You must minimally have a References section with one reference in it: The place where you first saw the first idea. In practice, the Editor {always with a capital letter} will not let you get away with that lonely little reference. So, what you do is submit in turn to Google Scholar, (1) the title of your paper {YES, I know that Scholar does not know about your paper yet. Just trust me.} (2) your keywords (3) your abstract. Somewhere out there are papers close to what you have done. So you quickly write a review of these papers to show what they have not done that should have been done. You put that into your new section, and title it “Literature Review”, {a quaint thing that all researchers seem to do}.

You “pretend” that you got it right first time {another quaint thing that all researchers seem to do}.

Thank you for your reply.

So, technically, you are telling me that it is better to "go out and find something" to put into my reference section and mention those references in a section unrelated to the problem/solution my article is dealing with/describing? Interesting.

And one more thing, just for the sake of the discussion. Suppose those other sources are not articles and that they are not books or any kind of publications, but rather solutions (programs) uploaded on other websites as hobby projects of other programmers? It might be difficult using URLs to a few websites that offer little to no explanation and definition on how their programs actually work other then a fully functional executable or web based solution?

Generally, URLs are not very popular in reference sections, and especially when they might end up being the only entries and further more when they are not really "research materials" to be mentioned in "Literature review".

Any thoughts?

Milan,

I don't know any peer reviewed journal that would accept a research article without references. I wouldn't even accept a term paper that didn't have at the very least 12 references. However, I suspect (like many of my older students) you have drawn from peer reviewed work, you just have forgotten the original sources.

Here's a stray thought or two - From what you have written I believe you writing about the development and design of computer program that you created. If you are writing about the design/creation of that application, couldn't the problem the program is attempting to solve and past solutions to it can become the focus of your peer reviewed articles? EG If the problem is one of improving data collection so strategic planning/management can be better carried out, you could cite articles that discuss the importance of data collection in decision making and planning. You could also discuss the current/past programmatic approaches to data collection and their strengths and weaknesses and how your program better addresses the weaknesses and so on.

Go there in endnote/ mendley, those software will collect automated references.

I absolutely agree with Roe Roberts. What you came up with has to be a solution to a problem that exists somewhere. If there isnt a problem, then why the solution? You should at least cite the problem(s) you are addressing.

Thank you all for your inputs.

The thing is, that the problem does exist and that there are some solutions, but as I have said, there aren't many (newer) scientific articles or research papers out there regarding it, only a few programs that address almost the same segment that I have done, but not exactly.

@Amir Ilyas, Thank you for your suggestions, I will try Endnote. I have searched Mendley, but as I've suspected there are no publications indexed regarding my topic.

I will do more research before I complete this article. Indeed, more research is needed and the program needs more optimization and work. Your inputs have already helped and are greatly appreciated.

Oh, no! Your references must not be random ramblings, but be highly correlated with your work. Trust me, you will easily find those references. They will separately relate either to your problem, your tools, your method, your techniques, your results or your application. Not collectively. In fact you can programatically dig out the keywords for each section of your paper and submit them to ACM, Xplore and Scholar, to support your case. Don't pad your references section. It is there to support your thesis-theme.

Do not be ashamed to cite a good Web site (even one which is now a dead-link). Just give appropriate and honest honour to your predecessors who may now be dead or inscrutable, but who paved the way for you. I have seen the day in my lifetime when URLs dominate. My own textbook currently has 53 URLs compared to 44 physical document references.

I support Roe, Mustapha. Stop trying to wriggle out of your researcher duties. Be prepared to show how exactly other researcher's work does not solve the research question you pose. Before you 'optimise' and try to put polish on, first go and fix your critical review of the literature. The only research you need to do now is the critical review of the literature, Web included.

Your publication date is next year. Believe me, there are publications indexed regarding aspects of your topic. You must prove to everybody, especially your referees and examiners that, to date, nobody has beaten you to the post. For, the first thing they will do is submit your title, abstract and keywords to IEEE, ACM and Scholar. Go thou and do likewise. NOW.

No, when I said that I need to find references I didn't mean to find random papers to cite, that is why I mentioned in the last post that I need to do more research and that the program will after all that research need more optimization and work. Of course that I do not intend to just sweep it under the rug or anything like that.

Links are the first thing I will try to find. Hopefully I will find those webpages that had inspired me to make this program and they will still be active. If not, the web archive will hopefully have a cached copy that I might cite.

PS. Psst. Qiqqa Sniffer will help you.

Thanks, Koen, that will rescue Milan from his awkward situation, and is good advice even for people starting their research!

Thank you. Hopefully I can complete more research and find earlier works by means of portals mentioned in the answers above. Some have already been helpful. Thanks.

I agree very much with the position that there are already out there plethora of literature and it cannot be true that the relevant information is lacking. What the reseacher must realise is that knowledge does not operate in a vacuum and his philosophical position in the development of knowledge is definitely influenced by some appropriate academic or possibly non academic document that he ever read or having being exposed to throughout his formative and adult educational life, and the truth is that the sources exist for all these pieces of information. He will definitely find enough literature if he searches hard enough. Good luck.

"Supervisors and externals are not allowed to kill students who include in their literature reviews a sentence starting, ‘A search on the internet found no previous work on this topic’. They are, however, allowed to fail students, and to write elegant, cutting comments on the offending page, which goes some way towards remedying this shortcoming in the legal system." Rugg and Petre (2004:58)

Milan, suddenly I find myself in the same problem. My ICC (innovative-creative circle) friends came up with a project to help the teachers who have difficulty drawing nice diagrams on the board for Biology, Chemistry etc.

I'm thankful I found something. I suppose it's the ICC people who often meet this problem. I will stay on this thread to get good ideas of what to do in this dilemma :)

I haven't been able to find any references still, because nothing really looks anything like my solution and there isn't really any article which describes an algorithm that has the aim to come up with the result my program does, so I don't really have anyone to cite, because it really seems that no one wrote about it. There are other programs that someone wrote and published on websites, but no academic or scholarly work regarding the aim of my program. I'm still in a problem regarding this, so currently I am keeping this article on hold until I wind a way to do it.

Hey, Milan: If you found anything useful on a Web site, you still have to declare that. Today The Web is The Literature. Do not be ashamed to use Today's Literature!

@Koen: Agreed. I assume that he will use IEEE and ACM papers found via the Web, and reference them traditionally.

@Milan: I have half humorously started your paper for you. Substitute the secret details of your special algorithm as appropriate:

QUOTE On the Web, lecturers have been complaining that the system to evaluate them is unfair [http://].

Therefore I saw a need to create a system (called Fair-Algy) which mines their course notes and their student interactions to evaluate the depth of education that has taken place. Literature Review: Using Google keywords “Fair Lecturer Evaluation Algorithm”, no hits were found. For lack of time, synonyms were not tried and libraries were not consulted for prior art or patents. (!) The closest technique accidentally (!) found was in a paper on the simulation of an intelligent home, where logs were mined to evaluate the performance level of the individual devices [xxx]. The logs do not look like the evaluation criteria, so I am applying for a patent on my embedded algorithm. UNQUOTE

These are some possibilities which I will have to consider if I ever want to "complete" the article. maybe I just might abandon writing an article and just write a website blog entry instead and post the source openly. It's easier, quicker and people might just get to use it sooner then thy would if I took my time finding way to honour all guidelines for scientific articles.