Using social media for research – top tips from Tom Burns & Sandra Sinfield

Moving on from last week, some of our other study skills authors are keen to share their own tips on using social media, so this week’s guest blog post comes from SAGE authors Tom Burns and Sandra Sinfield. 

Tom and Sandra are Senior Lecturers in the Centre for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching, London Metropolitan University, and authors of Essential Study Skills: The Complete Guide to Success at University, 3rd edition which contains more tips on using social media for your study, as well as a wealth of other study skills support.  You can also follow them on Twitter at @Danceswithcloud and @LevellerB

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Once the students stop laughing, we say, again, no - seriously, Facebook and Twitter are really useful research tools – and blogging is brilliant.

LOOK – PLAY – LEARN

The only way to lose your fear - your scepticism - or just your plain old resistance - to using online spaces for study is to set some time aside to get in there and have a big old play.  Go on - you know it makes sense!

Here are our best tips:

Open up a Twitter account - making sure you choose a reasonably sensible name.  Our names are Danceswithcloud and LevellerB - what do you think?  Suitably academic?  No?  Make sure that you choose something more weighty for yourself!

Twitter - next steps: once you have an account, start to follow people.  Search for your tutors in Twitter - and follow them.  Then look for the academics whose books and articles you are reading -and follow them (Tip: this only works if they are still alive!).

Twitter has become our number one tool for staying on top of our own research.  In Twitter people will link to their latest publication - their latest book - their most up to date research.  There is NOTHING better than Twitter for keeping on top of your subject.  The only problem might be in learning to let your Twitter account alone: you can get a bit OCD thinking about all those tweets -endlessly passing by - and you’re not reading them!

After Twitter, resurrect your old Facebook account.  Delete all those old pictures of you standing on a table and waving a bottle of booze… and decide to use your FB as a shareable, friendly study notebook or reading dossier.  Set up a FB study group - and invite friends to join you - to share your reading, discuss articles, post and comment upon draft writing, etc.

Facebook - next steps: search FB for study groups that already exist.  There are groups for everything under the sun, and they act as international, friendly talking spaces - essential for keeping on top of your subject… and brilliant if you join in the conversation.

Our FB group is https://www.facebook.com/LondonMetStudyChat and it’s all about study issues.  Our other favourite FB groups are usually ones that support the MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) that we have taken, like Edinburgh’s ‘E-learning and Digital Cultures’.  If you’re interested, search for #edcmooc or just go here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/edcmooc/ .

#hashtags: you can search Twitter and Facebook for topics that you are interested in via the #hashtag function.  We use #becomingeducational, #loveld, #studychat and #take5 at the moment – check us out.  Others to look for are #thesiswhisperer, #edchat …

Blogs: as academics tweet, so do they blog.  Typically you will find their blogs via their Twitter accounts; most people tweet when they issue a blog post.  So if for no other reason, do open that Twitter account!  A good blog for all PhD students is Thesis whisperer - also in Twitter! - and our blog is Last Refuge: http://lastrefugelmu.blogspot.co.uk/

Next steps: write your own blog!  Writing short, pithy and human blogposts on what you are reading, writing and learning is the best way to get to grips with it.  It’s a great way to start sharing your research, and your final Dissertation will be of a much higher quality because you did the human, semi-academic writing first…