There's no point doing research if no-one knows about it. Use the links on the below to learn about the different avenues open to you for disseminating your results.

• What do I need to know about copyright?

  When it comes to disseminating your research, copyright will exist in anything that you publish, by whatever means you publish it: who owns that right will depend on whatever agreements you sign with your publisher. You should also be aware of others' intellectual property rights, and the copyright that exists in others' work, should you wish to include any content created by others in your work.

  Copyright law prohibits the making of copies, whether by photocopying or cutting and pasting, downloading or any other means, without expressed permission from the rights owners, but there are exceptions and licences that will allow you to carry out some copying, often in particular circumstances. Please refer to the University's Legal Compliance website on copyright, which are full of good advice and further links.

  PhD students might also want to read guidelines about copyright matters relating to their thesis and its availability online, within WRAP, the institutional repository for Warwick. Information about institutional repositories is also available.

• At which conferences can I present my findings?

  Forthcoming conferences

  • AllConferences.com - US-based site providing information that can be browsed by category or searched.
  • Conference Alerts - UK academic and professional conferences.
  • You may also find mailing lists (eg on jiscmail) useful sources of information about conferences, and professional society pages could be helpful, eg IEEE Conferences and events . See also subject specialist sites, eg H-Net – Humanities and Social Sciences online

  Previous conferences

  These sites index past conference proceedings, and if your conference of interest has its papers indexed on one of these sites then it is a good sign that the conference papers will reach others in the academic community.

  • Zetoc (British Library Table of Contents database)
  • Web of Knowledge
  • Conference Papers Index (ProQuest)
  • Proceedings First (OCLC)
• How do I disseminate my findings within Warwick?

  There are a number of means for you to promote your research results within the University.

  • The University's Overview of Research Activities
  • Insite, the University intranet's home page - contact the internalcomms at warwick dot ac dot uk Internal Communications Team
  • WRAP, the institutional repository of the University of Warwick where you can deposit journal articles
  • Consider holding an event in the Wolfson Research Exchange
• How do I protect my work against plagiarism?

  The same incorporation of someone else's work into your own can be both plagiarism and a copyright infringement, although plagiarising an unpublished work, or a piece you were given permission to copy would not necessarily be copyright infringement. A well referenced excerpt from someone else's work might not be plagiarism but could still be a copyright infringement, if the excerpt were large enough and no exception applied.

  Whilst students should be concerned with avoiding plagiarism, work submitted for the purpose of examination is covered by an exception to copyright law. Students who wish to share their work with others by publishing it in some way should make themselves aware of copyright law and the permissions they might need.

  Your own work could be plagiarised by others: they might copy your work relatively easily in the digital age, whatever protections you try to apply through file formats, etc. Technology does help to provide the answers, too. Plagiarism detection services can help in the identification of plagiarism, so others will not be able to get away with plagiarism so easily. If your work is passed through services like TurnitinUK, then a copy of your work will remain in the service so that others' work can be checked against yours. Through such services, copies of your work will be identified, and they can be checked for the proper referencing and accreditation and any others who plagiarise your work will be detected.

  The growth of academic knowledge depends upon the sharing of ideas, and academic careers are built upon reputations earned through such sharing. The more your work is read, the more likely it is that others will recognise it as yours, so web publishing can help in the detection of plagiarism. Sites such as Copyscape can be used for you to identify if others have copied your web publications, although many copies of your work might be a good thing, as long as they have referenced you properly: if they haven't, you could just ask them to. There are some interesting tips on Plagiarism Today, which discussed tactics for protecting your work online.