Research Tips and Tricks: Online Workshop

25 May 2021. 

Dear Postgraduate Students,

It is my pleasure and honour to welcome you to this workshop especially organized for you by the Sidney Martin Library. I first thank Ms Toppin, Officer in Charge and Ms Wood, the moderator of today’s workshop, for inviting me to deliver these opening remarks. On behalf of the School for Graduate School and Research, I fully support this initiative and encourage you, dear PG Students, to benefit from this workshop as an informative and practical tool for your personal journey. I am impressed by the topics covered during the following two hours: a) Identify and use relevant sources to find resources for topic, b) Develop appropriate search strategies to find relevant resources, c) Evaluate resources using standard criteria appropriate for types.

In other words, this workshop is all about research. I can define research as an intellectual and practical activity in order to obtain precise result through determined method or investigation. What makes one a specialist in an area is not the quantity of knowledge one has, but the capacity to find the material appropriate to solve a question. This capacity enables one to discover the unknown from the already known. What will make you specialists in your areas of research is not what you copied from your courses but what you discovered through your own work and endeavour. It is therefore important to identify and use relevant sources to find resources for topic.

Allow me please to give a personal testimony. When I was a student at the university of Fribourg in Switzerland, the first thing our lecturer of Introduction to Literary Method told us, was to go to the library and try to find material for a specific topic. When we came back, none of us had identified the most important source of literary research. It was a bibliography written by a German librarian called Otto Klapp: Bibliographie der Französischen Literaturwissenschaften, annual account of all books and articles on French Literature. This book later became and remained my main reference for all my academic works and publications. I am nowadays Professor of Francophone African and Caribbean Literature, but I never had a course, not even one, on African and Caribbean Literature at the University of Fribourg. I learnt French Literature, but my passion was Francophone African and Caribbean Literature in French, which was not offered. I had to dig my holes by myself through my work in libraries. The library was the place where I found all the material I needed for my research and scholarly publications. My whole career was built on some basic but efficient tips/tricks learnt from the beginning of my training.

I am not saying that the courses taught by lecturers are not important; they are very important, essential parts of your training but they need to be reinforced by personal commitment to use them efficiently, wisely. The library is here to provide you with the material in all forms, that the course can refer to but maybe not make available to you within the 30 hours of a semester teaching. I am emphasizing that what you discover by yourself remains with/in you, sometimes longer than what you heard in class. Please contact the librarians whenever you need their assistance; they will be happy to serve you.

Whereas I am congratulating Ms Toppin and Ms Wood for this training session, I would like to end these remarks by encouraging you to take advantage of the instructions prepared for you by the Library, and wishing you a successful and insightful workshop. Learn please to use the library resources, avoid plagiarism, produce works of your own by mastering the rules, tools, methods and ethical practices in your area of specialization. I thank you.