Hanoi University

English Department

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

Supervisor:
Students:
Class:

Hanoi, May 2013

Do Thi Thu Trang

Vo Ngoc Anh
Nguyen Minh Thu
4A11

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

Acknowledgments
We would like to express our very great appreciation to Mrs. Do Thi Thu
Trang, our research supervisor, for her patient guidance, constructive suggestions and
useful critiques of this research work.
We wish to thank second-year students of English Department for their
support and contribution to our questionnaire.
Finally, our grateful thanks are also extended to our classmates for their
enthusiastic participation in our pilot survey.

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

Abstract
We conducted this survey in order to determine the difficulties students may
face when conducting secondary research and how they overcome them. The subject
we focused on was second-year English majors at Hanoi University. To get the result,
a questionnaire was designed and fifty copies of it were delivered to students in about
a week. The data collected showed that the majority of students considered
Availability of printed materials and Reliability of online sources their biggest
difficulties. However, the responses suggested that the participants did come up with
some solutions to deal with these problems which were similar to those provided in
the questionnaire and they appeared quite effective. In particular, most of the students
chose Scheduling research tasks and Examining the reputation of publisher and the
author to be the best ways to cope with difficulties related to finding sources.
Additionally, the results pointed out that Paraphrasing was the most effective solution
to avoid making mistakes related to plagiarism.

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

Contents
Acknowledgments

Abstract

Contents

I.

Introduction

II.

Methods

III.
1.

Results and analysis

Printed sources

1.1.

Level of difficulties

1.2.

The greatest difficulties with availability and relevancy

1.3.

Solutions

2.

The greatest difficulty and evaluation of electronic sources

3.

Methods to avoid plagiarism

11

Conclusion

12

IV.

References

14

Appendix

15

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS
I.

Introduction
Secondary research is an integral part of writing. It is stated that in the

information age, learning often involves research (Dietsch, 2006, p. 422). However,
many students still face a number of difficulties while collecting information for
secondary research and therefore, it is important to understand more about these
difficulties as well as how to resolve them. A book by Peterson (2000) introduced the
methods to obtain, evaluate and organize information for secondary research. Another
researcher, Dietsch (2006) offered a quite complete study on the same subject.
Nonetheless, these researchers only gave a general background of finding and using
sources in secondary research and did not focus on investigating the practicality of
these methods to university students. In our research, we mainly concentrate on
second year students of English Department at Hanoi University to find out what
difficulties they have when finding and using sources for secondary research and how
to overcome them.
II. Methods
In order to collect the data for our research, a questionnaire was considered as
the best tool to obtain a large amount of information in a short length of time. Our
questionnaire contained nine questions divided into three parts. The first part was to
identify the types of document that students use in their research. The second part was
to find out the difficulties as well as solutions to the difficulties students had while
finding sources for secondary research. Finally, the third part was to learn about the
methods used to avoid plagiarism, which was considered an ever-present problem at
universities (The problem of plagiarism, n.d.).
Before doing a real survey, we had a sample survey in our class for one day.
As we collected the questionnaires back, we realized a number of issues in part two

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

and three. After making several modifications, we had a complete questionnaire and
then conducted a real survey. In one week, we delivered questionnaire to fifty students
from three different classes. All of them are second-year English majors at Hanoi
University. Fortunately, all questionnaires returned were appropriate.
The next step is analyzing data. For every question with the exception of
question number 2, we counted the number of students choosing each option. This
number signified the popularity of an answer among the students. For question
number 2, we recorded the ranking each student gave to a number of options. Based
on the ranking, we would find out the level of difficulties.
III.

Results and analysis

1. Printed sources

1.1. Findings of the level of difficulties students have when finding printed sources
Table 1
Level of difficulties
Difficulty

Time management

Availability

Relevancy

14%

61%

25%

11%

33%

53%

75%

6%

22%

Rank

Table 1 represents the level of difficulties that students faced when finding
printed materials. As can be seen, 61% of students working on printed sources agreed
that Availability of published documents was the greatest difficulty and Relevancy of
materials was chosen to be the second factor that hindered the process of gathering
data with 53% of the respondents. It is possible to infer that the majority of Hanoi
University students had trouble acquiring useful physical documents and were often

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

unable to obtain a sufficient amount of printed material needed for their research. On
the contrary, despite the fact 89% of students stated that they had spent two weeks or
more on gathering data when asked, Time management was the most popular choice
for the least difficulty, being chosen by 75% of the subjects. However, this result
contrasts to a previous study by Walker (1984), which deemed limiting the amount of
time spent on finding and reading articles and books to be the greatest difficulty.
Overall, it seems that students could well manage the time to complete the
assignments and meet the deadline.
1.2. Findings of the greatest difficulty with availability and relevancy of printed
sources
A: Insufficient amount
of material
B: Material being
borrowed
C: Excessive amount of
material

Figure 1. Greatest difficulty with availability of printed sources

As revealed in the Figure 1, the combination of an insufficient amount of
material and material being borrowed was the greatest difficulty with availability of
printed sources, making up 48% of the total percentage. This response seems to
contradict Petersons statement that there was a wide range of physical documents
accessible to researchers in public places beside the library in the campus (2000).
While most of the students met both obstacles, 5% of them had to deal with only one

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

problem that was the materials needed have been borrowed by others. The situation
may commonly occur when several groups conduct research on the same topic.
There were 42% of students found that they could not develop their arguments
in the research further because of the shortage of materials. On the other hand, 5% of
the students pointed out an excessive amount of material as their main concern. These
two opposing ideas may be resulted from the chosen topics or different ways of
searching for information. Specifically, it would be more difficult to find suitable
materials for topics which are too general or related to unfamiliar matters.
Additionally, relying only on the sources of the library in campus without considering
other outside sources may be one of the reasons that students cannot find enough
information for their papers. Hence, students should apply proper methods so as to
keep the process manageable.

Figure 2. Greatest difficulty with relevancy of printed sources

Figure 2 displays the greatest difficulty that Hanoi University second English
majors had with relevancy of printed sources. It can be observed that 44% of the
students using printed sources found materials oversimplified and too technical. Such
documents providing unclear details, as suggested by Dietsch (2006), should not be

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

counted as reference. Furthermore, 28% of the students responded that the

information collected was no longer valid and, consequently, was not likely to be
included in those papers whose topics require updated data. In addition, unreliable
data made up 20% of the total percentage and finally, biased material came last with
8%, which might not strongly support Dietschs point that most articles showing the
opposing viewpoints about one issue often slanted in favor of one side (2006). In
short, the results show that many students had difficulty collecting proper and detailed
information to sustain their papers and they are likely to enhance Dietschs opinion
that several sources could be inappropriate for academic papers (2006).
1.3. Findings of the solutions for difficulties with printed sources
Table 2
Solutions to difficulties with printed sources
Neither
Strongly
agree
Strongly
Agree
Disagree
Agree
nor
disagree
disagree
Scheduling research tasks

25%

50%

25%

0%

0%

Find topics that make it easier to

access available sources

22%

47%

31%

0%

0%

A brief overview in the library

14%

50%

19%

17%

0%

Ask the librarians for help

0%

14%

36%

39%

11%

The table indicates students opinion about some solutions to the difficulties of
finding printed sources. As can be seen, scheduling research tasks and finding topics
with accessible sources were likely to be chosen as the effective ways to avoid getting
trouble in the gathering data process, with 75% backing up the former and 69%
agreeing and strongly agreeing with the latter. Surprisingly, both of the solutions did
not face any disagreement, which probably defends the suggestion that a schedule
should be made in order to have time spending on doing research well managed as

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

well as organize the works thoroughly to stay on track with the deadlines (Clouse,
2008). Moreover, Clouse (2008) also stated that there were some topics which were
not suitable for a research paper and should have been avoided.
On the other hand, while being supported by 64% of the students, 17% of the
total percentage did not consider a brief overview in library as a solution against
obtaining irrelevant material. Therefore, it can be assumed that although this
suggestion was helpful to the majority of students, there were still some who did not
share the same sentiment. In addition, there was not any student who strongly agreed
that asking librarians for information was helpful, whereas about 50% of them
showed disagreement including strong opposition (11%). The students opinion,
however, is not the same as one of Axelrod and Cooper stating that experienced
librarians were able to answer questions related to accessing materials (1991).
2. Findings of the greatest difficulty with electronic sources and methods
to evaluate electronic sources

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

10

Figure 3. Difficulties in collecting online materials

Figure 3 includes information about the greatest difficulty students have with
electronic sources. As be shown in the figure, Reliability was the most students
concerned factor which accounted for nearly 40%. A large number of people, 28%,
thought that Instructors limitation on online materials made it difficult to pick up
data, and less than a third took Quality factor into consideration. A study by Dietsch
(2006) suggested that the primary concerns for researchers were reliability and
quality. While it was true about Reliability, Quality only ranked third in this research
(approximately 23%). Furthermore, students may have trouble obtaining online
sources as some databases charged money in exchange for information (Dietsch,
2006). The results and findings, however, prove that the majority of students did not
meet this trouble as there were only about 10% of the total students who believed
Costly subscription to be their greatest difficulty.

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

11

Figure 4. Online sources evaluation

Several methods to evaluate online sources are demonstrated in figure 4. As
can be seen, 39% of students examined the reputation of the publisher, which backs
up Clouses suggestion on inspecting the authors grade of position (2008). There
were 33% of students compared the online contents with that gained from scholarly
sources in the library. Moreover, Noticing the tones and Noticing the dates made up of
14% of the total responses each. Overall, it seems that though the evaluations are not
various, HANU students still could manage to keep the quality of online materials
under control.
3. Findings of methods to avoid plagiarism

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Figure 5. Methods to avoid plagiarism

As appeared on the chart above, many students chose to paraphrase the
information taken from the references, which took up nearly a half of the total
percentage. This was followed by Quotation, which was used by 28% of the students
and was Summarization, which stood at 25%. Additionally, there were surprisingly no
extra solutions to avoid plagiarism provided when students were asked, which
inferred that most of second- year majors may find the three ways above were
effective enough to help them prevent plagiarism. In short, the result collected, to
some extents, illustrated the solutions chosen by HANU students when documenting
the materials as well as backs up Roigs statement that there were often paraphrasing
and summarizing of others work in scholarly writing (n.d.).
IV.

Conclusion
On the whole, the majority of second-year students faced certain difficulties

when carrying out secondary research. Surprisingly, although Time management was
believed to be the greatest difficulty by previous researchers, it was actually

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

13

Availability which affected Hanoi University students the most. It was also indicated
that Reliability was the most challenged extent for those who chose to use online
materials. Moreover, most of the solutions suggested to deal with those obstacles as
well as to avoid plagiarism seemed to be effective. Nevertheless, it should be noted
that this study has examine only fifty students of English Department and we, the
researchers, were short on time and experience. Under the said circumstances, the
results might not be appropriate. Despite these limitations, our study has partly shown
current difficulties and ways of coping with these difficulties while conducting
secondary research of Hanoi University students. From these results that we have
found, another research of the effects of these difficulties on the students writing
processes and final products is necessary, since this point was not explained in our
research.

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

14

References

Appendix
Questionnaire
We are students of English Department, Hanoi University. This questionnaire
is being conducted as a part of our primary research. The purpose of this
questionnaire is to investigate the difficulties that second- year English major
students face when finding and using sources for the secondary research as well as
the ways they overcome them. We would be extremely grateful for your honesty in
answering these questions. All responses will remain anonymous. Thank you for your
cooperation.

I. Section 1:
1. What kind of sources do you use when conducting secondary research?
Please check the appropriate box(es). You can choose more than one option.

Printed sources (e.g. books, magazines, etc.) (answer questions in 2A)

Electronic sources (e.g. online articles, etc.) (answer questions 2B)
Others (please clarify:
..)
(skip section 2)

II. Section 2:
2A. Printed Sources

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

15

2. Please indicate the level of difficulty by putting 1 next to your greatest

difficulty through to 3 for your least difficulty.
____ Time management
____ Availability of the documents
____ Relevancy of materials
3. How much time do you need to gather data?
A. 1 week
B. 2 weeks
C. More than 2 weeks

4. What problem do you have with availability of the documents?

Choose one of the following answers.
A. There are not enough materials on your topic.
B. Materials have already been borrowed.
C. Both answers A & B
D. Others (please clarify:
..)
5. What is the greatest difficulty that you have with relevancy of the documents?
Choose one of the following answers.
A. They are outdated.
B. They are overly simplified, or too technical.
C. They are not reliable.
D. They are biased.
6. How do you do to overcome those difficulties related to finding printed
sources?
Put a tick () on the agreement scale for each solution.

Solutions

Scheduling research tasks

helps overcome difficulty
with time management.

Strongly
Agree

Agree

Neither
agree nor
disagree

Disagree

Strongly
disagree

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS

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Find topics that make it

easier to access the
available sources.
A brief preview in the
library will avoid lugging
home irrelevant materials.
Ask the librarians for help.

2B. Electronic Sources

7. What is the greatest difficulty that you face when collecting data from electric
sources?
Choose one of the following answers.
A. Reliability
B. Quality
C. Costly subscription
D. Instructors limitation for online materials

8. How do you evaluate your online sources?

Please check the appropriate box(es). You can choose more than one option.

Examine the reputation of the publisher and the author

Compare the contents with that gained from scholarly sources in the
library
Notice the tone
Notice dates

III. Section 3
9. What do you do to avoid plagiarism?
Please check the appropriate box(es). You can choose more than one option.

Paraphrase
Summarization
Quotation
Others (please clarify: .)

DIFFICULTIES WHEN FINDING AND USING SOURCES FOR

SECONDARY RESEARCH AND SOLUTIONS
This is the end of the questionnaire.
Thanks for your participation!

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