That's it, folks – the 23 Research Things for 2020 have come to an end. We hope you've enjoyed reading the posts as much as we have editing them....

With most journal articles available in a digital format, using an online tool to manage referencing, and the sources you accumulate for your research interests and academic writing projects, can save a lot of time. But how exactly do these tools work, and how do you pick one? Kat Frame and Kathryn Lindsay build on the 2017 Thing post on …

Managing your files effectively is important for lots of reasons. It can help you meet the expectations of journals and funders, enable reproducibility, defend against accusations of fraud or breaches of research integrity, and ensure your files can be preserved and reused in future. Not only that, it can save you time and tears! In this post Gene Melzack shares …

So you've found your next project and can’t wait to get started – but have you thought about how you’ll manage your research data? Good data management is important for your own research practice and the broader research community. In this post Peter Neish shares some tips on how to wrangle your research data....

Writing a systematic review can seem daunting, and trying to figure out what research has been done on a particular topic can leave you scratching your head. To help get you started, Patrick Condron revisits his 2017 Thing post to walk you through the systematic review landscape....

A key skill for being an effective researcher is knowing how to wrangle the literature and finding the most relevant resources for your purpose. In this post Sarah Charing introduces tools and tips that will turn you into a pro-searcher in no time....

For many disciplines, research requires teamwork – from short literature reviews to large scale projects. Coordinating tasks and people can be challenging, especially if your team is working remotely or scattered across institutions, labs, or even continents. In this post, Tom Hyde and Vebica Evans showcase a number of tools to make your life easier....

The ever-increasing number of online survey tools available make designing, circulating, and processing questionnaires relatively easy. With a shift to online interaction for research and teaching, the need for quality online survey tools is greater than ever. In this post, Bronwyn Disseldorp and David Ormiston-Smith discuss and compare two online tools recommended for research purposes, both with some excellent sophisticated …

Data visualisations can be a powerful way of synthesising your research and representing it in a way that’s understandable. Visualisations may take the form of charts or graphs, diagrams, images, animations, or infographics. They can be effective for communicating complex research, even to a non-expert audience. In this post, Gene Melzack introduces data visualisation as a way to make your …

Are you a researcher working on text-based projects? Ever tried to make sense of all those social media posts, or analyse a long and complex literary text? Wrangling large volumes of text can be a challenge, so in this post Kim Doyle introduces text mining concepts and tools to make this task easier....

Ever stop to think about how the apps on your mobile phone or tablet receive and exchange data over the Internet? The next time you check your Facebook app, look for directions using Google maps, or do your online banking, chances are these are all happening using an Application Programming Interface (or API for short). In this post, Greg D’Arcy demystifies the wonderful world of APIs. ...

“By making my PhD thesis Open Access, I hope to inspire people around the world to look up at the stars and not down at their feet; to wonder about our place in the universe and to try and make sense of the cosmos.” (Stephen Hawking on the release of his 1966 PhD thesis) Once upon a time, theses could be found …

In recent years there has been shift away from ‘traditional’ impact metrics (such as citation counts), in favour of an increased focus on identifying and assessing the real-world impact of research. This is often referred to as the ‘impact agenda’. In this post Kristijan Causovski, Justin Shearer, and Joann Cattlin investigate different types of impact, and how integrate them to …

Taking some time to manage your online presence as a researcher can make you more visible to the people who need or want to know about you. How would a recruiter, principle investigator, journalist or conference organiser know how to find you? Having a plan to manage your online visibility is a good idea, so in this post Christina Ward and Dr …

Social media can be a powerful tool for networking and raising your research profile. Its conversational style fosters open, informal professional connections and enables engagement with broader communities of interest. In this post, Andrea Hurt and Lisa O’Sullivan introduce the ‘big three’ social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. ...

Blogs allow researchers to engage with a broad audience, including other researchers, in a less formal and more open way than traditional academic publishing. They provide an avenue to publish both research stories and expert commentary. In this post, Jonathan O’Donnell shares some insights gained from his popular blog Research Whisperer, which he co-writes with Tseen Khoo. ...

There has been a resurgence in the popularity of podcasts in recent years, largely due to their ability to convey information in a short, engaging and entertaining way. Podcasts allow your expert knowledge to be discovered by a broad audience, while raising your profile within a particular research community. Good podcasts are equally entertaining and informative, offering a great opportunity for storytelling. …

Our rapidly changing world has modified the way we choose, consume, and digest stories – and the way we tell them is also shifting. The general public have become storytellers, acquiring a new power as content creators. COVID-19 has enhanced that: in isolation, stories from around the world create a global sense of interconnectedness. In this post, Mariona Guiu Pont looks to the future of digital storytelling and explores some of the ways …

In Thing 5 we discussed how you can find images that can be used in your work. In this follow-on post, Julie Cohen, Sophie Kollo and Ben Kreunen explore how to manage your images once you have collected them. ...

Many of you will be relying on images to illustrate and enhance your research, but knowing how to find and responsibly use images can be tricky. In this post, Julie Cohen, Ruth McConchie, and Wil Villareal demystify the process.  ...

Ready to publish but not sure where to start? You’re not alone! To help you find the right journal or publisher for your research, in this post Gerry Fahey and Kathryn Lindsay introduce a number of tools you can use to investigate and compare the options available....

In response to the current COVID-19 crisis, a lot of research formerly locked behind paywalls has been made available freely. But open scholarship shouldn’t rely on a pandemic – whether you already have publications, or are planning to publish, making your work available through open access may help with increased discoverability and wider dissemination. In this post, Dimity Flanagan outlines …

When starting your research project, you’ll be asked to think about and define your research method(s). There are lots of approaches, and it can feel overwhelming choosing the right one for you. To help with your decision making, you can find overviews of approaches in Sage Research Methods. But what exactly are research methods? And with so many options available, …

Indigenous knowledge systems represent the oldest and longest continuing forms of knowledge production in this country. Indigenous knowledge holders are the first scientists, philosophers, and thinkers, but there has been limited engagement with Indigenous knowledge systems and limited recognition of the expertise of Indigenous knowledge holders by research institutions and universities. This is changing. Last year, the University of Melbourne …