something to back up something incredibly relevant to the outside source (ie. I think I used something of the Centrelink website to show that there were indigenous social welfare schemes in Australia) most websites are not really considered reliable enough to source.

The only time you would ever quote Wikipedia is if your essay is on something like "public encyclopedias".

Yeah $20 a GB isn't great. Thats actually what I pay for my mobile broadband right now at home for all my internet usage. Really though, it is not terrible. If you only using it for academic purposes it should last you a semester, if not a year and $20 a year is nothing.
Thank you for that reply. From what you've said, I guess I could conclude that any work or publication derived from a high school student would be severely lacking in credibility.
 

KarmaKitten

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lol, just lol, at referencing Wikipedia...

No way I could get away with that for a science paper...
Yes. I think that was the highlight of this thread for me. lawl wikepedia referencing. What a great way to get your essay thrashed by the marker.
 

sinophile

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Last year at a university we were at we had a "library lesson" on referencing. They basically encouraged us never to even look at wikipedia. Not even a glance. They even made a pamphlet on the evils of wikipedia.

They encouraged us to instead use "online academic encyclopedias" or something like that which were generally compiled specifically for a subject area. I know there were a fair few philosophy ones that were pretty good.


I think you'll find that pretty much 95% of your referencing will come from journal databases and library books. This will be accessible without incurring the extra costs. There aren't that many circumstances that I have come across where I have needed to use external sites. The problem with them is that unless you are using something to back up something incredibly relevant to the outside source (ie. I think I used something of the Centrelink website to show that there were indigenous social welfare schemes in Australia) most websites are not really considered reliable enough to source.
Hm, very interesting. Care to throw me a link, or name or something?
 

KarmaKitten

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Hm, very interesting. Care to throw me a link, or name or something?
I'm assuming he/she is referring to online academic journals. They can usually be found on your university's library website. There would be hundreds/thousands of journals and you can browse through topic etc etc.

i.e if you went to USYD, they can be found here
 

Andi0390

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Hm, very interesting. Care to throw me a link, or name or something?
Most of them you need to be able to use through the proxy of the university, they aren't free.

One free one I was told about at uni was Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy . There are a fair few around I think, but I only really know about the Philosophy ones, as that is all I have had to use. This is the only free one I know, check it out if you want, its easy to search for things and give you basic background knowledge that you can build your research on. It can be a good first stop. This one I believe is still under development, but it will give you an idea what I am talking about.

Most subjects have a library lesson where they'll show you what resources you can use to conduct your research, they don't just throw you in the deep end :)
 

Trebla

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Unless you're always downloading movies or something, I think 6MB per day is sufficient if you're actually researching. Also, I'm not sure about this, but I think the 6MB per day accumulates over time if it is unused, then after some time it will reset.
Also, there are some computers at USYD which actually do not have this restriction at all (i.e. fully free internet and free printing) and those are often specific for a certain area of study or a lab. Alternatively, get yourself a laptop and wireless internet.

The uni computers should really be used for uni purposes most of the time. You have no idea how annoying it gets when some people sitting on the computers are just playing games and facebooking when the computer labs are packed and many people are queuing to do their assignments.
 

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