Bibliographic Techniques:Autumn 2010

Sue BirdBodleian Subject Librarian Geography

This session

SOLO, OLIS & OXLIP+

Databases

Searching techniques for journal articles, conference papers, book chapters etc

How to cite sources correctly & therefore avoid plagiarism

How to use Reference Management Software

Subject searching

SOLO, OLIS and Oxford e-journals cover Oxford holdings only by title

Better to use specialist indexes covering the world’s literature to find articles

Access via OxLIP+

Use inter-library loan for items not held in Oxford and not online

E-Journals

I didn't check for the hard copy - so used to getting online access!

Newspapers

Electronic newspapers

• Some are freely available. Alphabetic list on OxLIP+

• Best source for the “Text Only” of huge range of newspapers and magazines is Nexis UK. Goes back approximately 10 yrs in most cases and is very current i.e. today’s daily news items

Newspapers

Legal information, cases etc.

• Lexis Library

• WestLaw – both UK & US editions

• But there are a lot more

(if necessary ask the Law Library for help)

Bibliographic Techniques

Abstracting and Indexing Services (for finding the actual journal articles)

• Vast range.

• SCOPUS (includes GEOBASE)

• OVID SP

• Cambridge Scientific Abstracts

• Web of Knowledge

Bibliographic Databases

Excellent for locating journal articles , book chapters and book reviews (NB. References only,)

General or specific subject coverage

Different interfaces but similar functionality

Not tied to library holdings

Frequently will provide a link to full text

Databases vs. Search engines

• Contents are indexed by subject specialists

• Subject headings• Limiting functions e.g.

publication types, languageAllow you to • View Search history• Combine searches• Mark and sort results• Print/save/email/export• Save searches• Set up alerts

• Searches done by automated “web crawlers”

• No thesaurus / subject headings – just free text searching

• No limiting functions

• Usually none of these!

Search Strategies

• Boolean logic

• Truncation

• Wild cards

• Synonyms

• Which language are you using?

SCOPUS

• Includes data from GEOBASE - THE bibliographic database for the Earth, Geographical and Ecological Sciences

Bibliographic Searching

Search Tip : 1– Important to remember that although each database

covers thousands of journal titles no single database is ever comprehensive.

– If you are having difficulty finding material on a topic use the keywords you find in any relevant reference and search again.

Bibliographic Databases

CSA Illumina

• EIS: Digests of Environmental Impact Statements  • Environmental Sciences & Pollution Management

• IBSS: International Bibliography of the Social Sciences• Sociological Abstracts • CSA Worldwide Political Science Abstracts

Bibliographic Databases

OVIDSP

• CAB Abstracts – biogeography• EconLit – economic geography• Forest Science - biogeography• GeoRef – physical geography & geology• Zoological Abstracts Archive only

(1864-1977)

Web of Knowledge

WEB of Science: ISI citation indexes

Broad Coverage – all subject areas

Run when convenient

Automatic export to EndNotebut now with export to RefWorks

(Journal Citation Reports – help choose the most effective title in your area)

Bibliographic Searching

Search Tip : 2

Take time to explore the various databases & platforms available.

Some will be more useful to you than others.

• Scopus• OvidSP• Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA Illumina)• Web of Knowledge

http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/training/wiser

Boolean connectors

• AND – combines terms to restrict results

• OR – useful for covering synonyms

• NOT – excludes unwanted areas of research

OR, AND, NOT

Environmental policy

Climate changeE.U. / European union

Bibliographic Searching

Search Tip : 3

Boolean Logical Operators AND, OR, NOT

Proximity operators

Adj (literally adjacent); Near(same sentence); With(same field)

Field descriptors: AU(author); TI(title); AB (abstract); SO(source or reference); DE (general descriptor) etc are likely to be specific to each database and won’t operate in ‘cross searches’

Combining searches: #1 and #2

Other tricks:

Use symbols for wildcards and truncation

? or $ for a single character globali?ation / globali$ation (is it an ‘s’ or a ‘z’)

* for truncation or variant spellingsgovern* for governance, governmentality, etc

use quotation marks for searching for phrasese.g. “resource management”

Synonyms & Language

• Topic = Personal energy use reduction

• Search: • A) personal energy use• B) “personal energy use”• C) “energy use” OR “energy consumption” AND

personal OR private OR household

• Context : “carbon footprint” OR “carbon neutral”

(including food mile* (i.e. miles or mileage)? )

Bibliographic Searching

Search Tip : 4

• Consider subject synonyms & British and US spellings.

• Apply truncation, usually * to find plurals/alternative word endings and ? to replace a single character.

• Expand search by following hypertext links esp subject headings

• Use tagging facilities within database to mark articles for printing, emailing, downloading or exporting.

• Authors names: Check the online help for formats. Use the database index to find different forms of author’s name, otherwise truncate first initial.

Bibliographic Searching

• Three ways to keep up to date:

• E-mail alert – you can specify a search to be repeated and the results emailed to you at chosen intervals or Zetoc will tell you when the next issue of a journal is available.

• Saving and rerunning searches – you save a search and run it again in the future.

• Citation Alert – you will receive an email every time a particular article is cited in another WoK or Scopus indexed article.

Avoiding Plagiarism

"...You must always indicate to the examiners when you have drawn on the work of others; other people's original ideas and methods should be clearly distinguished from your own, and other people's words, illustrations, diagrams etc. should be clearly indicated regardless of whether they are copied exactly, paraphrased, or adapted...

...The University reserves the right to use software applications to screen any individual's submitted work for matches either to published sources or to other submitted work. Any such matches respectively might indicate either plagiarism or collusion...

...Although the use of electronic resources by students in their academic work is encouraged, you should remember that the regulations on plagiarism apply to on-line material and other digital material just as much as to printed material..."

Section 9.5 Proctors' and Assessor's Memorandum

Good academic practice

So by following the citation principles and practices in place in your subject area, you will develop a rigorous approach to academic referencing, and avoid inadvertent plagiarism.

https://intranet.ouce.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/fhs/dissertation/referencing.html

Citing your references

An article in an online journal which also exists in print should be cited in the same way as print

To cite something which only exists electronically, e.g. a web site, follow special rules which include the date viewed

A specific quote must include the page reference in the citation.

Also any number of style manuals:-

The complete guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism /Colin Neville. 2007 RSL LB 2369 NEVCite them right : the essential referencing guide / Richard Pears and Graham Shields. 2010 RSL LB 2369 PEA

So what can reference management software do?

Store references to items in many different formats and material types

Search, select and output references in a variety of pre-determined styles, or one of your own making

Import references direct from databases like Scopus or Web of Knowledge, or library catalogues like OLIS

Search external databases from within the reference management software, and save references retrieved

Insert references into a word-processed document and format them in a particular style at the touch of a button

Store links to documents – pdf’s, images – or copies of them within database

Reference Management Systems

RefWorks

(web based – access your records anywhere - free to members of university – even after you leave)

• ProCite, Reference Manager and EndNote (works without web access – but software needs to be installed on own machine – charge of c£80 from OUCS)

• EndNote on the Web

(free to members of university, but has limited feature set – designed to be used alongside desktop version)

• Zotero is a free plug-in for Firefox browser (only) – limited but growing capability

Bibliographic Databases

Search :- Community conservation in the Amazon (2010 only)

Scopus = 25 articles

Ovid = 20 after de-duplication of 33 articles, etc. (8 not found by Scopus)

C.S.A = 36 articles (after de-duplication of 39) (adds another 20 to the total)

Web of Science = 29 articles (a further 13 unique items)

Biosis Previews = 17 articles (gives another 5)

RefWorks de-duplication = 71

Further assistance:

This presentation available on-line

http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/science/training/biosciences

More courses available: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/

Other presentations:

http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/training/wiser

Guidance for references:

https://intranet.ouce.ox.ac.uk/undergraduate/fhs/dissertation/referencing.html

Sue.bird@bodleian.ox.ac.uk