Referencing

My supervisor sent me a short guide on using the Harvard Referencing System (http://visit.lincoln.ac.uk/C7/C1/StudySkillsHelpGuides/Referencing%20and%20Plagiarism%20help%20guides/Harvard%20Referencing%20-%20a%20short%20guide.pdf)

I've decided to use this guide as a plan for when I start to write my bibliography. It has clear instructions and examples of many different sources that I was capable of learning and applying to my references. Before I read about this guide I use to only include the website and the date of my references from the internet but now I include:

1. Author/Editor/Organisation 2. Year of publication 3. Title of Internet site [in italics] 4. [online] 5. Available from: URL of webpage 6. Date of access [in square brackets]

updating google calendar

Parkinson's UK

http://www.parkinsons.org.uk/about-parkinsons/treating-parkinsons.aspx this site was particularly useful, there is a section on future treatments including gene therapy, stem cells and cytoplasmic hybrid cells. The source from this site is reliable because its a registered charity providing information for people to understand and support Parkinson's in many ways such donating for research on future treatments, fundraising activities and events or becoming a member of this charity, Parkinson's UK, and bringing people with Parkinson's, their carers and families together via local groups and an online community. Charities are very important for the success on future treatments, Parkinson's UK currently supports around 90 Parkinson's research projects and they provide information on these on their website for example The Monument Discovery Project is an interesting one I'd like to include in my essay.


Parkinson's UK also has the UK's largest brain bank dedicated to Parkinson's. They collect tissue from people with and without the condition and provide it to researchers in the UK and around the world who are working towards a cure for Parkinson's. Brain tissue donators are vital for research as one of these can be used up to 50 different research studies.
Parkinsons UK has a big plan to find a cure for Parkinson's but this seems possible as major advances have already come from research from the several research programmes they support.

Redirecting my research

I'm now researching specifically on treatment for Parkinsons which includes various research projects that are working on new potential and more effective treatments, for example stem cell therapy has shown to eliminate some of the symptoms in testing animals such as rats with Parkinson's. This indicates a possible treatment method for Parkinsons patients, but further research will need to be done on this treatment including human trials before it can be used. As a result this treatment will be expensive but still better than taking a 'cocktail' of drugs that also have their own side effects.

Planning for my presentation

My supervisor gave me a plan layout for my presentation that im filling in. I already started working on a slideshow but now I have to change the majority of it since I changed my focus on this project. Instead of talking about 3 nuerodegenerative diseases I'm going to talk about one but much more in depth about the treatment.

Changed my essay focus...(Last time)

After speaking with my supervisor I decided to write about one neurodegenerative disease, Parkinson's , since I was able to find more about this disease than the others. I realised that I had to have some sort of an argument when I looked at the report criteria with my supervisor. My original idea was just a prognosis on the 3 diseases so I decided  Im going to focus on treatments and potential medication that researchers have found from testing and analysing the characteristics of Parkinson's. Finally conclude on which potential drug is the most effective and why.  I was also going to write about, huntington's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, but they are all similar in their symptoms and treatments also it'll be much harder to write about 2 more diseases with the limited words were allowed for this report.

Essay draft

I haven't completed my essay but I want to show my 1st draft to my supervisor. I'm also trying to follow my google calendar plan but I have failed to complete my 1st essay draft on time. So now I plan to complete it on the 13th of January saving time to do improvements at the end.

Advice

I'm still working on my essay and presentation but I need to see my supervisor for ideas on layout and structure for the presentation.